The most sustainable meal I've ever cooked?

We've had a cool spell here in the foothills of the Appalachians in North Carolina. It has brought very welcome rain, and relief from the early and impending heat of summer. With temps down in the upper 40's at night and damp seeping in through our barely opened windows, we've decided to fire up the wood stove again. It hasn't done much for our productivity. Now neither of us seem to be able to leave the room with the wood stove in! It's so cozy to sit by a fire and watch the rain outside.

But we have to eat. We've used up the last of the 25lb bag of organic brown rice so I have opened some of the multicolored local (50 miles) rice. I'll pull some onions from the east garden, dig up some wild crow garlic from the borders, clip some collard and turnip greens from the west garden, add some parsley from the herb bed, throw in some ground beef from local (30 miles) grass fed cows, and cook the whole mess on the wood stove in the pressure cooker.

pressure cooker sizzling away

To be fair, I have added 4 chopped organic carrots shipped from California, a heavy dose of imported curry powder (fortified with our own turmeric root) and a dollop of Italian extra virgin olive oil. But these ingredients amount to less than 10% of the overall meal. The wood is all rescued from the neighborhood waste stream so I'm wondering if this might be the most sustainable meal I've ever cooked.

I've experimented with low impact cooking before, check out these posts about my Free From Power Days in England.
http://sustliving.blogspot.com/2008/10/stove-by-robb.html
http://sustliving.blogspot.com/2008/10/2nd-free-from-power-day-report-by-robb.html

While the cooking itself was probably more fuel efficient with the rocket stove, I was using scrounged fuel then as well but far less of it by weight, this time I'm cooking mostly food we've grown or was grown locally. In addition, the warmth of the wood stove is welcome in these cool temps. So while this is not another Free From Power Day I think it is a good step forward towards making our mealtimes more sustainable.

Earth Hour, What did you learn?

And more importantly how will you change your behaviour? I mostly read by windup head torch for the hour and did some gardening jobs, some yoga, and tidied up our room. I also took a stroll a few blocks around mainstreet Hamilton Bermuda. There did seem to be quite a lot of lights off but not nearly enough. I appreciate the statement of solidarity with those fighting to deal with climate change but Earth Hour should provoke change. Myself, I intend to be more careful about turning off power strips, and thus all the devices attached to them. I already read by windup headtorch most nights and will continue to. I never use the tumble dryer as we have very high quality solar drying potential here in Bermuda, though I never used it in the UK where we had somewhat lower quality solar resources. So today I hung out my clothes in the warm breeze. Later, I'll be walking the hour or so it takes to get to my friends house for dinner and a film.

But what would it take to go further? I like this idea found on Living the Frugal Life.

"Some of the blogs I read that deal with preparing for life after peak oil, or the next great depression, or political collapse strongly suggest turning off the electricity at the junction box for a weekend or a week, just to see how well you can function without it, and to see in what areas you'd like to be better prepared or equipped. I've never done this. But having just turned off the lights for an hour and a half last night, I can see that some sort of light other than oil lamps would sure be nice, if it came to that. Perhaps solar lanterns, or some hand-cranked battery powered lighting. Reading by oil lamps would probably ruin my eyesight sooner rather than later. It took less than an hour with the lights turned off to learn this."

As we are staying in a guest house I won't be able to do this but it is similar to the Free From Power days I did when we lived in Sheffield. Here's more on those;
2nd FFPD
3rd FFPD

Thanks to Cliffird Wirth over at Surviving Peak Oil for the heads up on that Furgal Living site.

3rd Free From Power Day

Sorry to say this FFPD has been a total failure on my part, moving house, living in two places at once, and excessive busy-ness are the excuses I claim. All of which are characteristics of the modern hurry up consumerist lifestyle I had hoped FFPD would help me overcome. Can't win em all, I will attempt to do one next weekend to make up for it.

2nd Free From Power Day Report - By Robb

Planning pays off! In the month between the first FFPD and yesterday I built a rocket/vita stove, gathered and dried fuel for it (see below), planned out my menu and gathered my food. Fortunately we had rain so I had some nice fresh water as well though I had a large reserve if needed.


I boiled about 4 liters of water for my use for the day , most of which went to flasks for tea, it was a cold rainy, windy day after all. I boiled another couple of liters to cook eggs and sweet corn. I used a bundle of sticks and scrap wood about 8" in diameter and 12 to 14" long for all of that. I lit it once and did all my cooking for the day. Relighting would be significantly less efficient. I'll detail the stove itself in another post.

In addition to the eggs (sourced from a local farm a 3 mile walk away) and corn (from our organic box delivery), I ate about 4 ounces of organic muesli with organic rice milk (the two most heavily packaged and shipped foods of the day) and locally picked blackberries, one cucumber and 8 ounces of tomatoes from our organic garden, 4 ounces of tortilla chips (unfortunately non organic and packaged), about 6 small apples from a tree up the street, and finally some apple juice pressed from local apples at the local sustainable wood fair I took my nephew to. More planning is necessary for food requirements.

I did well on most other fronts, no electronic media, instead I read half of Rob Hopkins "The Transition Handbook". This is an excellent read for anybody wishing to assist their community in getting prepared for a post oil economy as it lays out the proven techniques used by many transition initiatives around the world.

I managed to avoid using any lights (except when I went into the cellar, same as last time, I need to plan for this better), I never turned on any heat and stayed either outside or in our solar heated conservatory all day, I used rainwater to wash and flush with, boiled for brushing teeth, I drank boiled rainwater, I borrowed my friend Graemes wind up torch for reading at night (I must get one before the next FFPD).
I did purchase some local produced venison sausages for next days dinner. I would have skipped this except they have a stand at the fair and it is the only way to source them currently without a long journey.

So all in all I made progress but there is more to make.

October Free from Power Day

Tomorrow is the first Saturday in October and therefore it's Free From Power Day. You can read a report on the first Free from Power Day, in september by clicking here;

first report


As using electricity and media are not allowed I will post about my progress on Sunday.

report on the first Free From Power Day -By Robb

It went pretty well. There were a couple of oops moments when my instincts took over but for the most part I'm encouraged and have begun to plan October's Free From Power Day.

Results:
• For 24 hours I used no grid electricity, aside from 5 oops moments where I turned on a light without thinking which I quickly turned back off. Lighting was provided by a windup torch on loan from my friend Graeme.
• For 24 hours I used no fossil fuels of any kind; not to cook, heat, or drive.
• For 24 hours I turned on no taps for water aside from one oops moment when brushing my teeth. Toilet was flushed with rainwater. Hands were washed with rainwater. More about water below.
• For 24 hours I connected to no electronic media aside from listening to some classical music on a windup/solar radio. This was a big one for me as I usually spent alot of time on the computer, listening to mp3 player and even a few hours watching TV every day.
• For 24 hours I bought nothing, this was easy as I don't usually buy anything anyway.

Challenges:
Water - I collect rainwater for my garden and I was happy to use that to wash with but for drinking I did not prepare a purification method. Thus I drew water from the taps the night before for drinking. I made a flask of tea with the kettle and super insulated it overnight. This was my biggest failing as it meant I still consumed tap water and had used fossil fuel to make tea, just not on the day.

Food - For most of the day I did well. I ate English organic apples, though they had been purchased from a supermarket the week before, something I will try to remedy for next time. I foraged for berries and raw nettles on a 7 mile walk. I ate runner beans and tomatoes from my garden. My biggest failing was the bag of tortilla chips and salsa I ate in the evening. I did manage to never open the fridge during the day however.

Plans:
I am going to devise a method for purifying rainwater and cooking via a biomass cooker, probably something like a Vita stove. It will have to be small and very smoke free for use in this urban jungle I live in. I will collect and dry fuel in advance.

I will source local organic non-corporate unpackaged food in advance. There is a farm within a 3 mile walk of my house to source free range eggs, I will try to gather/forage more in advance, I will locate a green grocer selling local veg.

If weather permits I will set out my portable solar hot water heater for washing.

What I did:
As mentioned I walked and foraged, I worked in the garden, I played scrabble with Jacqui, I finished reading Michael Pollan's "An Omnivore's Dilemma" and started his "In Defense of Food", I organized my thesis paperwork, I tidied our room, sorted out our gear closet and designated stuff to go to recycling and freecycle, I avoided the TV room.

I also spent some time thinking about this Free From Power Day. Traditionally most western cultures have practiced this sort of thing to some degree and called it the sabbath. I think we need to look at this practice and encourage people to take it up again. Imagine if every business closed; no-one would need to drive to shop or to work, no sporting events planned would mean people could spend time exercising instead of watching people exercise, time for cooking wholesome meals from quality ingredients, time for growing quality ingredients, time for spending with loved ones, time for studying, time for worship, time to slow down, to relax. Isn't that what a day of rest is all about?