New Year's Resolution Eat Less Meat!

ADAPT OR DIE! 

Accepting that one of the finest solutions to the environmental crises that the planet currently faces
(see previous post Change the World? Change your diet) is for the human species to adapt to 
a vegetarian diet, and I mean all of us, I can see that this is not going to happen, at least not today.

So here is a watered down approach...

Meat lovers don't despair. In life there is room for a little vice, so my advice is eat roast chicken on Sundays, but buy free range. At worst it costs double, so eat half!

What I have found since making my new year's resolution is that cutting down on meat is not as hard as it seems. I've become a fan of Fresh Earth in Emmerentia because they support those of us trying to eat organic and well, but point is, they make a big juicy burger right out of your American dreams, piled high with delicious extras, served with shoestring fries and golden onion rings. It’s vegetarian, but you would never say!

So I have decided it is possible to save the world:

Do it with Diet!

Five things we can do right now:

1. Many people believe they cannot change their diet, that it will be too difficult. If that’s you, start with one day a week. Try holding a “meatless Monday” and only consume plant products, vegetables, grains, and legumes. Also, drink water or non-dairy beverages, such as almond, rice or soy milk. Your taste buds will thank you for the variety and the nutrition.

2. Every time you go to a grocery store, restaurant, or eat a meal at home, choose wisely and your action can bring immediate, positive consequences to healing yourself and our planet. You can make a difference. Change the world one forkful at a time.

3. Make a meal plan: Meal plans are a great way of creating variety in the choice of food and recipes that you use at home. The great meal plans from the Fresh Earth website do all of the work for you by supplying you with shopping lists, recipes and most importantly a balanced diet for the week.

4. Raise healthy kids. Tasty lunch boxes that are free of fatty, nutritionally-poor, convenience foods like chips and chocolates are a great way to ensure healthy kids and to educate your kids about the right food choices.

Creating tasty, happy lunch boxes is so easy. Involve your child in the process and give them options to choose from.

And most of all (speaking to myself, but you might as well think about it too):
TASTE YOUR FOOD, EAT SLOWLY, IN THE OLD DAYS, FOOD WAS NOT EASY TO COME BY AND WE USED TO SAVOUR OUR FOOD. AFTER A LONG DAYS HUNTING, GATHERING AND COOKING, THE FINAL MOUTHFUL WAS A HARD-EARNED REWARD. GET BACK THAT GOOD FEELING BY SPARKING THE FIRE (STOVE)AND INVESTING TIME AND TALENT IN PREPARING YOUR OWN FOOD.

but enough caps for now.
from me, here's to happy healthy eating in 2010 and a world for our children's children.
awe awe awe

Change the world? Change your diet!

But wait...

I DO have the power to save the world!

As the consumer I am still king, by virtue of having the choice about which products to support and which to ignore. Ordinary shoppers like you and me have the ability to change the world, one grocery list at a time.

What we are seeing is that the way we view our diet, and the choices we make about what we eat, is rapidly becoming one of the most astounding tools we have in our personal arsenal to save the planet, at a time when saving the planet couldn’t be more necessary.

Healthy eating is an incredibly powerful way to reduce one’s carbon footprint and tackle the environmental crisis.

My firey vegan friends tell me, at the slightest opening that they have the solution to the world’s problems – it’s simple, cut out meat. While this can be incredibly annoying, the inconvenient truth is that they are right!

My love for meat is killing us, and our planet, one burger at a time.

I've also recently discovered, via a YouTube clip and other sources that every human being, standing side to side, would fit on a piece of land the size of Manhattan Island!
It’s not our numbers that is the problem, it’s our diet!

Even if the only “vegetarian” I’ll ever become is one that eats vegetarians, (har!) the striking reality is that simply by reducing my dependence on meat as a staple food, (and by only eating free range meat products) I’ll personally be contributing to saving billions of litres of water, reducing pollution and maintaining plant and animal diversity on earth, never mind the fact that I will be showing solidarity with the other sentient beings, captive as we speak, in the Meatrix. (see multi-award winning Meatrix mini movie on Youtube)

Consider these facts that look solely on the impact of a reduced meat diet on saving water:

Firstly, over one billion people worldwide do not have access to clean drinking water. That is an indictment on our treatment of our own species!

I have been informed on good authority (a wild bunny-hugger party dubbed Slaughterfest which began with a heavy talk by one Aragorn Eloff, from whom these saucy stats were recalled) that I could personally help solve this crisis by skipping just one beef burger (250g patty). This act would have a greater impact on saving water than if you were to skip 300 baths, (at approximately 80 litres per bath), so basically not bathing for almost a year!
Did you get that? Option one: order the veggie burger just once for a change
                           Option two: don't bath 'til Christmas 2011.
Same water saving!

This is because it takes approximately 100 000 litres of water to make one kilogram of beef!

It takes only 500 litres of water to make one kilo of potatoes, and 1000 litres for a kilo of rice!
Roasted vegetable risotto (can be quite yummy, actually) would be doing the planet a massive favour.

Macdonalds produces one billion burgers every year (well that was 1963 when they were still letting us know. Now, they have terminated that particular strategy, but the figures of 1993 were just under 6 billion, add 17 years and you get the picture, and that’s just one burger chain!).

So, using the outdated figure, we could hypothesise that if Macdonalds were to agree to close shop for just one year, (skip producing 1 billion burgers) the unfortunate one billion people would have all the water they need!

But that’s unlikely to happen, so the other alternative is that we, as consumers, gang up to give one billion burgers a miss. We could help the one billion people in jeopardy with sufficient drinking water for 17 years!

The figures boggle the mind, but equations like these are all over the net!

As Veg Source puts it, “So what's the beef with beef, when it comes to water?”
“Simply put: it's wasteful and irresponsible to squander our precious resources on a luxury item like meat.”

It is easy to feel numbed by your own inability to solve these massive problems alone, yet in the spirit of “being the change you want to see in the world”, my starting point is to get the truth, and after that, to line up my conscience with the knowledge I've acquired and take the necessary actions.

Letter to Nelson Mandela

 Tata Mandela!

We come humbly before you as two young South Africans who have grown up in the wake of your vision, and have endeavored with all our courage and faith to live up to the standards you set as an example to your people.

We approach 2010 with hope and enthusiasm to share our country with the world, but also trepidation. The muttering has increased and is becoming a roar. 

Your people long for your voice of reason and truth in a treacherous time while our current leaders bicker about old family feuds, or retreat into their ivory towers and remain silent.

You can no longer remain silent, dear Tata. You are our elder, our father, our leader and the anointed one put on this earth by God himself to give this country a hope for a future.

While God has been gracious and has given you a much needed respite, while you are still in this life, your mandate is not complete. You have fathered a nation and now your children come before you to request your blessing! We need your final words to guide us going forward.

Thank you for your divine message of forgiveness. Thank you for initiating the difficult process of reconciliation.  Thank you for believing in us. We continue to believe in you.

We cry out for your word of encouragement, Tata. We need to know we are doing okay. We need to be re-assured that we have not surrendered to this almighty experiment as a nation without bringing forth any fruit.

Tata, we invite you accompany us, Kristi and Tammy for a visit to Emmarentia Dam, a popular natural spot in Jo’burg, our very own “Central Park”, where we believe you will be able to comment on the miracle of a rainbow nation as it lives and breathes today. 

The vision you had for us is alive and well and evident in the joyful playing of children, in the strange hybrid accents that abound, in the neighborliness that exists in neighborhoods that are now very much cosmopolitan.

The truth, Tata, is that ordinary people have accepted racial integration and have adapted well to it. White people have endeavored to throw out the brain-washing their parents would have had them cling to, and the astonishing majority of blacks, coloureds and Indians have graciously forgiven their previous oppressors in their hearts and followed the divine standard you set.

May God be glorified for the truth and the future that lies in a path of forgiveness. In schools around the country our children are playing together.

We keep reminding ourselves that it will take time for real healing to occur, but now, at the end of 2009, we ask you and the nation to take a fresh look around. It is happening! For many, it has happened!

 As children of the new South Africa, we have surely had to show the way to our parents, but even our parents are trying everyday to free their own minds from the bitterness of the past. As for the youth, we are crying out for a reason to celebrate and feel proud of ourselves. Only you can give us this chance.

Please, Tata, we beseech you, deliver a Christmas message to the people, a message of goodwill, of hope and encouragement. 

On the ground, ordinary people are doing their very best to live up to your miraculous vision and are devastated that this vision might be threatened by the ignorance and stupidity of some, even by those with a voice and influence.

You need not prepare a long speech, just accompany us to Emmarentia Dam for an afternoon’s outing to meet the children that happen to be there, and the families, co-existing and enjoying public space together in exactly the manner you hoped and prayed for.

We wait anxiously for your word on how we are doing. Your people will delight in having you to wish them well. We know we are human, that we fail, but yet, we so need you to give us a thumbs up.

With love in our hearts and a prayer on our lips,

Two of your children.

Kristi and Tammy.

Below is the scripture we were given as we were sitting atop a koppie overlooking the northern suburbs of Johannesburg (Lonehill Koppie). This scripture came shortly after the idea was born for “A Christmas message from Madiba”.

(PS. May we You Tube it? Your people both in South Africa and abroad need to hear this. It should also be broadcast across the nation.)

Call Kristi 0825288322 or email kristisecret@gmail.com.

I work for a PR agency and would be happy to help to film and distribute the “Christmas Message from Madiba” but hold no bones if it has to be done another way.

Isaiah 61

A prophesy over Mandela, South Africa and 2010

The Year of the LORD's Favor

 ¹ The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
       because the LORD has anointed me
       to preach good news to the poor.
       He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
       to proclaim freedom for the captives
       and release from darkness for the prisoners, ^[a]

 ² to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor
       and the day of vengeance of our God,
       to comfort all who mourn,
 ³ and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
       to bestow on them a crown of beauty
       instead of ashes,
       the oil of gladness
       instead of mourning,
       and a garment of praise
       instead of a spirit of despair.
       They will be called oaks of righteousness,
       a planting of the LORD
       for the display of his splendor.
 ⁴ They will rebuild the ancient ruins
       and restore the places long devastated;
       they will renew the ruined cities
       that have been devastated for generations.
 ⁵ Aliens will shepherd your flocks;
       foreigners will work your fields and vineyards.
 ⁶ And you will be called priests of the LORD,
       you will be named ministers of our God.
       You will feed on the wealth of nations,
       and in their riches you will boast.
 ⁷ Instead of their shame
       my people will receive a double portion,
       and instead of disgrace
       they will rejoice in their inheritance;
       and so they will inherit a double portion in their land,
       and everlasting joy will be theirs.
 ⁸ "For I, the LORD, love justice;
       I hate robbery and iniquity.
       In my faithfulness I will reward them
       and make an everlasting covenant with them.
 ⁹ Their descendants will be known among the nations
       and their offspring among the peoples.
       All who see them will acknowledge
       that they are a people the LORD has blessed."
 ¹⁰ I delight greatly in the LORD;
       my soul rejoices in my God.
       For he has clothed me with garments of salvation
       and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness,
       as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest,
       and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
 ¹¹ For as the soil makes the sprout come up
       and a garden causes seeds to grow,
       so the Sovereign LORD will make righteousness and praise
       spring up before all nations.

The youth of SA: One Big Social Experiment

Welcome World!

80 days from 2010 and South Africa has a lot of positive thinking to do, to actualise a global event that will showcase a new way to the rest of the world, an African way of thinking, celebrating and living that will offer fresh, living alternatives to some of the outdated ideas that we, for too long, have ascribed to. Well, that's the plan isn't it? 2010, the final countdown, the world and a football, and a return to our shared origins in Africa. That's how I've seen it anyway, in my dreams. But first, let's get some hard evidence that there is indeed some fresh thinking going on down south...

I have long been convinced that my own generation of South Africans is one well worth investigating, debating and considering, in light of our catalytic position in both the history of our own country and in the world at large.

Born in the eighties, we were but babes in arms when the Bad Time in South Africa's history, the cursed A word, was coming to a violent and uncertain end. Now in our twenties, we have been marched, without our formal consent through the painful and yet enlightening process of becoming radically refashioned from one mental paradigm, (the divisive suspicion, even hatred towards the "other" of our parents' generation), towards the united, deracialised thinking of... the ideal future generations of South Africa. And what a dream we dreamed when first we dreamed it. The rainbow nation, a melting pot of cultures, a petri dish for the cultivations of new hybrids, new ideas, new cultures.

The New South African is imagined as a consmopolitan, humane, rational, freindly individual - much like the father of our nation, Nelson Mandela. The New South African is a person who forgives the greatest of injustices with a gracious smile, extending the arm of friendship even in the face of insult and bitterness. A person in the pursuit of moving forward, tirelessly putting one foot before the other on the long walk to freedom.

The new South African is almost saintly in his or her generosity of spirit and actions toward reconcilition. These reconfigured people are now genuinely curious about the other, with no evidence of the war-wounded, crime-scarred, nerve-shattering suspicion of their forebears in their demeanor.

The New South African is a construct developed by the original nation builders, Madiba, Tutu and De Clerk, to give the nation hope for the future, despite that this set of character traits is rare anywhere in the world, and can hardly be programmed into every citizen of a country ripped apart by ancient fueds, bitter rumour and segregatory legislation.

Much to our disappointment, racism and segregation is a natural tendency in human beings, from a past of tribalism and self- and/or community-preservation.

It has struck me that, without our being fully aware of it, my generation is a powerful experiment in human and tribal relations. If we look closely at this group of youngsters, we see that, due, in part, to a genuine hope, along with international, political and media pressure, we have been invited or strong-armed into participating in a mass reprogramming exercise, that, if successful, could spell out interesting findings that could be of interest to the whole world.

The world as a human spaceship, heavily overloaded and facing imminent disaster - the result of insufficeint communication between groups on the spaceship, and mismanagement by those in charge, is at this very time battling to resolve cultural and linguistic issues, and cooperate as one species.

In future updates I will bring to the table some observations and anecdotes of people in "my generation", for comment and discussion. Let us find out what this generation is really about, and what new ideas they have to offer from their experience as Urban Africans in a rapidly Globalising world. What is Ubuntu, and how far can this idea go? Is Ubuntu dead, or dormant waiting for the catalyst, or ever-present as the best in people, and the stuff that makes life living. Umuntu umuntu ngabantu - a person is a person through other people. This blog doesn't exist in isolation, and neither does its writer. I am here because you are, and together, we can do anything, and be anything, even AMAZING! If we want?  

I define this generation as the urban, eductated youth of various backgrounds and ethnicities who now study, live and work alongside each other and are the living, breathing results of a now 15 year old experiment in turning this country around, one mind at a time.

In closing I state my position that I believe it is indeed possible to
Emancipate ourselves from Mental slavery!
and that One Love! is indeed all we got.

Faithfully yours on this very long walk to freedom, Keep Trucking!
Kristi Maria