The Subversive Eater
by Sandra Brandt

A friend of mine recently took up what she calls “guerilla gardening.” She planted vegetables on a vacant lot near her apartment home where a commercial building had been demolished and the property awaited new development. In the meantime, she tended the plot and reaped the harvest. Not only did she garner some good, practically free, vegetables but she also put some loving energy into a little piece of temporarily unused soil.

We are increasingly being exposed to food choices we probably didn’t know we had. It is now fairly commonplace to consider the alternatives of buying fresh produce from a farmers’ market, a CSA (Community Shared Agriculture), or growing your own on a piece of communally gardened urban property, in addition to the conventional backyard garden. Or plant a garden in your front yard to make an otherwise purely decorative space more useful.

On the food blog, The Nourishing Cook, the author describes in one post how she makes homemade soup from scratch in her hotel room while travelling on business rather than depending solely on restaurant fare. Having brought some homemade bone broth along with her, she proceeded with the following strategies: “I bought the vegetables for this soup from my company’s salad bar at lunch today, and then stored it in the fridge at work until going back to the hotel. I believe this was a lot cheaper than buying pre-cut veggies or whole vegetables at the store. Plus I could get a larger variety of things to put in my soup. One exception to the above… I bought one whole onion at the store when I arrived and have been hacking off pieces all week. I also bought a side of rice in the cafeteria for the soup.… Much better than eating out!” It’s inspiring to realize some of the creative choices in optimum eating even when the circumstances may not seem so conducive to home cooking.

Another source of inspiration is the author Barbara Kingsolver, who in her book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle describes how her family spent a year living out the intention to eat only what they could grow themselves or procure locally. This book is packed with experiential wisdom—well worth reading!

A number of farm producers are struggling for the right to directly distribute unprocessed milk and meat to local consumers. In a presentation given in Regina recently, Michael Schmidt of Glencolton Farms, Ontario, that operates on the cow share model, vividly described the tribulations and persecution he has endured in his decades of endeavouring to legally provide clean fresh milk to consumers who desire access to it. Although many would unquestioningly assume that unpasteurized milk is unsafe for human distribution and consumption, there is a large bulk of evidence showing that milk is much safer and healthier when it has not been subjected to industrial processing, as long as the production and distribution meet certain hygiene standards. Certainly the food standards agencies could oversee this just as well as they do the present system. In fact, Canada is currently the only country in the world that imposes a complete ban on raw milk distribution. “People want to go back to a common-sense approach to food,” says Schmidt. “It’s a renaissance of people wanting to get their freedom back to decide because corporate food and corporate control over our food is getting really scary for a lot of people.” (Regina Leader Post)

A similar news story concerns an Ottawa area farmer who underwent an official farm raid and is in court defending against charges of distributing meat to a friend from an animal he had butchered himself. Although there may be potential for harm in uninspected distribution of meat, he claims “Charter rights to equality, security of the person, and protection from illegal search and seizure are being violated, and that the government is unfairly targeting hobbyists and small-scale farmers with regulations meant for industrial operations.” (Macleans)

One theme of these individuals’ stories, and many others like them, is that with proper monitoring, the sale and distribution of home-processed foods could well be safer and more nutritious than the commercial products we tend to take for granted as the obvious choice. Ironically, each year there are hundreds of cases of food recalls in the commercial food system because of pathogens found in foods which have escaped inspection, many of which have already caused illness in a wide range of unsuspecting consumers, so the ultimate safety of the current situation is itself highly questionable. The average eater like you or I does actually have a choice in the matter, and we can exercise that choice as, for example, Schmidt’s cow share owners are doing, and we can also demand that these choices be recognized as legitimate.

Meanwhile, the food superpowers are working hard to convince consumers, and potential customers, that their manufactured products are a good choice. This past summer, Nestlé, the world’s largest food manufacturer (of ice-cream, candy bar, and baby formula fame), launched its floating supermarket barge down two tributaries of the Amazon River, bringing a new level of processed food product exposure to some of the more “deprived” communities of the world. Since its regularly-priced products may not be as affordable to these less affluent customers as they are to you and me, Nestlé kindly repackaged its goods into smaller units for them, and completed the offering by adding synthetic nutrients, just in case there might be anything missing in their over-processed goods! (Alternet, “Nestlé Stoops To New Low…) Is this situation increasing positive food choices for isolated consumers, or is it merely exposing them to more unhealthy choices? Do we want to tacitly support these companies by choosing to buy their products ourselves?

Another tactic often used to persuade consumers of what they “need” is the big box store approach. In The Dark Side of Bulk Buying, Andrew Beattie explains how customers are often sucked into making larger purchases of a single product in the name of saving money, and then end up spending more. In his words, “The best way to reduce expenses is not by buying more of a particular product to get the bulk discount, but by buying and using less… Bulk buying is best described as something you don’t need a lot of at a price you can’t pass up. Avoiding it will help you financially—and perhaps even physically.” (investopedia)

There are many ways, both small or large, quiet or dramatic, that each of us can choose to take matters into our own hands and eat subversively to the benefit of our own and others’ well being. This does not mean judging others who may choose differently, but rather simply deciding to make a difference ourselves.

Here is one example of a food-making project that requires real fresh milk. I haven’t tried making it myself yet, but when I tasted it, it was so good I couldn’t stop eating it! Hopefully, the time will soon be here when we all have access to this wonderful food.

Cottage Cheese Recipe
by Bonita Anderson

“Home-made cottage cheese is another thing we can make from real milk. I make it sometimes after I have made butter. I skim what cream is left on top of the buttermilk and pour the remainder into a crock. I let it sit in a warm place for about 2 days or until the milk has clabbered. I am talking about raw milk that has not been pasteurized or homogenized. Raw milk contains all the necessary bacteria needed to make the milk clabber.

“At the end of 2 days the whey should have separated from the curd. The whey is the watery part of the milk. The curd is the solid part. Then I cut through the curd with a knife and pour the curds and whey into a kettle. I slowly heat it up over a very low heat until the curds have firmed up a little. Next I pour the mixture into a cheesecloth sack and hang it over a large bowl to drain.

“When all the liquid has drained from the curd I transfer the curds from the cheesecloth to a bowl and chill it well in the refrigerator. Once it is chilled I mix a little salt and fresh cream into it. This cottage cheese will keep in the refrigerator for about 5 days. It generally does not last that long because we eat it up pretty fast.

“One way I like it is to mix a little chives or finely chopped onion into it and put it over a baked potato. Yummy, and no preservatives!”

References:
www.thenourishingcook.com
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, Barbara Kingsolver
Regina Leader Post, December 6, 2010
Macleans, December 16, 2010
www.alternet.org/”Nestle Stoops To New Low…”
www.investopedia.com
EzineArticles.com/Bonita Anderson

Sandra Brandt has had a lifelong interest in whole natural foods. She lives in Regina, where she gives cooking classes, presentations, and dietary consultations. She can be reached via email: brandt.s@sasktel.net or phone (306) 359-1732. Also see the colour display ad on page 13 of the 16.6 March/April issue of the WHOLifE Journal.