Could learning to cook solve everything?

On the weekend I read a short book (or extra long article) by Mark Bittman called Cooking Solves Everything. It was a quick read, but it’s clear and simple message was very persuasive.

Bittman agrees with many of us that our current food system isn’t good for our health or our environment. We’ve all heard the statistics on obesity before, as well as genetically modified crops, over-medicated animals treated cruelly, and excessive use of chemicals for pest and weed control. There’s lots of groups working on trying to fix this situation via regulations, boycotts and trying to convince people to change their diets.

But Bittman thinks there’s another way to replace destructive agribusiness methods with something better for us and the planet. His suggestion is that we need to teach more people to cook. We’re not talking fancy gourmet stuff here, just sandwiches for lunch, and a pasta or stir-fry for dinner. Maybe a nice steak, or a roasted chicken, or some grilled marinated tofu to make a more substantial meal.

He comes up with 10 reasons that learning to cook leads to wide-ranging and lasting improvements. People who know how to cook choose less processed food. They can tell the difference between quality seasonal vegies and the limp stuff that’s been kept in long-term storage. Food tastes better when you cook it yourself, the same way the wonky beanie I knit myself is more valuable to me than the one I bought for five bucks at Woolies. Plus, cooking gives you control over what you’re eating, and independence from the giant corporations who want you to eat whatever gives them the most profit.

Which is all very nice for us as individuals, but the benefits go wider than that. More home cooks means more demand for real food over processed food. It’s a political statement (whether you mean it to be or not) that your time and your money are best spent on doing something healthy for you and your loved ones, and not on corporations with questionable ethics. It creates a more diverse and robust local economy, which helps everyone along.

So do you cook much? I do, at least to the level that Bittman is talking about. I can chuck together some herbs and mushrooms and parmesan and stir it through some pasta. I can roast a chicken and make either mashed veg or a salad to go with it. It’s not fancy, and I won’t win any prizes for presentation, but it tastes good. It feels satisfying to know I can provide for myself and my husband and friends this way. And I have noticed the personal benefits listed above.

If you’re not a confident cook, don’t let that stop you. Once every couple of weeks, look up something from taste.com.au or some other cooking site and give it a whirl. I guarantee that it’s pretty hard to make something completely inedible. And there’s always beans on toast if you do

If you are a regular cook, how do you think we can get more people to try it? So far I’ve thought of a couple of ideas:

• teaching a friend, Jamie Oliver style;
• inviting someone around who doesn’t normally cook for themselves, and making them a meal while they watch and maybe have a glass of wine. Showing is always more convincing than telling, and maybe after a few tries they’ll get involved.

What do you think?

Bittman’s booklet is available online via byliner.com for just under three bucks (US), and you can read an excerpt for free. If you’re interested in food issues, it’s well worth a look.

Best of 2010

I spent a lot of time reading and watching environmentally-themed stuff last year. I thought I’d share my top 3 picks with you in case you missed them earlier on. Click through for my original reviews with more details and links to the makers’ websites.

• Gasland – a documentary about gas drilling in the USA, which made me want to cry and get angry and protest, but also made me laugh and share the hope that we can avoid this here in Australia. The filmmaker stays mostly out of the picture, preferring to highlight the people and the beautiful landscapes which have been affected by this fossil fuel industry. When he’s onscreen, it’s mostly to ask questions of those people, or of us. It’s relevant to Australia not only because they’re trying to do the same kind of gas drilling here, but also because it shows how corporations will co-opt governments if given a chance. I can’t recommend it highly enough!
• What’s Mine Is Yours – a book about how ‘reuse’, one of the green movement’s most important principles, is becoming the new way to do business in the 21st century. What I find fascinating is that the people using these new-style sharing services often consider the environmental help as a cherry on top of an experience they find fun and useful for themselves. This backs up what us greenies have always said, that green principles have many benefits besides the environmental ones. Collaborative consumption seems like a great way to show and demonstrate those benefits to people, without lecturing them.
• No Impact Man – one man’s stunt project to go from a fully convenience-driven life to  zero-impact living within a year turns into a life-changing experience. Along the way he reflects on what we really need to live a good life, and what it means to be part of a community. There are plenty of stories of people becoming self-sufficient on big properties in the country – but if everyone did it, what would happen to our forests and bushland? No Impact Man gets to zero-impact in the middle of one of the biggest cities on earth, and is still doing it today. I enjoyed this book at the time, but I didn’t realise what a long-term effect it would have on my thinking. It’s really changed my goals for the future…

So what were your favourites last year? Did anything have a profound influence on you? Was there anything you found less worthwhile?

Review: Gasland

Last night I went to the movies with friends to see Gasland, a documentary about natural gas extraction in the USA. I was keen to see it because the Queensland government is trying to get a similar type of drilling started on farmland there, and I wanted to know more about it.

The documentary started as one guy, Josh Fox, investigated the hydraulic fracturing (‘fracking’) process after a gas company offers him $100,000 to drill on his land. His journey takes him to 24 states in the USA, to a congressional hearing, and to the Environmental Protection Authority there.

Natural gas is often put forward as a transitional energy source, to wean us off coal. But it’s still a finite substance, and we’ve used quite a lot of the easy-to-reach amounts already. As our energy demands grow, the pressure to use more marginal (i.e. difficult to extract) sources will become intense. As you see in the movie, fracking is a dangerous way of getting to marginal sources, but if you can remove regulations to protect the safety of workers, citizens and the environment, it can be pretty profitable.

A lot of the footage is from Fox’s home video camera, which as you can guess is pretty shaky. But it includes some of the most beautiful landscapes in the US, and honest interviews with the sick and heartbroken people affected by this corporate greed, so it’s worth putting up with the occasional blurry shots.

The bleak humour shown by these people under such difficult circumstances is endearing, and I really warmed to them. They had no idea things would get so bad, that they’d be forced to prove their water didn’t have toxic sludge in it before the fracking started. Now they’re just dealing with it as best they can.

Fox has a low-key style – he’s no Michael Moore. He just explains what he found out, in the same way that he discovered it, and lets the evidence speak for itself. Hydraulic fracturing is a dirty, poisonous process, and the lack of regulation in the USA just makes it worse. If our governments spend their time making things easy for corporations instead of protecting citizens, then what can be done about it? Fox doesn’t have all the answers, but he’s shining a light on the issue so at least we can see clearly what is going on.

Recommended?
If you are living in an area under consideration for fracking (see the trailer below to see the red zones on the map of Australia, at 2:55 minutes), or you have friends or family in those areas, you must see Gasland before our governments get too involved in it*. Everyone else should see it too, because it’s the best summary you’ll get of what’s going on, in a just-the-facts-ma’am presentation. It’s showing in independent cinemas right now, but I’m sure that either the ABC or SBS will pick it up as soon as it’s available for tv.

* I’d also suggest that people in affected areas get their water (and soil?) tested before any drilling starts!

5-star review at Empire Magazine

Gasland Trailer

Review and giveaway: Smart Gardening

Thanks to Exisle Publishing I’ve been given a copy of Marcelle Nankervis’ book Smart Gardening, which is about how to grow your own fruit and vegetables while saving money and helping the environment. The publishers have been generous and given me a 2nd copy to give away to one of my readers – so why not read my review then enter my little competition to win it?

You might recognise Marcelle Nankervis from TV shows like Burke’s Backyard and Better Homes and Gardens. She’s a passionate gardener who believes that permaculture principles are a great way to help people grow produce in their backyard.

The book is in two main sections: the first covers the basics of soil preparation, watering, plant selection, pest control, backyard animals and so on; the second is a month-by-month description of what needs to be done for gardens in each climate. I liked that the monthly tasks included preparation for fire and wet season rains, as well as the standard vegetable information.

The permaculture principles aren’t presented in a lecturing way. They’re just integrated into the other information in a chatty style, with explanations of why these methods work so well for sustainability.

There’s a focus on Australian and New Zealand climates and plants which I really appreciated. Of course you can grow exotic species, but if you understand your growing situation well then you’ll be able to make good decisions about which ones will adapt well and which will struggle to survive.

The book covers the basics really well, without getting bogged down in finicky details. I’m a big believer in the “just do it” principle of gardening, so this suits me fine. I also enjoyed the focus on ornamental plants that will work well with fruits and vegetables – rather than keeping them separate, Nankervis suggests bringing them together to confuse pests and make your garden more attractive. If there were a second edition, I’d love to see an extra little section on how native birds and frogs can add to your garden, and ways to attract them.

Recommended?
Smart Gardening is a great book for gardeners who are ready to branch out from a few herbs in pots, or the standard roses and so on. It gives you good suggestions on how to get started, and follows up with a plan for the maintenance you’ll need. I think it’s also make a great gift for someone who’s wondered about growing their own vegetables but is a little uncertain of how to get going. Nankervis’ conversational style makes it an easy read, and it has large text and room for your own seasonal notes.

Competition
If you’d like to win a copy of Smart Gardening, please leave a comment on this post before Friday, 5pm Western Standard Time (so that’s 8pm Eastern Daylight Savings hours for you east-coasters!). I’ll pick a winner at random and email them to let them know. It doesn’t have to be an essay, just a short sentence or two expressing your enthusiasm for gardening or willingness to give it a go

Review: What’s Mine Is Yours

Thanks to HarperCollins, I was given a copy of “What’s Mine is Yours” by Rachel Botsman and Roo Roberts to review. It’s about collaborative consumption, the new way of sharing products and services that eco-conscious people are really enjoying and taking advantage of lately. You might remember that I linked to Botsman’s TEDxSydney talk on the subject a while ago.

Before there were giant shopping centres and a car in every driveway, people would share their stuff and their expertise with their neighbours and co-workers. Now the internet and our postal systems allow us to reclaim old virtues and share with people all over the whole world. This fascinating book covers the mid-20th century rise of hyper-consumption, and then looks into the ways in which new technology is disrupting this and bringing us back to older patterns of sharing, redistribution and collaboration.

There are interviews with the creators of modern businesses like AirBnB, Couchsurf, ZipCar and Bixi as product service systems, eBay and swap sites for redistributing excess consumer goods, and bartering and skill-share organisations for collaborative lifestyles. The authors look at what these successful businesses have in common: trust systems, a belief in the economic concept of ‘the commons’, a high idling capacity, and an early critical mass of supporters.

All of these services were created by a person or a community with a geniune need, not a marketing guru. All of them have built a group of excited, passionate users who aren’t just being green, they’re fulfilling their need for new-to-them things and a feeling of belonging. They’re valuing the experiences over mere stuff, and using the internet to get off the internet and meet people instead!

I enjoyed reading the creation-stories of businesses I already use, and to hear about new ones that support my ethics of consumption. I hadn’t really considered that it was technology making this return to ‘old-fashioned’ values possible, by helping us dodge the standard marketing practices, but the authors have convinced me that these businesses will thrive in the 21st century. We’ve got to reduce our eco-footprint, and collaborative consumption helps us do that in a fun and satisfying way.

Recommended?
Anyone trying to work out how to earn a living in a sustainable way should read this. It examines the success stories of people forging a new path, to see what worked for them, and the final section explores the ways in which these factors will expand in the future. And anyone who’s interested in how new technology is changing our society for the better will get a kick out of the stories of creative people using the internet to do the right thing by our communities and our planet. It’s an enjoyable read and I’ll be passing it on (via a bookswap site!) to make sure that more people are getting a look at it.

If you’re interested, check out the Collaborative Consumption site for more interviews and videos and resources.