Please, sir, can I have some more?

Food is more than just sustenance.  Food is art.  Food is an expression of love.  Food carries the memories of a culture.  Food is the center of many a social gathering. Food is worth so much more than the mere calories and nutrients it provides.  And that’s nice and all, but come on, the most important bits are the calories and nutrients it provides so that we don’t, you know, die.

A lot of the food that I cook for my family follows the Whole Food Plant Based (WFPB) model.  We have a family health issue that led us to that diet and it’s been helpful. But beyond that, it is in line with our other goals.  That said, I’m not a vegan or even vegetarian.  I will probably order what seems to be a vegetarian option when eating out, but I’m not going to ask what kind of broth the soup was made with.  If I go to your house and you’ve cooked a pork chop for me, I’m going to eat it and like it. I also do eat refined foods.  I use dates to sweeten things and nuts to replace oils.  But I’m going to buy a loaf of bread at the store and not sweat what’s in it too much.  As you might have guessed, I like to keep it casual.   

The most sustainable source of meat still has a bigger carbon footprint than the least sustainable plant based alternative.  So it makes sense to me not to go crazy with the meat.  My family hunts and fishes from time to time, and the animals that we consume are ones that we have killed and processed.  I’d estimate that we eat a meal including meat around once per month.  We have backyard chickens that are mostly pets, but they do lay eggs and we do eat them sometimes.  Even though the eggs aren’t a major food source for us right now because of dietary concerns, I like that they could be if we needed them too. 

Eating mostly plants seems to make sense from the perspective of reducing my carbon footprint and from a food futures perspective so that’s what I aim to do.  From a self sufficiency perspective, eating mostly whole foods make sense.  I want to get all the nutrition that I can from my food, and I don’t want to waste anything.  I also want to be accustomed to cooking without refined oils, sugars, etc so that I really can keep going with what I grow if I can’t find what I need at the store.

Some posts are going to be straight up boring recipes for bread, curries, stews, veggie burgers, etc., although you might pick up a few techniques about cooking without oil and whatnot.  Other food themed posts might explore the techniques that provide me with some of the more unique ingredients that I use.  Fermentation, smoking, the creation of meat analogs and plant based cheeses all come to mind.  And as a kind of offshoot of gardening, we’ll talk about food preservation and storage techniques that extend the harvest and provide nutritious, easy to use products.

I LOVE food. And since I need to make a lot of our products at home, these food videos and posts are probably going to be plentiful.  I hope you like my grub as much as I do!