You Are What You Eat (and then some)

Doing things different is hard. That's probably why we often don't.  I've said it before, and I'm saying it again- I refuse to be a robot, with my actions dictated by my programming.

YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT

For me, the true act of resistance, the really radical thing any one of us can do is to question everything, starting with our own selves. So often we define ourselves by our preferences.  How many times have you said, "That's just me, that's just who I am." Poppycock. There are a precious few of us who are self realized, and those people shirk the concept of "I' entirely. I'm not suggesting that, though- its too extreme for most of us, slugging out our daily lives and trying to be the best and most helpful versions of ourselves.

If you are what you eat, then you are what your taste buds tell you. Your tongue DEFINES you. Try that on for size.

In my life, as in most people's, my relationship to food is defining. For anyone new to this blog, let me give you an example. I have always hated water, and preferred cokes. I hated vegetables. I loved processed foods and fast food. Since I never gained weight, I never thought much about it- and you know as well as I do that weight is a much bigger motivator for people changing their eating habits than health. Sad but true. So for me, I wasn't motivated to change, and more than that, I enjoyed being a food brat. I thought it was funny to eat Kraft mac and cheese every day for lunch, to drink 5 cokes a day, a steak for dinner, and 10 cookies with milk before bed and a big chocolate-y coffee drink for breakfast. But when I started to look at my own resistance to even considering eating more like a GROWN UP, I had to admit, I was stuck. I was rigid about it, I wasn't going to listen to anyone who might suggest I try to drink more water, or eat some veggies. I wasn't going to listen, and I didn't listen. I was stubborn as a mule. And I know many other mules, and I know how they feel. To question our food preferences strikes at the heart of our identity.



Word up, yo

I've come a long way in a short while, if I do say so myself. However, this isn't really about me. I offer myself up as a guinea pig of sorts- this blog inspires me to continue because it might, it just might, help someone else make some better choices. Its a self fulfilling prophecy in the most positive of ways. I just know that if I can do it, you can too, no matter who you are. You have to figure out your 'why'. Mine is entirely a socio-political statement. Health was never a selling point for me, nor weight loss. My reason is entirely this- there are evil corporations that are poisoning our food sources. They seek to dominate the world food supply- and when they do, they will dominate the world. Companies like Monsanto and Bayer are killing our bees, tearing up rainforests for palm oil production, and are genetically altering our food. They feed us crap in bright packaging and we eat it. Every cent I don't spend on processed food is a cent they don't get, and every time I buy locally grown, I am supporting farmers, freedom, and the future of the planet. That is what inspires me now, about all choices I make- but it started with food, and now its taking over everything. That is why I call it a revolution- it is a personal revolution, it is a radical move to question your own proclivities and to alter your own internal system.

I am not sure if this is an ad for Coke, or a warning against it.

My new challenge? WATER. Drinking water and cutting back on Cokes (maybe even cutting them out completely- maybe). I didn't think I was ready for this, and it wasn't even really a decision I made consciously. I just chose other things besides Cokes to drink for the past two days. This might be the first time since I was 10 that I have gone two whole days without a Coke. I'm 44. 34 years. That sounds appalling, but its the truth. Coke was my water. So when I say- "If I can do it, you can too", this exact scenario comes to mind. If I can let go of a 34 year long love affair with Coca Cola, then for sure you can let go of whatever you think you never will.

So I am on day two. I am not telling myself I will never have a Coke again, but I can tell you this- the last few cokes I had, I questioned myself. I thought, "Is this really a good taste? Do you even like this?" And I found that the real answer, behind the knee jerk answer, was no, not really. Its too acidy, too sweet, leaves a strange after taste. So I asked myself what I did like about it, and really I just like the carbonation. Those bubbles are what I am after. I have been drinking sparkling water instead, and there isn't anything I don't like about it.  I love this clip, below- this guy makes a pretty good point. In Mexico, high fructose corn syrup is illegal. And yet you can't even drink the water in Mexico- so even with their standards, high fructose corn syrup is not allowed. And that is the main ingredient in my favorite drink. We all know how a nail will dissolve in it. And even this isn't as compelling as the dictates of our taste buds.

Our taste buds control us. I want to propose that our taste buds make emotional connections that could be entirely based on lies. Or, our taste buds lie- and they are very, very compelling.  When I do what my taste buds tell me, I am the worst kind of robot. I am letting little bumps on my tongue define a large part of who I think I am. I am letting the food corporations manipulate my taste buds into manipulating me. That makes me a big meat puppet. No thank you. I'd rather OCCUPY MYSELF! I will figure out who I really am, what I really like and want in my system, and consider the needs of the future of this planet when making my own authentic choices.

When you come right down to it, its really a trip to start dismantling your preferences. In so doing I have discovered that I also really don't like my Kraft Macaroni and cheese. Or American cheese, or white bread. Or hot dogs. I might not even really like gummy bears, but that's another blog entirely. These past two months of eating fresh food, locally grown food, I have discovered a world that was right there all the time, at which I scoffed. I actually like green food. I even kind of love it.  I like fruit! Water isn't so bad, either. I have cut back on red meat to the extent that I have had it twice in two months instead of every night. I will not ever eat fast food again, ever. Who the hell am I anymore?  Its crazy, but its oh so good. And in taking on this shift in my eating life, it has taken root in other areas. I  accept no substitutes, I don't seek cheap thrills. I am not about to drink the Kool-Aid.  I want an authentic experience in all aspects of my life. I am learning that the old adage is true, after all- we really are what we eat. Damn it all to hell- I hate it that they were right all along. Pisses me off to no end! It is a supreme insult to my inner brat to accept defeat, but the brat has run the show long enough. Its just not that cute anymore.

So- for those of you, who, like me, have a hard time with drinking water, there are some great apps out there-

Google play Water APPs

iphone water APPs

And just to remind us all about the magic of water, and its ability to display the consciousness that it is-

And finally, if you are a water drinker, try to avoid water produced or bottled by Nestle. The CEO of Nestle thinks that people are 'entitled' about water, and that water needs to be privatized. Screw that guy. Learn about water- its not all the same. And try to buy those 5 gallon bottles with a little spigot to keep in your fridge and get yourself a cool water canteen or sport bottle and refill as needed for the day. No need for all the senseless waste produced by all those water bottles!

OCCUPY YOURSELF!

xoxo,

 

Ashley Dane

Can You Survive in a Post Apocalyptic World?

Lately when I am driving, or lying in bed before I fall asleep, I have been thinking about the End Times. Yep, the oft referred to end of days, when humans finally cannibalize themselves to the point of complete destruction.

Don't be skeered. I am not fanatic about it. What I wonder is how I would fare in a survival setting, and how useful would I be to others. This is not really surprising to me, as I recently went through a spate of post apocalyptic movies- 28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later, Legend, Children of Men, World War Z, and of course, Walking Dead. Most of these focus on zombies- but as I have said in other blog posts- the zombie apocalypse is already upon us. What happens when the zombies destroy the fabric of society in their mindless consuming? (To wit, a great quote from Judith Froemming-A true zombie is nothing more than an unconscious being apathetically and lifelessly lumbering across the planet buying and consuming everything in its path, unsatisfied, unfulfilled, anxious and unstill.”)

Zombie Attack Survival Kit- a must have

The zombies have me very nervous. They are everywhere on parade, all over the internet and facebook. They really have no thought at all about anything except what to consume next, or what entertainment is available next. But all of this could culminate in a bad scene for all of us, and I wonder about that. First- I wonder if there are enough people who are conscious and aware to stop the madness. I wonder if we are doing enough, or if there is enough we can do. I will continue to do the best I can, and just maybe I will start preparing.


So I got a survival book. And it got me thinking about all kinds of stuff I didn't need to start thinking about. Why? Well, it shakes me up, for one. Like the section of the book about survival dentistry. When I think about survival, I always picture myself smashing zombies in the face, or building a fire, or getting supplies from a heavily looted grocery store, armed to the teeth. That one chapter put the reality of it in perspective. Its not a movie. If it happened, there are skills we don't have the first idea about. Dentistry? Setting bones? Surviving in a desert with no readily available clean water sources? Not nearly as fun as zombie killing.

But this new movement I have been privy to, with people learning to garden and create beehives, and even those who have acquired chickens (seriously, there is an urban chicken movement- and it makes sense- fresh eggs? Why not?) in urban environs will fare better than those who have not been learning to get back to simpler ways. If society were to quickly revert to having no power and no water, then these simple skills are going to come in very handy. So, in a very real way, one can both prepare for, and help prevent, an apocalypse. If more of us did these things, and we got more people to grow food, buy local, keep beehives,  drive less, recycle, look into sustainable ways of living- if we were able to tip the scales, we could help prevent a possible catastrophic future. And if it came anyway- we would be in a good position to survive it.

Urban homesteading is on the rise

So sure, there are things like having stores of canned food and water, that's never a bad idea- and first aid kits, and survivalist books, and all of that. I recommend preparedness on any level, for any thing.  But when it comes down to it, people have been living off the earth naturally for millennia. Its the most radical thing you can do right now, in this day and age- to look at all that you consume- from food and entertainment, to ideas and thoughts- all of it could be re-evaluated and re-prioritized. I say start with food, and let the rest come. Food is by far one of the hardest to change, but once you make that commitment to eating foods with no GMOs, shopping local so the foods are not shipped to you grocery store by plane and trucks- thereby wasting precious fossil fuels, giving your body nutrient dense superfoods so you stay healthy (and not just for the sake of health, per say, but because a healthy body is a BIG fuck you to the system- they make a ton of money of our being sick, tired, stressed), avoiding processed food, growing what you can, perhaps having a beehive to help our dying bees and so you can have fresh honey, definitely avoiding all fast food restaurants, and being a good example to others by talking about it and walking the walk you are talking about- if you just start here, with one of those things, it will grow all on its own. The rest will fall into place, in its own time and its own way. It will not feel like a sacrifice, but a gift. You will feel like a light bulb that has never been turned on before now, and finally you have found your purpose.

 I would like to not have to run through abandoned streets with a bad ass cross bow on my back, scavenging for what I can not grow on my own, or practice survival dentistry on my loved ones and learn to filter my pee to water a garden, but if we don't start somewhere, do something, and now, this may be the case.  The time is now. Don't hit the snooze button. OCCUPY YOURSELF!

Urban Gardening

Right about the time I realized I needed to change the way I was looking at, and living, my life, I was lucky enough to have two unused garden towers in my proximity that I could learn to use. At my work, my boss had purchased two of them, but no one had championed the cause. It was perfect synchronicity. How many people living in cities don't have the option of growing their food, due to lack of soil or space? Plenty, I bet. Me included.

I also have the good fortune of having someone show me how to get these things started. There are so many ways to talk oneself out of doing something- "I don't know how", or "Maybe next week," or "I can't afford it," or "It won't work." The universe in all its goodness eliminated all such conversations from my head. If I can learn how to do these things, I can teach others. Its amazing to me that the most radical thing any of us can do is to get back to nature as much as possible- and there is nothing more natural than growing your own food.

So my friend who came to help also takes care of the garden towers at Step Up on Second, which is an organization which helps the homeless in Los Angeles. They have a small café where they serve hotdogs and hamburgers, and the homeless people on the program work the café and learn how to have a job. There are many aspects to this organization, and they are doing amazing work. One aspect is the garden towers on the roof- I think he said there were 25 of them, and they grow food that they can use to help feed the homeless people who come through while they teach them how to be self sustaining.  Here is a picture below- pretty amazing. By the way- you can make monthly payments for a garden tower, and they payments are reasonable.

Garden Towers at Step Up on Vine

My friend and I first started to create the seedlings. I got seed packets of peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, arugula. We put rock wool into plastic trays with individual growing bins- you do this so the roots don't grow into each other. Then you put 4 or 5 seeds in each one, and cover with a nutrient rich covering. Its important to mark what you planted- we did it with coffee stirrers with the name of the vegetable and the date on the back. Then you soak the seed beds, but be careful not to disturb the seeds.

The start of an urban garden



If you were not going to use a tower and were going to go guerilla gardening (which I implore you to do) then you would do the same thing but you could use potting soil which is already fortified with nutrients. In guerilla urban gardening, you would plant vegetables or other edibles in public spaces, or in front of your apartment building, on medians, on the courthouse lawn, parks, etc. Nothing at all wrong with doing this!  once your seedlings are good and strong, plant them where they will be able to get water- any public landscaping will have sprinkler systems.

So in about two weeks, we will have little seedlings. Every day I need to lightly water the seedlings and not leave too much water in the bottom tray- or they roots will grow down towards the water, and we'd rather encourage the plants to grow towards the sun.

Once they are seedlings, we transfer them to the garden towers. The towers only need to be filled with water and the nutrient solution and then you basically leave them alone and let them grow. You need to have access to an outlet as they need to plug in for the water to pump up through to each little basket. My first plants I put in my garden tower are growing- some died. White flies got to many of them. If you have white flies, a water and dish soap solution sprayed onto the leaves makes them go away.


Here is my vision- I want to teach people how to create urban gardens and beehives. Bees have a higher rate of survival in cities, and you can have your own source of honey. The gardens can give you certain vegetables and fruit- I am staying away from things like lettuce or herbs right now and focusing on things like tomatoes and peppers and cucumbers- its easy enough to get salad stuff from the farmer's market. I would like to help people understand the importance of buying from their local farmer's markets- its fresh, generally organic, and has not taken a lot of fossil fuels to send on trucks and airplanes from distant countries to your grocery store chain. I know we can't grow everything, and we can't buy everything at the farmer's market- but we can do a lot, and its a great start.

When I go to the farmer's market, I look at the people there and am so happy to be among like minded people. Its revolutionary. Buying local instead of at the supermarkets takes money out of the hands of those who seek to control the world's food sources.  There is much more at the farmer's market than produce- there is bread, meat, fish, eggs- you can get a lot of your shopping done there. the more you buy there, the more you are telling the GMO food corporations like Monsanto and Syngenta to fuck the fuck off.

OCCUPY YOURSELF!!!
 

Feral Swarms of Bees need Love, Too!

After my first close encounter with bees, I want more. For me, there are two things going on here- one is that I want to help the bee population. By helping the bee population, we help the earth's population. And secondly, I just get a buzz off the bees. (Pun intended, and I promise to keep it to a minimum.)

Being so near the bees afforded me an opportunity I have never had; namely, to get close and watch what it is they actually do. I haven't gotten close enough to see the pollen sacs on the back of their legs filled up- that's how they get it back to the hive. I haven't seen the worker bees at the hive greet the incoming honeybees who land at the entrance to the hive, and do this thing almost looks like they are patting them down. I didn't know that all the honeybees are basically female- all except for the drones. Drones are male, and are not loyal to a queen as the rest of a hive are. Drones can show up one day, and hang out for as long as they want, as long as they 'service' the queen. They can stay as long as they want and aren't expected to do anything except please the queen so she can reproduce. That is how they get to also mix up their genetic gene pool. So they come and go, and don't do anything except have sex. There are only a handful of them per hundreds of female bees. It is an entirely matriarchal society, and I had never gotten to see a queen, or a drone, until I went to the Honeylove mentoring day.

God Save the Queen! We mean it, man!

It is said that when the bees 'get you', you kind of start getting obsessed. It doesn't make sense in a lot of ways- you can't talk to them or cuddle them or have a relationship in any sort of tangible way- the relationship seems to be more of one with yourself and what the hive represents or amplifies for you. I think its awe inspiring, really, to see all the organization and community, the commitment to the whole, the loyalty to the queen, the perfection of the honeycombs and that it all results in something that was, for thousands of years, the sweetest substance available to man. I love that bees contribute so much to the well being of all life on earth. That is why the next thing I have to do is to learn how to go catch a feral swarm of bees. I will be joining some other bee rescuing people in the near future to learn how to do it. And then there has to be a sanctuary to relocate them, like Honeylove's two sanctuaries in Moorpark and Topanga Canyon. We hope that soon, the laws in LA will change to allow for beekeeping in urban areas. Until then- well, I might indulge in a little guerilla beekeeping. Maybe.


I am also inspired by the act of bee keeping in a revolutionary sense. It is in the best interest of the food corporations to see the bees die. If they die, then we become dependent on them as our primary food source. And if we depend on them, we pay our hard earned dollars for their GMO crap that compromises our immune systems. We become weaker and sicker and dumber. If you have ever read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, that society bred certain castes of people for certain tasks by altering their genetic codes.  People who were in mines were created to be shorter, with short legs and strong arms. So in this New World Order we are fast approaching, the foods from the GMO tainted crops could create a lower class of people and eliminate the middle- both financially, and constitutionally. There will be the rich- who will be the healthiest and smartest class,  as they will be the only ones to be able to afford the rare and precious natural foods that support brain health and physical well being, while the lower class eats food that makes them dumber and weaker. Dumb them down and they won't question their lives. Weaker so they don't have the energy to do anything but work to buy the tainted food and come home and plug into the internet. They will eat the food that makes them weak and sick, and slave to pay for insurance premiums that they must have due to their weakened immune systems. The lower class will simply be slaves that don't realize they are slaves, doing all the labor so the rich can enjoy being rich. Sort of like in Hunger Games, all the outlying colonies slaving to provide the rich with food and coal and the like, all held in place by the games. As long as you keep them entertained. Its like the blinders on a horse-  they will remain docile and go willingly as long as they don't know what is exactly going on.

Me and bees, June 2013

Food is the entry point into this New World Order. The corporations who control the world's food sources will control everything.  And water, too, which was brought to public attention by the recent quote from Nestle CEO Peter Brabeck that he believes there should be no public water, that all water sources should be privatized. He believes that people feel too entitled about water.  What if that happened? Nestle is a HUGE company, they make billions selling bottled water. Its not out of the realm of possibility that it could happen. Its not out of the realm of possibility that all the bees could die, that Monsanto and Syngenta and Bayer could dominate all world food sources, that Nestle could own the rights to all water. What then?

This is more devious, more insidious than even using religion to control the people. That used to work for, say, the British to control their empire, or the Roman Catholics- it works inside a given system where there is one prevailing religion, and it has worked for thousands of years. But now, on a global scale, there are too many. Religion can not control the globe. But those who control the food and water supply- that's a different story.

So back to the bees. Part of my love for them, besides the elegance of their community, is this. By loving them and helping them, and teaching others to do the same, we fight the system that is threatening to enslave us. Bees thrive in cities best due to there being less pesticides. So it stands to reason that if more people would give space in their back yards or their roof tops for a few hives- and I mean people all over LA, all over California, all over the US, all over the world- then we can keep the bee population healthy, and the natural food growing. The next step is we have to grow what food we can and eat it, or buy local, instead of shopping at the major grocery stores. We can stop buying any brands with GMOs. This is a capitalist society- we have more power than you realize. They need us to spend our money on their products to survive.

How is your American Dream holding up?

Many people won't. They are simply too inured in the McHappy Life to consider a lifestyle change of this nature. They think this is folly, and it only serves their apathy to be cavalier about it. Or they think it won't happen in their lifetime. Or they think its a bunch of hippies with conspiracy theories messing with the American Way. So many people have agendas to stay comfortable and simply can't be bothered- I hope you, whoever you are, reading this, are not one of those people, or if you are, you are considering making some changes. Please look at your life, do some more research on what GMOs are, talk to others about it. We need you.

This is why I say this revolution begins in the kitchen. We stop supporting the food corporations. We become responsible for what we eat and feed our kids and where it comes from by buying local as much as we can, and using the lists of brands to boycott when we shop. If you are bold, you can look into beekeeping. You don't get stung- you wear a suit, and they don't need much maintenance- they know how to live without you, they just need safe places to do it. As for water- there are companies that will come put a water filtration system in your house- we use Advanced Pure Water, and it amazing, alkaline water. These are things that anyone and everyone can do, every day, in their own homes. And the more of us that do it, the less power they have. We don't need to riot in the  streets- we can riot on our facebook pages, we can wage war in our kitchens, we can enlist our friends and family into the cause- we don't need to campaign- we just need to talk about it.

Here is one way that bees are different than most humans- when someone threatens the well being of their community, they will die to defend it- since they always die after they sting someone, and they only sting when threatened. Most humans will not rise to the occasion. Most will turn on the TV, or browse facebook, or do anything to avoid this reality because it asks them to DO something. Don't be a zombie! OCCUPY YOURSELF!!!!

The zombie apocalypse is already upon us