Waste has become much more important to me in the last 48 hours (much as it did last year during our live below the line experience).
It's so difficult to watch your children leave food on a plate and know that, although it would easily double me and Matts dinner tonight, realistically it's going in the bin. I guess that's one thing the poor don't have to deal with, because their children would be starving too.
Not that I'm saying I'd rather my children were starving, just that it's hard to let that food go to waste.
My mum used to say 'there's children starving in Africa' when I didn't eat my dinner as a kid. I knew full well the food wouldn't magically get to them whether or not I ate it, but being on the hungry end of that equation really does make me resent the waste a whole lot more.
In the interest of not wasting this weeks vegetable box (I forgot to cancel my standing order) I've been preserving it, when it suddenly hit me, that I could also
save the seeds.
Matt and I had a conversation earlier about how much easier live below the line would be if our garden was a bit more established (is that cheating?) and whether we should include costs like seeds. That's when I realised I have a steady supply of healthy, organic, seeds - regularly going into my compost bin!
It probably wouldn't have occurred to me if I hadn't seen
Food Inc and been so shocked by the farmers loss of rights to
save seeds for next years planting. It's such a normal part of traditional food production, to save your best seeds and replant.
It's horrifying to think that so many farmers are being kept in debt, and that poverty and food 'shortages' continue because large companies can find legal ways to wipe out traditional farming.
You can do something about it. Educate yourself and get involved in the campaign against
Monsanto
