Milkweed

Milkweed flower

It is important for the survival of the monarch butterfly that there is a 'milkweed highway' from Canada all the way down to Mexico. This is because milkweed in the only plant on which monarch caterpillars feed. Growing milkweed does not have to be just for this reason. The flower is attractive and the smell is strong, which makes it an appealing nectar source for other insects as well. Honey bees can harvest the nectar for their honey, solitary bees, and other butterflies come feed too.

Monarch caterpillar

The most fascinating part of my milkweed education was learning that it is food for humans too! I love all things edible, and as an environmentalist farmer I like finding perennial food sources that don't require any digging! 

Here is what I learned from a book called Backyard Foraging by Ellen Zachos:

Young milkweed shoots are tender and can be harvested when they are 6 to 8 inches tall, just snap them at the base. Then, remove the mature leaves but leave a few immature leaves at the top of the stem. To eat milkweed, you need to boil or blanch the plant before cooking with it. This removes the bitter sticky white goo inside. Once it has been immersed in boiling water for 1 or 2 minutes, treat it like green beans. They taste similar to green beans, but better (according to Ellen!).

The unopened flower buds are described as being tastier than broccoli. Harvest when they are still tightly bunched together, green, and golf ball size. Again, you must blanch first. Then try steaming them with salt and serve with olive oil.


The immature seedpods (1 1/2 inches long, inside should be all white- the seeds should not be turning brown yet!) can be harvested and blanched. Then, try them in soups, stews, or stir-fries. 

Eden is a place where we can live from the land without destroying it. What better way than to allow this 'weed' a place in your garden. The monarch gets a place to lay eggs, the bees get a drink of nectar, and you get to try eating one of thousands of plant species we have forgotten.

Fantastic!

I Will Never be Vegetarian

I assume everyone reading this blog knows about the impact eating meat has on the environment. If you don't, and you want to educate yourself here is one link out of hundreds of resources available to you:  https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/meat-and-environment/ I am not a scientist and the point of this blog is not to bombard you with statistics, so please look elsewhere for those icy numbers.

For years I have been toying with becoming Vegetarian because I know it is the Right Thing to do. For a few years I wasn't doing it because I was in a relationship with someone who was very outspoken against vegetarianism and veganism (he genuinely believed if my friend would eat meat she could be magically cured of a chronic illness). Then for a couple years my excuse became that I didn't want to inconvenience my family.

Two months ago I learned that I suffer from co-dependency issues. I am afraid that by standing up for my beliefs and my ethics people will not like me, so I let myself disappear into the background. Having vocabulary for behavioural patterns is instrumental in being able to alter them. This is impacting several aspects of my life, including my diet. I wasn't becoming vegetarian, something I have always believed in, simply because I was afraid of setting a boundary.

I will never be Vegetarian. The label "vegetarian" is associated with hippies who love animals and think with their emotions first. I have worked on farms that produce animals for meat, and I have plucked the heart from the bodies of many dead turkeys in my line of work. I do not want to be a Vegetarian.

I do practice vegetarianism and I do eat a plant-based diet because I am an Environmentalist. I no longer eat meat. I want my intake of animal products (products like eggs and cheese) to be a very occasional treat. Eating fish of any kind has been off the table for me for awhile since I educated myself on the effects of fishing on our oceans (which will be dead by 2050 if we continue as we are). 

If you are an environmentalist I strongly suggest you practice vegetarianism. If you aren't sure how that would help, there is a lot of information out there that will convince you without a doubt that it is a necessity. If you suffer from a fear of judgement the way I do, start small. Setting boundaries for people with co-dependency issues is very difficult, but you need to. None of us should be afraid of being ostracized for doing the right thing. Practice vegetarianism for meals when you are alone at the very least. 

This is the simple biggest thing you can do to reduce your impact on the environment. It is time to start.

The Us Versus Them Bias

At lunch break my colleague expressed sorrow for the people who saved up money for a holiday and had to come home early because of hurricane Irma. Another colleague said yes, but they were lucky because she knows that some people weren't even able to book another flight-- they had to stay for the storm.
I frowned over my lunch and quietly said "yes, it is a shame for the rich people* who have gone on vacation. I think it's probably worse for the people who actually live there."
They immediately agreed, but it hit on a theme I had been thinking of for a few months. 

I remember in middle school we learned about the rainforest in science class. The ongoing destruction of this delicate forest for more farmland. What they didn't teach us was that this farmland was used to grow crops that would feed livestock and that by eating meat we were contributing to the destruction of forest ecosystems. They also didn't teach us that Canada's forests are also continuously being cut down and burned for agriculture. Instead, they taught me that people in these almost imaginary far off lands were less educated than our class of 12 year olds. They were cutting down these precious forests because they didn't know any better. 

By that age I knew enough about Canadian history to know that all the farmland around my school had once been a mature forest. It seemed that if we cut down forests in the past, that was okay, but people cutting down forests now was bad. And since all our forests were cut down a long time ago, we can no longer take any of the blame for ongoing climate change.

Last year I worked as an organic farm inspector. Before I go on, I want to point out that I do believe in organic farming and that all farming should be organic by default. Pouring poison directly on our shared planet and directly on the plants that feed us is frankly horrifying. But here is something problematic I discovered during the course of my work.

In order to avoid the three year transition phase for a conventional field to produce organic food** farmers were clearing forested land in order to plant their organic crop and earn certification in their first year. Because this land had never been farmed conventionally there was no need for a transition period. 

This is the problem when ethics clash with capitalism. Farmers are business people. They want more money for the business. That forest is not generating any income, we need to downsize the parts of the business that do not generate income and expand into new product lines that do. Hence, cut down the forest to produce organic buckwheat, hemp, corn, soybeans. Of course, this goes against the philosophy of organics, but it is hugely wound in our society's way of perceiving money as Good above all else. We worship the thing that makes us slaves.

Blaming people across the world for practices we ourselves perform, and then feeling sympathy for our own when natural disasters (exacerbated by our thirst for carbon and our destruction of perennial vegetation) is all part of the same problem. We see Us as something different than Them.  We are all humans that share one planet. If we could do away with borders, maybe we could see that more clearly. What affects one person in our global community affects us all. 

It can be overwhelming as an individual to realize our way of life is being attacked by capitalism and climate change from all directions, and yet we do have power to change things. Want to fight back against capitalism? Stop consuming more than what you need. Want to reduce your impact on the earth? Stop participating in practices that are known to contribute to climate change. In the meantime, we need to stop blaming the Other and start holding ourselves and our neighbours and our communities accountable for what we have the power to change.


*I know that not everyone who goes on holiday is rich from the lens of someone who lives in Canada. Compared to their neighbours they may not consider themselves rich, but compared to the global community, they are.

**Farmers want to avoid this transition period as the first years of transition have lower yields and as the crop is still considered conventional, they cannot demand the higher prices that make organic production competitive.

Drinking to a Healthy Community

Buy local.

We all know we should do it, and there are some pretty obvious ways we know how. Choose the local strawberries, shop at your farmer's market, buy soaps and Christmas gifts from local small businesses. 

Even though in principle I know I ought to buy local, there are some areas of my consumption where I had never connected the dots. Possibly because it had never occurred to me that there was a local alternative to the brand names with which I was familiar. 

I'm talking about spirits and cocktails.

My first priority in moving into my very own apartment was to have a fully stocked bar. Yes, nothing screams privilege like having your own bar and I was a good little consumer for wanting one. Luckily my mother made me the first offering toward my home bar; a bottle of gin distilled only an hour's drive away. This opened my eyes to the fact that I previously had thought nothing of buying gin imported from England, despite always choosing wine based on geographical proximity (anything but Merlot and Chardonnay, obviously).

To my delight there are several other flavourful Canadian gins(one is certified organic)! It doesn't end there, in the winter I am fond of Baileys in my coffee. Would you believe there were two Canadian cream liquors available in my local boozery? Not only that but I found Canadian coffee liquors, vodka, and whisky. Everything I wanted for my bar had a local equivalent. Though the brand name was different, the flavour and price were basically identical. 

Eden's Rise is about making our world more habitable, for ourselves and those who share this earth with us. What better way to be an activist than by choosing to consume products that have travelled a shorter distance?

Cheers to you!