The wasteful generation

There was an article in Saturday's paper in the weekend magazine section about a young woman enjoying the pleasure of growing and producing her own food.  She said something along the lines of enjoying the less commercial aspect of putting food on her table.  The term sustainable living gets tossed about a bit too much these days but I take my, one of many hats off to these people.  It's a lot harder than it looks.  Growing anything in the middle of a Tasmanian winter is hard enough and even the most die hard of sustainable advocates can't live on turnips for ever.  My veggie patch is a sad state of affairs with only rhubarb and a tiny parsley bush able to hold on through the frosty mornings.  Living sustainably unfortunately means a number of things these days.  It's lost a bit of its meaning with everything from sustainable clothing (ok?) to sustainable toilet paper - really!  Our grandparents invented sustainable living to get through the depression.  Food rationing and lack of just about everything drove them into a waste-not mindset that would be a great challenge for many today.  Having limited butter, flour and tea would be hard for those of us who bake and struggle to get out of bed without a cuppa, for others it wouldn't even rate a mention.  Particularly if you've never baked a scone, a pancake or heaven forbid, put the stuff that looks like butter on your toast.  Convenience food and packaged, highly processed pretend food give us convenience at a price.  It's expensive.  It's not a healthy option and it puts profits into international boardrooms rather than local farms.  I was watching a documentary on the 50th Anniversary of Woodstock (the music festival) last week.  I wasn't old enough to relate to this generation at the time (I was too busy establishing the toddler fundamentals).  Some of the footage showed the festival goers talking about living a more peaceful and commercially free life. I think we could learn a thing or two from this.  Unfortunately we've become the wasteful generation with every inch of our lives wrapped in plastic and tossed away.  We've been convinced convenience is more important than everything even though part of our social argument is about preserving the planet and saving important species from extinction, we hear very little about extinct varieties of food.  The amount of fruit varieties lost to supply chain efficiencies must be massive.  Not to mention heritage animal breeds that live healthy and longer lives that are no longer bred in preference to the mass produced quick kill option.  We can't have both the convenience and the good conscience as well.  We have so much to learn from our older generations about living sustainably.  Unfortunately they are also running out of time.  I want to share that feeling of joy when you grew it, preserved it, baked it, all from your own efforts.  If I could have a sustainable diet that was only jam, parsley and rhubarb I'd be in business today.