Thank You (Who?) For This Dinner!

There is many different views on food and ways to thank for it. Even if some cultures/religions does not accept animal suffering, and others are fine with consuming everything, I can see that almost all religions have the same message- too much food is not good.

I only remember my self thanking Patchamama (mother nature) or God a few times for my food, its not a part of my culture anymore. But who should you thank if you dont have a God, or do we need to thank anyone? Your country, the producer, the shop or the animal… It dosn’t feel neccesary becouse in welfare countrys you don’t need to go hungry. Why bother giving the food a thought?

Becouse it feels silly to thank a God or Patchamama for mass produced, low quality meat, I rather thank a “local” producer (120km from helsinki…hmm)  for the eco meat, knowing that the animal had a good life. Taste, quality and a good self-conscious

As we have taken a long step away from nature we have no conection to our food anymore (I do not mean any kind of over natural connection). Here is a few thoughts:

Following belive can not only be nonses from thousands of years.

“According to the Hindu religion, violence or pain inflicted on another living thing rebounds on you (karma).”

http://www.netplaces.com/hinduism/rituals-and-practices-hindu-marriage-funerals-food-and-vegetarianism/food-in-hinduism.htm

Muslims have a very healthy way to look on food.

“It is important to eat only when you are hungry. When you do eat, you should not eat in excess. As advised by the Prophet, one should divide his / her stomach into 3 parts – a third each for food, fluid, and respiration. Remember the hungry when you eat. One could avoid going to hell by feeding a hungry dying person or animal.”

“Recite the name of God (Allah) before eating and thank God after finishing. It is a good thing to eat by the right hand and in company. Muslims must pronounce the name of Allah on all animals while slaughtering”

http://www.faithandfood.com/Islam.php

Silly thought: a wealthy person buys food from a “mass production super hyper mega market” and thanks God for it… According to the bible its a sin to eat to much, and we can se the resault of not following this old rules today: fetma&illness to not talk about the environmental problems becouse overconsuming.

“For most Christians, eating habits are not affected- though some will be vegetarians, usually for moral reason, and some will refrain from eating meat on Fridays. Some sects, for instance Mormons, have many rules and restrictions regarding eating and drinking, for sample complete abstinence from tea, coffee and alcohol and an emphasis on wholesome eating.”

http://www.butlersguild.com/index.php?subject=103

“Bless us Oh Lord and these thy gifts which we are about to receive through thy bounty through Christ Our Lord, Amen”

http://psalm121.ca/praymeals.html

This might feel wrong for animal loving people in our culture, but I dont see this ritual coming even close to the horror of mass production we have. Still, these people have to respect the sourse of food, and they dont drink the blood for fun, they want the nutrition. 

“The Maasai men who perform this blood-draining ritual do not intend to kill, or even harm, the animal. They merely want some of its nourishing crimson fluid to drink.”

http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/news-living-masai-african-tribe-who-drink-blood-their-cows#JwRGLRVImPzDUpv2.99

“Remember, food is our life force and something to be consciously honored and appreciated. Taking a slower, more conscious approach to eating will give more meaning, inspiration and can have a profound effect on your life!”

http://edgemagazine.net/2011/04/the-ritual-celebration-of-food/

I will not yet dance around the food 🙂

These babys seem to be very happy about the  fresh food!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to1YhEQrhxI&feature=related

What can you do to show respect for a dead animal that you are about to eat?
My answer  to the last question is: never throw away food-especially not meat. Buy meat from a farm where the animals are respected.

My sisters blog, worth reading! She makes a point with the shower post. Personaly i dont like long hot showers, its not good for the skin.

a bit greener

My first blog writing, no it is not about a food, which I´m passionate about, it is about having shower! So quotidian thing, which most of us (in western world) do every day without sacrificing more thoughts for it. But going to shower can have a big impact to energy and water consumption and to your health as well.

Having a warm shower for 10 minutes consumes approximately 150 l of water, can you imagine! If only using water for drinking I would live with this amount of water for 40 days…In addition of excess water consumption, the heating of this amount of water consumes lot of energy.  In Finland, to heat the water needed for 150 l warm shower would consume  4,5 kWh. The amount of kWh doesn´t maybe tell so much, but if I tell you that an average fridge consumes energy about 0,3-0,8 kWh/day,  this means that…

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I don’t use shampoo, but my hair is clean…

We are led into consuming things that are completely unnecessary, like body wash liquid and shampoo, both packed in plastic bottles and full of chemicals. Maby there is much more luxury in some expensive shampoo in a nice looking bottle, then a piece of soap? A bottle of shampoo makes me actually angry and I have a good reason for that. By commercials we are made in to think that the only way to be hygienic is to wash yourself everyday: clean your hair with shampoo, and scrub your whole body. For me it feels strange, we aren’t that dirty anyway. Its a hysteric “health and beauty” mania going on around the world. The producers of this products takes no responsibility of the plastic waste.

3 months ago i decides to stop using liquid schampoo, and that was a very good decision. I got rid of unnecessary chemicals and the plastic bottles that definitely aren’t good for the environment! My hair have never been in such a good condition as now. Observe, this is not soap, its natural, concentrated shampoo.

I had no idea how big the difference would be- this little shampoo bit is fantastic! It makes my hair feel as I it naturally would be:  much thicker and shiny!

I was addicted to chemicals. Before, when i used normal shampoo, I had flat and electrical hair that easily was destroyed. After using shampoo and conditioner, I used mousse and hairspray that took away softness and shine, so i had to use dry conditioner aswell:  lots of chemicals, time and bother. I had to cut it all the time, and couldn’t grow it longer. I also disliked the waste that is born.

The only negative thing to say, is that I took me a while to understan how to use the shampoo bite. Becouse no one told me how, I dint first understand that you REALLY need to massage the soap for a long time, at least one minute, to make all the “dirt” disapair! Also it takes about 1-3 weeks for the hair to get used, so you have to wait for a while, but the RESAULT is defenetly worth it!!!!

Even a few male persons in my surrounding is using it now, saying it makes their hair thicker. Its more difficult for women to take that step, I think? You get the shampoo bit from all the eco shops.

Laundry in a environment friendly way!

A few weeks ago i bought all the home cleaning products that i needed, but this time “eco” certificated. I have been testing them for a while now, and at least i can’t say anything bad about them, they are only a little bit more expensive (on purpose I do not use much of them to clean, because i do not think we need to kill all the beacterias around us ALL THE TIME). The only thing that makes me skeptical is the fact that everything is packaged in plastic, which isn’t that environmental friendly. In some eco shops it is possible to bring your own bottle and refill!

When it comes to clothes, I do not like to wash them after one or 2 uses, and that means that i don’t need to wash clothes that often- AND ALWAYS IN A FULL MACHINE!!! At my workplace with handicapped people we have a tumble dryer , that is in use after every wash. When I can decide, it is never used because it is both a big waste of energy AND it wears out the clothes!

Once a mother of a child said to me that she doesn’t want to use eco laundry liquid because she’s afraid it will not kill all the bacteria…. Makes me wonder if its necessary to do so, or is it more damaging for a child to live in a too clean environment?I found EcoVer “powered by nature” laundry liquid with a natural smell of lavender. This works perfectly well for me. I do not know anything about chemicals, so i can’t form any opinion about this product, except from my own experience. On the bottle label its says “here at Ecover we craft products which are both powerful and developed in a truly sustainable way, so much so that once used they are absorbed into nature…” ?! In the end, its difficult to know what that really means.

I not only use eco laundry liquid for the environment, but also for my own good.

Vice Grandmothers and Foil

Because we have created a complicated life, easy and quick solutions are needed.

10 years ago, when I worked with elderly people for the first time, I was surprised about how some of these grandmothers were saving, reusing coffee filters, kitchen paper, not throwing away one piece off glass, every single metal can be washed and clean, waiting to be brought to the recycling place. Food and juice, old milk, everything should be consumed. The only thing they threw away was their daily medicine(!).

At that time I thought the recycling mania must be a trauma from the war times, from the times when children in Finland were hungry. That might be partly true. I couldn’t really understand, so it almost made me irritated.

Yesterday i had a piece of aluminum foil in my hand. I used it to pack a small piece of meat. I opened the trash but just before throwing it away i thought “what the f**k, this is such a fantastic material, why should I throw it away? Sounds silly, but that is what i thought.

If you think, every metal is very valuable, because its not renewable. That will not change. Then we have foil that makes our life a bit easier. And then we throw it away. Before, using once and then throwing it away was an impossible thought because it was more dificult to produce material. The process was slower than now, and very few had access to luxury items. Things had more then economical value, every material thing had a big cycle behind. I think that can be one of the reasons why these old ladies were recycling everything, they could see and understand that every material had a value. Was this because of the war? Because of how they grew up? Were they poor? I dont know, many of these “saving grandmothers” lived in expensive private homes, so they didn’t appear poor to me. It is said that the elderly are the wise, is that true? They knew something, that is trendy today. Recycling is nothing new anyway, that is what nature is based on. And unfortunately recycling is not the answer to our problems. The answer is to produce less, and not giving us the choice to continue as we do. “everyone has their right to choose how they live” Not true say I. Nope.

Back to my piece of foil. I didnt throw it into the trash. I washed it with washing liquid and put it to dry with plates, glasses and buckets. Today in the morning i used it again. Maybe it soon breaks into pieces, but at least i used it as long as i could. It wont save the world, but it will at least take me one step closer to the old and wise.

Home made lingonberry body scrub….

Im quite sceptic to all the chemicals we use on our body. I make my own bodyscrubb for dry skin in 5 minutes with following ingredients:

Finnish lingonberrys

Finnish rypsoil 1 dl, 2 spoons of olive oil

Finnish white sugger, optional salt 3 dl

Chemicals zero!

Plastic bottle zero!

Mix together, if you want use a mixer. You need to get a quite hard concistance, so add sugger untill you can esily handle the massa in your hands. Skrub it everywhere you want, also in the face, and youre skin will feel fantastic! You will also feel better because you know exactly what you use on your body.

This you can have in your fridge for 3 months, or more! Ofcourse the lingonberrys will do much more for your skin if you eat them, but it gives a nice smell and colour.

A option for grass skin is to mix the ingredients with youghurt. This holds only a few days in the fridge so make a small amount.

Something old…

A long time ago, as a teen, I thought “as much as possible is good”. At that time i didn’t think about the impact my shopping had. Some mathematics i can’t answer, but just imagine: if  a million people buy one handbag in a week. How many tons of water is needed, how much chemicals is used and how many rivers are colored blue? Maybe half of this one million already have 12 bags? Seriously, we need to think what we are doing. I’m not ready to leave a dirty planet behind, because I WANT TO LOOK GOOD!

I don’t like shopping. It makes me feel guilty, as i know what kind of effect my greed has. That’s one reason I do not on purpose follow trends or fashion. You get hooked on consumption.I just think it’s completely crazy to buy clothes that will be out NEXT autumn. The other reason why i think fashion feels strange for me, is because the way i grew up- with no materialistic values.

I lied. I love to shop. I get satisfaction from clothes, bags etc of good quality. That looks good, feels good, and will hold for many years. Happy I found the joy of second-hand shops.

To get a quality  leather bag of good design might cost you 150- 1000 euro or more. And expensive dosnt  even always mean quality. But you know a good leather bag when you have it in your hands.

This leather bag has no brand. “handmade in Italy”. The quality is fantastic and I’m sure this bag will be with me for at least 20 years.

Fleamarkets and secondhanshops. That might be trendy, old  and out, i don’t know. This text is maby totally unnecessary. Here is just a proof that you can get stylish clothes that someone else had before you. For a affordable price.

Scarf, 27e, Handbag, 61e, Kaunis Veera, Albertinkatu 10

Yellow bracelet, 2e, Fida lähetystori, Iso-Roobertinkatu 24

Green bracelet, 8e,  Hietaniemen kirppis

Im not trying to say I’m perfect with this. I do buy new things sometimes. If you have experience from some good secondhand shops, flea markets or some other good way to recycle clothes, feel free to write!