Here I propose a new and ancient way of eating, transformational for your own health, your community health and for the health of the planet. Radical because it is, as far as I know, a diet that gets to the cross-cultural maladies of our times.
Wherever you presently find yourself on the wide spectrum of vegan-to-carnivore, please note your triggers and read on regardless, heart and mind open, knowing that the polarities we inhabit are problem generators. That is, divisions. In the creation of a beautiful, just and free future, we must come together.….what better way than in breaking bread?
I too feel outrage at the systems of cruelty, oppression, and dishonour we humans are committing against our kin. These are unacceptable and unnecessary conditions. ‘Feeding the world’ is no excuse for the levels of degradation we presently perpetuate. No animal should be caged 24/7, standing in its own waste, pumped antibiotics and fed an unnatural diet. No animal should be tortured, as I have witnessed in some of the documentaries of recent years. No food systems should pollute the oceans or destroy pristine forests.
A natural response to such atrocities is an effort to exit this particular food paradigm; the horrific and unforgivable methods of animal agriculture employed across the globe. Indeed, boycott, or personal divestment is the foundation of nonviolent direct action. I deeply honour the strength possessed by one who makes such a decision and I do indeed share the same yearning to see factory farming of all forms disappear from all lands.
Yet, the vegan response has become simplified, as, based on the morality of non-killing and non-cruelty, many vegans have allied with particular life-forms placing them higher on the life value scales we humans have decided we determine. Here I am not speaking about cultural or religious veganism/vegetarianism but the recent Western (Global Northern) phenomenon of ‘overnight veganism’, or dogmatic new veganism (here I include myself).
The problem is in the basic realities of life and death. Naturally we ally closest with those who share our form, habits, landscapes, languages, worldviews (we can comprehend as valuable that which we can comprehend, ie a sound that receives a sound in return might be considered ‘basic’ language, or a display of affection from a mother creature to her offspring a show of love, care and compassion). Mammals tend to be considered more important (deemed more conscious), more capable of suffering, self-consciousness, memory and forethought than, say, fish or birds. I wonder where the plants sit on this scale? And who decided that (self)consciousness was the scale that determines whether one lives or dies?
Is it not true that to live we must eat and what we eat are the various life forms offered up by this Earth? Is the life of a lamb undeniably more valuable than the life of an ear of corn, a pod of peas or a head of lettuce? All are alive and all may wish to express the full potential of their time on earth.
The polarising response typified today would be a more and more extreme leaning away from death; perhaps the fruitarian who eats only fallen fruits or the tech lab creating meats from stem cells. This habit, that we might call the ‘morality slide’, always seeks to overcome the natural way of things. To deny death is, in equal measure, to deny life. So down the morality side what we find is not the opposite of death but what might be called a life of denial (effortful separation from an earthly existence). If we wish to root, to feel our belonging, to be part of the world, we must both consume that which is dead and be consumed when the time comes.
I propose a way forward that, in accepting death as natural, is able to fully welcome life, therefore to feel the innate belonging that is the birthright of all life. My stance is non-dogmatic, cross-culturally appropriate, bioregionally guided and transformational for mind, body, soul, spirit, earth and community.
It is the development of a diet of reverence and reciprocity.
Reverent consumption makes it impossible to consider supporting irreverent farming methods, so it boycotts factory farms, monocultures, herbicides, fungicides, pesticides and unnecessary fertilisation and finds support for those who grow food reverently; with respect, effort to do justice to life, land and health, in respect to the being (be it of the animal or plant kingdom) expressing the life it has well and naturally.
Such a ‘diet’ may be vegan, carnivore, vegetarian or full spectrum as this decision will be culturally, personally and bioregionally guided.
We take each bite with focused awareness of that which we eat, astounded at the gifts offered of land; the flavours, the alchemy, the sun's energy, how our bodies respond with vigor and our minds find inspiration. We become reverent for those who grow our food, giving thanks and integrating into their worlds. We ensure they are supported and appreciated (see below) because we have reverence for the gifts they offer to the world, for their wisdom of soil and sun and water, for their commitment to nourishing their community. We do not waste food, so we do not take more than we need and we are careful to avoid wasteful supply chains.
Reciprocity will spark an awareness for that which is given and an understanding that we are entering into a covenant every time we consume. We give thanks and we consider how we give back to the life giving foods nourishing our human bodies. In reciprocity we celebrate in bioregionally appropriate festivals (or we create them if they have gone) that remind us and all life that we know of our reliance on what and who feeds us. We become aware of those struggling to nourish themselves well and so find ways to give to them (since it is all a gift) and we recognise ourselves as part of an earth-body. We boycott companies who lack reverence for their offerings (poorly supported farmers, unhealthy foods, damaging practices) because we know that such foods are stealing from somewhere and do not wish to enter into such abusive relationships and in turn we are called to give to those demonstrating the way into reverent and reciprocal food systems (by paying, volunteering, sharing, working, or in any way supporting).
So why don’t we recognise the ill-health of our earth’s body systems with their mistreatment and their dogmas and take a look at how we nourish ourselves and the land through the simple guides of reverence and reciprocity? When you buy food and when you eat, why not ask yourself the questions; is this food part of a system of reverence? How am I called to give thanks?
I trust that eating this way will take us closer to regenerative food systems and it will do so in a way that unites us.
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