Quote:
Originally Posted by Rachelle  "...your breakfast smoothies include items from six continents and four oceans."
I'm curious about what people think of the ecological/environmental ramifications of maintaining a raw diet depending on where one lives... ?
For example, I live in central Canada. Our growing season is obviously shorter than areas further south. A lot of vegetables are local, wheat (but i guess you don't eat wheat if you eat raw), some grains, some berries, some meager apples (like crab apples) I think soy is also a local crop... but aside from that, everything else is shipped and transported into the city. With the whole eco/carbon footprint debate now-a-days... how do people think this idea translates to eating raw AND eating local? I'm just trying to think how people living very far north (like in Alaska or the Northern Canadian Territories) would eat raw and their impact on the environment when you take into consideration transportation issues, vs that of a largely local (but not raw) diet...
thoughts on the matter are appreciated...  |
Steve wrote a really good forum post on this issue that was nicely aligned with power, but for the life of me, I can't find it. (Other Steve posts that I can't find for the life of me include where he mentions a book that he read on humour before he competed in his most recent humourous contest. Alter-ego-Bruce who is better at search than I am, please help.)
The basic premise of Steve's post was that if you're already vegan, you're doing such a significant thing for the environment that all the other issues are pretty minimal and that it's better focusing on such significant things, rather than the pretty insignificant things such as transport.
Sure, transport contributes, but diet (indirectly) contributes a heck of a lot more. It's about knowing where to target, and I agree.
Although if you're a vegan or raw foodist already, then yeah, I think it's reasonable for you to be concerned about that. But I don't think it's reasonable to channel too much time into it, unless you know you're going to make a significant difference. You should channel your time where it will have the biggest impact.
For me, that means I channel my time into potential. I know that potential and self-alignment is far more impactful than targeting any environmental issues, and I also know that the most influential thing is not so much the specific message you convey, but the state of being you convey it from. So I try to make self-alignment the order of the day. That doesn't mean I'm always self-aligned, but it does mean I am for maximum self-alignment. Sometime I live in paradox because it's effective to do so (in the short term, at least), but more recently, I've decided to start more liberally letting go of attachment to things that are no longer congruent with me. I don't think I can make any meaningful forward progress if I live with all the incongruencies that I have. I'm starting to thing that change isn't so much about gaining more of anything, but rather, letting go of what no longer aligns with you. Needs more testing, but it seems to make sense.
So the main point here is to focus on what has the most potential for impact, and go do it. It’s nice to focus on other issues and be aware of them, but as Eckhart Tolle once wrote, if you complain about something or think about something but take no real productive action, you’re just perpetuating thought patterns and not really interested in making a change. Not saying that applies to you, but it has indeed applied to me and helps me be aware of what I actually care about vs what I just use to make myself feel better and reinforce a sense of self rooted in thought rather than in being and self-alignment—the universe; life.