Before meals the monks pray. They say, “This food is for my body, not for enjoyment.” I think it’s ok to enjoy while you’re eating, but if you shove someone aside so you can have your favorite food then that’s just not right.

The other day someone said, in all seriousness, “I’m just trying to survive.” Business was slow, and though their ‘survival’ was at stake, they were using their money to pay me to wash the windows of their large home. We have a funny concept of survival. Their life isn’t at stake, their lifestyle is. A lot of us confuse the two, and since lifestyle is an extension of identity, the idea of changing it is equated with some kind of death. But it’s not death, it’s pride or vanity that causes the pain.

Food abounds. What if we ate what we had, not what we sought? And what if that was satisfactory?

I see why the monks warn us about enjoying food: Some of us buy our favorite food – even if we’re supporting companies that harm people – because we’re addicted to our lifestyles. I don’t think happiness depends on what we eat, so that’s not an excuse. When we’re addicted to something, we make compromises to secure it.

We know very little about what’s in food and how it works in our bodies. Though we know about big things like carbs and protein and fat and fiber, there’re dozens, if not hundreds, of other ‘things’ that make up a pepper. These things – together I’m calling them ‘spirit’ – include anti-oxidants and other chemical compounds that we haven’t yet studied. We might not know their significance, but we do know we evolved eating veggies & animals complete with that spirit, and now we’re not.

Most food – even organic food – in most grocery stores comes from land where there’s only one crop in the ground. This practice is called monoculture. For example, peppers come from a farm where there are only peppers. This is cheaper because it means that the land can be worked by machine or at least in an assembly-line style. All the sun and water and fertilizer goes to the same crop, so they end up with huge, handsome peppers that are delicious to the eyes.

On the modern, industrial farm this means that the peppers keep pulling the same nutrients out of the soil. If the farm is going to keep producing peppers, the soil needs a boost from fertilizers. Large-scale farms will likely use man-made, industrial fertilizer, which supplies the nutrients that help peppers grow.

The fertilizer is good for making it grow, but is it good for making it whole? Probably not. Monoculture doesn’t exist in nature, in fact it’s unique in earth’s history to our modern age. Monoculture removes its peppers from the natural cycle of life, which is the source of spirit.

In the wild, a pepper lives among other plants, fights for resources, fights off bugs, eats decomposed vegetation that’s been pooped out by worms – the natural cycle of life. Plants evolved to live in close quarters with other plants of other species, so that’s how they’ll grow most healthily, that’s how they’ll develop spirit.

Our bodies evolved to eat foods that come from healthy soil (and water). Our bodies evolved to eat plants that live among other plants. We evolved to eat foods complete with spirit, so that’s how we’ll grow most healthily ourselves.

If farmers, to save money, make compromises on the health of their soil, we compromise our own health by buying their peppers.

This is why just eating vegetables isn’t good enough. This is why just eating organic isn’t good enough, this is why just eating local isn’t good enough. To eat healthily we need to eat from healthy land. What does this look like?

Healthy land lives. It has many different plants that take different nutrients from the soil and give other nutrients back. This is the basis of polyculture farming (or ideally, permaculture) – different plants help each other. Worms are another pillar of healthy land, turning dead vegetation into soil that’s rich in the nutrients that living plants love.

Womb-apples are prehistosexy.

So, what’s at stake? A lot of these ideas come directly from Michael Pollan. In his inspiring book, In Defense of Food, he makes a compelling argument that the diseases of civilization are the result of the modern industrial diet. These diseases include cancer, heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, varicose veins and hemorrhoids, and more. To me, the point is this: we know that we evolved eating foods that grew in a wild, natural context. Are we so arrogant that we think we can circumvent nature without compromising our health?

The best way to ensure that you’re eating from healthy soil is to eat what’s growing wild. The next best is to grow the food yourself. Failing that, go to a farmers’ market and buy from farmers who are small enough that they care about the quality of their soil and plants. If shopping at a grocery store, shop at a cooperative that has information on the farms from which it buys its produce.

Avoid buying vegetables in industrial packaging. Avoid buying veggies from grocery stores like QFC or Safeway or Costco. If you’re in a pinch for time, go home and throw together a meal from what you already have at home, I’ll bet you didn’t even need to shop that day.

Again, the closer you are to your source – the fewer hands through which your money passes to get to the soil – the more sure you can be that the health of the pepper is not being compromised. And, in turn, you’ll be healthier and spiritier.

Three times a day you medicate yourself. Be efficient and discriminating.

Be overjoyed about wild crab.

1 – Use no electricity after sundown.
We found that we adjusted quickly to the rhythm of the day when we used candles for our light. The only exception we really made was when we had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, as it’s kinda important to see what you’re peeing on. (It’s hard for me to enjoy the day’s rhythm when I see how sad it makes Azure to clean up my pee.) We’d also make an exception if we cooked on an electric stove.

No electricity means no phone, no computer, no tv, no recorded music, no light bulbs. Let the night close your eyes, let the sun open them.

2 – Stop paying attention to the news.
The primary function of the news is to reinforce cultural myths, one of which is that we have something to fear. The news is a distraction from what’s real. It is an unnecessary injection of fear and mistrust into lives that are – in reality – pretty darn peaceful almost all of the time. Have you noticed how peaceful your life is? Any news worth knowing will come from another person’s mouth. Forget the news, except maybe tomorrow’s weather.

3 – Decide what you’re going to eat tomorrow night based on what you have today.
Look in your garden and build your meal around the ripe veggies that are begging to be eaten. Use tonight’s leftovers (and trimmings) as tomorrow’s flavor. Take out of the freezer what you’ve been saving and give it 24 hours to think about what it can become. Make a slow meal your day-long theme, and include your loved ones in its preparation.

(OK, since everyone is going to ask, that last picture is “Cassoulet,” a traditional dish in southwest France, as prepared by Didier. Duck meat is salted all night, then the next morning it’s cooked in its own fat. In the mean time they’re cooking white beans with carrots, onions, sage, laurel, sausage, bacon and sea salt. Then serve with brown rice and place the duck on top. Voila!)

The free haul!

We came here expecting meals that were pasta-heavy, or maybe collages of whatever they could scrounge together. Lettuce sandwiches for dinner, that kind of thing. But the truth is that I don’t know if I’ve been around a family that eats better, in all senses of the word. The food is fresh and free from chemicals. It’s very local. It’s cooked slowly. It’s eaten with the whole family. It’s appreciated. It’s often nurtured from seed to table. It’s balanced. And it’s DELICIOUS. Last night we had a sheep’s heart that was roasted in pork fat with an herb & red wine sauce. Sides were mashed potatoes, fresh salad with dijon dressing, cauliflower with champagne-cheese sauce, bread and wine and cheese and a yogurt-honey dessert. Much of this was food she actually produced herself. The pork fat & bones were left over from the night before, when we had pork ribs cooked in that same casserole. That pork was cooked in the chicken drippings from the night before (which was cooked in the same casserole). And so on.

Mom (an awesome American ex-pat from Shelton, of all places) has something on the burner all day. Despite spending no money on food, there’s always plenty, so much that they give food away to some needy neighbors (this experience calls into question the meaning of “poor” – is it someone with little money or someone who lacks what they need?). During the day she and her 3-year-old daughter work in the garden, feed the chickens, cook, preserve fruits & veggies, forage. Her husband works 18 hours a week, a full load for teachers here (and they assume another 18 hours will be worked at home grading papers, etc). State health care covers 85% of the medical bills, while supplemental private insurance (which costs $65 a year for the family) covers the last 15%.

After spending a couple weeks with Claude and Margarite on the olive farm, where they’re stingy with everything from heat to water to food, it was a shock to come somewhere where they’re even cheaper with the money but are so much more generous with everything else. We were invited to have all the homemade jam we want (including sour cherry and rose petal jam, orange-watermelon jam, fig chutney, etc), pickled veggies and salads from the garden. In fact she invited us to eat anything we find here – it all comes back to her somehow. We’re staying in their house for free, in exchange for what’s been very little work. They don’t just believe in abundance, they live the abundance.

Preserves!