Its From My Garden...

As a child my avid-gardener mother made it a pretty general rule that my sister and I eat one green thing every dinner. I grew up eating a lot of salads and vegetables. Outside my house at home are two large metal vegetable boxes containing tomatoes, lettuce, pees, parsley and who knows what. My mother takes pride in saying “it’s from my garden” when having dinner guests over. My mother’s sister and my cousins live in Tennessee and have a deer head in their living room, the men in the family regularly go hunting. As a child it was very hard for me not to be upset by the image of the deer head and know that my cousin could kill rabbits so effortlessly. It’s interesting now to compare my mother’s love of gardening with my uncle’s love of hunting. Both involve a hobby and bring satisfaction and pride in consuming the results, and bring good taste and sustenance to their families’ tables. Both are acceptable in U.S culture.
Growing, hunting, and purchasing were the only ways I have thought it possible to get an adequate supply of food, until I recently heard about a relatively new movement know as Freeganism. Tuning into the Oprah show, I watched in disbelief as families were shown getting their entire food supply from dumpsters outside grocery stores and bakeries. What was most surprising to me was that all of the featured Freegans had chosen this lifestyle by choice, not for convenience or financial reasons. The majority of Freegans are so fed up with the economic system that’s profit motive has so many harmful impacts; that they avoid buying anything. Supermarkets throw away mass amounts of good fruits, vegetables, dairy and packaged foods merely because they do not look perfect- what better way for freegans to get their food (safely). After getting over my initial feeling of disgust and appall, I find the Freeganism lifestyle to be a really inventive way to consume food. Granted I don’t think I will ever try it, I have respect for people that take their beliefs to that level. Freegan eating culture involves satisfaction in knowing that you are taking a stand for what you believe is right, and involves the manual labor of finding enough food to sustain yourself or family. Freeganism is not socially acceptable in the U.S and might never be. But when it comes down to it, foraging Freegan style is not so different from gardening and hunting. The way in which you get your food can truly be an ultimate representation of who you are.


Here are books for anyone interested in growing vegetables or making tasty salads:

Wickers, David. The Complete Urban Farmer; how to grow your own fruits and vegtables in town. New York: Viking Press, 1977.

Uvezian, Sonia. The Book of Salads: an international collection of recipes. SanFrancisco: 101 Productions, 1977.