Sunday, April 20, 2014

Vegan Homesteading

When thinking about living a self-sufficient lifestyle one has to also consider sustainability, the sustainability of your home, your life and really the entire planet. I usually talk about the two as if they were the same thing and that's because to me they really are. Being self-sufficient isn't just being able to go buy your own hamburger at the drive through every day. Being self-sufficient is knowing that the fate of your existence is resting in your hands. It is having the ability to provide for ones self and to be able to do so without the need of the corporate farm, big box discount store and the drive through some-what-a-burger. It is really how most people lived 150 years ago. The beauty of the era that we live in now is that we can live this way and not be forced to live primitively. With a balanced mix of modern advances and natural balance we can live a sufficient lifestyle and still enjoy a life filled with modern conveniences. So how does sustainability fit in this? It's really simple, the best way to be self-sufficient is to also live a sustaining life. A life where you live in balance with the earth. A life where you are not just a consumer but a balanced part of the eco system. This line of thinking played a big role in my decision to take on a vegan lifestyle. Becoming sustainable and leaving a more balanced footprint started making more sense to me when I made the decision to not live dependent upon other animals on my life. 

At this point I would say a good portion of my readers are beginning to roll their eyes and are expecting me to began preaching veganism and telling you how cruel you are of a person to eat meat. Well you are wrong. That is not my intent and that is not the kind of vegan I am. I want to talk a little about my journey becoming vegan and how it can play a big role in making life a little easier on your homestead, whether rural or urban. 


My journey really began, well, about as far back as I can remember. I never was a big meat eater, especially red meat. I always loved my veggies and even as a child I would usually choose them over meat. I can remember going to buffets and not getting any meat at all. People would sometimes make comments but I would still devour my veggies. I can never remember not having a garden growing up which is probably why it's still one of my favorite places to be, playing in that dirt so eating my veggies just came naturally. I began considering going full vegan a few years back and did a lot of research but just kept telling myself I just couldn't do it. Meat wasn't my hurdle. It was milk and cheese. I just couldn't imagine living without it. Of course at the time I was totally unaware of all the plant based options there were out there. It wasn't until February of last year that I finally decided to make a lifestyle change. My 10 year old son was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes after nearly going into a comma. It was an awakening and life changing experience for him and all of us. It broke my heart to see how my sons life was going to be forever changed.  Diet changes and getting stuck with needles 8 or more times a day is hard for anyone and especially a child. It was then that I decided to do this for him. I thought that of my little boy could handle going through this for the rest of his life then surely I could muster the courage to change mine to a healthier more sustainable life. 

So my original intent on becoming vegan may have been different than others but still I share and understand why others come to the same decision. I am not militant and it's not some kind of religion for me and if you want to farm animals humanly then that is your choice not mine and I'll respect it. It's funny though since then how many times I've been told how I just won't get enough of the nutrition I need but over a year later and I'm still here and still could loose some weight so I must be getting enough to keep me going. Now I know going vegan isn't for everyone and I'm not here to try to convince you of that but I do want to try and get you to think about meat production and consumption on you little modern homestead. If your goal is to achieve some level of self-sufficiency then reducing or eliminating animal from your equation can actually be beneficial to your sustainability. 

Let me just point out a few facts. Farm animals, whether large or small production, account for the largest drain on resources and labor on your homestead. Although this isn't a negative just by itself, it is true that they are expensive to care for and take a lot of time and effort. They require more land. Most would probably be surprised at just how little land it would take to live off of if you stuck to just a plant based diet. There is also an emotional attachment to deal with if you are raising animals for meat. On a small farm it's easy to become attached to the animals, especially for children. We are told it's a circle of life and so we accept it but does it really have to be? Having a plant based diet on your modern homestead can simply make you more sustainable. If you are depending so much on meat production, then it can limit just how sustainable you can be. I know there will be many to disagree with this but how much more sustainable can you be just eating what you grow from the ground. Although this kind of sustainability wasn't what pushed me to finally take on a plant based diet it has definitely become a major part of it now. 

Having a mostly or all plant based diet can have so many benefits especially when it comes to living a sustainable lifestyle so much so that it should be something you consider. It's healthy, it's green and brings only life to the homestead. If more people lived this way this plant would look very different. In fact there are a lot of models showing that the only way for future sustainability of this planet is to switch to a plant based diet. A vastly greater amount of food can be grown on the same amount of land that meat is produced on. So even though a complete change in eating habit may not happen for you, if you truly seek sustainability at least consider how much animal is in your diet and how little you actually need. 

In the end regardless of your choice I want to encourage you to daily try to walk a little lighter on the planet, it's the only one we have and to do a little research into the foods you eat especially the meat and ask yourself if what you eat and how it is produced is really the most sustainable option for you. 

1 comment:

  1. You said you weren't the kind of vegan to tell me not to eat meat. You are however the kind of vegan to ask me to consider not eating meat. I have considered it. I have also considered eating insects. Insects are a nutritious and potentially abundant food source. In fact no compost pile can work without their cycle of life and death. It is better to have lived and died then not composted at all.
    Animals are not a drain on resources. Animals create abundance. Starting from the grubs and worms that till the soil to the chickens that turn them into eggs. Ruminant animals turn plants that are inedible to humans into milk, cheese and the best fertilizer available. I wonder if you garden without manure or compost?
    Your position has merit if you are talking about "Diet for a Small Planet" or Food Inc where fuel and food are diverted to industrial agriculture which is an extravagant use of resources.People who are creating a homestead to mimic an ecosystem can't do it without animals. Animals are part of nature and therefore an ecosystem. I like to attract wild animals that do the jobs that others assign to domesticated ones. In your garden of only plants are you chasing away the bugs birds and deer?
    With all the people in prison and unemployed my utopian fantasy has them employed working with nature and industrial agriculture transformed into an abundant "subsistence" agriculture that produces energy food and fibre rather than consuming it. Animals and humans are co-evolved. I do admit that modern business doesn't treat animals well. Factory farms are so cruel that agricultural businesses are lobbying for laws to keep their practices secret - like bans on filming. Better relationships have been forged with animals than the business model. If you erase the relationship we have with coevolutionary species then you erase the animals too.
    I'm not asking you to even consider eating a single creature. Not even an acetobacter or an acidophilus.

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