We probably learned in grade school that living beings need three basic things for survival: food, water, and shelter.
Now I don’t know about you, but when we’re talking about living consciously in the modern world, I don’t just want to “survive”, I want to thrive!
Living consciously can be defined in many ways – but we can start by exploring ways to become more self-reliant and less “plugged in” to the systems that orchestrate modern life.
Taking a step toward greater connection and conscious awareness of our impact as humans is deeply empowering – and it doesn’t mean you need to give up technology or start churning your own butter by hand (unless you really want to, of course!).
First, let’s start rethinking our relationship to food. It’s so much more than just calories or nourishment…
Just a few generations ago, virtually everyone who had a scrap of land also grew a few vegetables and herbs, and kept backyard hens for eggs. Skills like sourdough bread baking, fermenting, and canning were commonplace.
Today, the ubiquitous nature of grocery stores and restaurants have changed almost everything about our culture’s eating habits.
Think about it – how often do you eat foods that you have no idea how to prepare from scratch? How often can you easily name every ingredient in a certain dish or recipe? How are your cooking skills in general (and I don’t mean heating up leftovers – although that’s a start)?
Do you visit farmers’ markets? Are you connected with local farmers or ranchers? Do you pay attention to the seasons of fresh produce, and strive to buy in-season?
If you’ve never grown your own food, now is an excellent time to start.
The idea isn’t to become a green thumb overnight and never shop at a grocery store again – but the act of tending plants, of putting seed into soil, seems to activate something instinctual in us.
Gardening is a popular hobby, even among the oldest population – because it’s relaxing and deeply nurturing to our inner nature.
For an off-grid lifestyle, gardening is also a fundamental skill that reconnects us with the soil and the seasons, and helps us to understand where our nourishment comes from on an entirely different level.
Gardening helps us learn the cycles of nature – and one of the earliest lessons is that of abundance.
A single cucumber plant may overwhelm your family with dozens of cucumbers every week, and this level of abundance begs to be shared or preserved for later. Before you know it, you’ve met the neighbours and traded a jar of homemade pickles for fresh spinach or eggs.
By this point, you’ve also gotten your hands dirty in the soil (beneficial microbes), felt the warmth of the sun on your skin as you’ve harvested young fruit, enjoyed the crisp crunch of a fresh cucumber, and observed the bees pollinating the yellow flowers on the vines.
You now have an intimate, visceral relationship with the cucumber plant’s life cycle that you scarcely had an inkling of before, despite all the times you bought cucumbers from the produce department or ate them in a salad.
You’ve also observed the so-called ‘waste’ a single plant creates – huge leaves, stems, and vines. This valuable biomass is easily composted and turned into nourishment for the soil to feed another crop next season, so really there’s no waste at all. Everything has meaning and purpose in the cycle of life.
If you also keep animals like chickens or rabbits, you’ll quickly find that many things we perceive as ‘garden waste’ will be appreciated and recycled as feed items or treats.
You’ll also discover that the old adage ‘happy hens produce more eggs’ isn’t just a metaphor!
Modern living keeps us utterly disconnected from the cycles of life, and nowhere is this more glaringly obvious than in the meat and dairy industries.
Without getting into a philosophical discussion around eating animal-based foods, I would like to acknowledge that the mainstream narrative is now encouraging a meat-free, processed-food diet as ‘progressive’ and ‘healthy’.
I have come to believe that the most important question we ought to be asking about our food is not ‘animal or vegetable?’, but instead, things like …
How far did this travel? Who is the producer? May I visit the farm this came from? What ingredients were used to create this? What care and intent went into its growth?
When you start to experience the gifts of being in relationship with your food – even just on a tiny scale – you’ll find that this is about far more than just quality produce … and really, even transcends the idea of eating ethically.
Gardening and homesteading is a lifestyle that invites you to think more deeply about every aspect of your nourishment, as well as the ways you impact the world around you to obtain it.
Once you start paying attention to the seasons and cycles of nature, you’ll know to snap up berries or pomegranates from the store when they’re cheap, and preserve them for later.
Even better – you’ll be able to connect with local growers and foraging enthusiasts who can point out the best times to go wild-foraging for greens, mushrooms, or berries in your local area.
You’ll start to look for – and see – food growing in all sorts of places you never thought to look. Maybe a local park has nut trees that you can harvest from. Perhaps a nearby nature trail has several wild edible plants growing along it that you can enjoy if you know just when to go for a walk in that area, and what to look for. Even some typical landscape plants are edible!
Sure, you won’t have success with everything you plant – but if you keep trying, nature will meet you halfway, and will likely overwhelm you with her level of generosity!
New gardeners may worry that this is a problem, and try to avoid planting too many things at once. However – if you grow an abundance of greens this summer, aside from giving away or selling the bounty – you’ll be able to harvest extra, then prepare and store them in the freezer for winter meals.
The problem offers its own solution!
Food preservation has been an art and science for generations of humanity – long before we created chemical life-extenders and flavour enhancers that prevent a McDonald’s burger from decomposing even after 8 years.
In recent years we’ve become obsessed with eradicating microbes of any sort, viewing the ideal environment as one that’s devoid of all living things – but of course that’s not only impossible, but highly unhealthy, as well!
A significant percentage of our body is made up of bacteria, both beneficial and harmful – and our microbiome is recognized as a critical component of our wellbeing, digestion, and immune system.
Teaming with microbes via fermentation is an excellent, time-honoured way to preserve food for long-term storage in a way that supports and compliments our well-being.
Fermenting can be as simple as making yogurt in your Instant Pot, or crafting fancy flavours of sauerkraut, brewing alcohol, and much more.
As we think more about how we can stock our pantry shelves with homegrown bounty, we start looking more seriously at our kitchen gadgets and storage options.
Do we need a dehydrator? What about a deep-freeze? Do we have a root cellar that will stay cool in the summer and above freezing in winter? How many Mason jars are ‘too many’, really? (Honestly – can one ever have enough??)
Rethinking our relationship to food and nutrition is a huge topic, and this is intended to be a starting place for you. Maybe you’re worried about the care and keeping of farm animals, or feel like you need to relocate to an area with a more favourable climate for growing food.
Start where you are, with what you have, and please know that there’s no such thing as a ‘perfect place’ to homestead.
Striving to become more self-reliant doesn’t mean resigning ourselves to a life of hard, long hours of labour.
With the right knowledge and tools, we can create self-sustaining systems and patterns that allow us to partner with nature and minimize our labour while maximizing our yields – all while being conscious about the impact we’re having on the land and creatures in our care.
And that is a thing of true beauty.
