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Food and Choice

© Bob Ewing

September is upon us. The leaves along the street have begun to yellow an slowly fall to the earth. The Wheel of the Year is turning and Fall is a few weeks away. Outside of town the first frosts have arrived.

Decisions can be tough to make, there are so many factors to consider. Take food for example-- after all we are what we eat. Your decisions may be influenced by ethical or health issues. So you cpuld become a vegan. This choice requires you to eliminate all animal products from your diet. Or you could elect to go vegetarian.

You could decide that you want to follow your ethnic heritage and include foods in your diet which reflect that decision. Or you may want to add the tastes and texture of another culture to your daily dining.

You may choose to keep meat in your menu and experience the wide array of dishes that await you. You can grow some of your own food or purchase it all, in a variety of ways. You may want to develop you abilities to look after yourself and learn how to find your own food.

Or you may include food in your religious or spiritual celebrations. Of course, your eating behaviour may well combine several of the above in a style that could be uniquely your own.Food, what we eat and how we obtain it, is a major issue when it comes to forming an intentional or alternative community.

You need to know what is important to you and what you can walk away from. If you are a vegetarian, can you share meals with people who enjoy meat? If you believe that all food must be grown organically, can you live with someone who buys from a chain supermarket and doesn't care how the food was grown?

Try this, for the next week record all that you eat. Divide a sheet of paper into two columns, one for what you ate and another, for why you ate it. Under what, include where it came from supermarket, fast food, grew it yourself.

At the end of the week, review your list. What other choices were available to you?If you are considering living in an intentional community the better you understand yourself, the easier it will be to know others.

You are what you eat

Vegetarian

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