Self-Sufficient Food - Tofu Doesn't Grow in the Bush
During my time at the ranch I became more self-sufficient and it has changed the way I think about food, our access to it and our relationship with animals that can be food. Before I came to the ranch, I was strictly vegan and didn’t think too much about the artificial flavours, colours and preservatives that were in the food I ate. But when you live close to nature, your relationship with food and animals shifts radically, out of necessity, by being self-sufficient and simply by seeing the world differently. I once saw a fridge magnet that read “I eat organic food, or as our grandparents called it, food”. This made me think about how our relationship with food has changed in a very short space of time, yet at that point I didn’t take action to change it.
Living close to nature and being self-sufficient is part of the natural order of things and the most self-sufficient way to get food is to harvest what grows naturally or grow your own, in line with the seasons and the laws of nature. As I am becoming more self-sufficient and want to live as close to the land as possible, I started to rethink my eating habits. After all, tofu doesn’t grow in the bush!
In the ranch community, we have always had a focus on healthy eating and cooking our own meals. Our garden’s success has been directly in proportion to the interest or perseverance of the ranch crew. We have our own chickens for eggs and eat wild fish and game. But this year we are really starting to think more deeply about the additives and preservatives that are put in the food we buy and how we can prioritize our health and self-sufficiency in the food we consume.
Our chickens are really free range, not just the trendy free range eggs you can buy in the grocery store, where the chickens are still in a pen. Our chickens roam all over our 30 acre property, coming in to their hen house by themselves when it gets dark, for warmth, shelter and protection from predators overnight. And there is nothing to stop our chickens wandering off into the bush and living with the grouse if they wanted to. These chickens live the best possible life and the eggs they produce are simply one of the most natural food products available.
Growing our own food has now become more of a priority for us in the ranch community. Did you know that the tops of potatoes are often sprayed with Roundup before harvesting to kill the leaves and make it easier for machines to harvest the potatoes? Well, naturally that means the potatoes you eat from the store come with a dose of Roundup. Besides buying organic, someone who lives in the middle of the city might have little choice but to eat the Roundup-potatoes. But living close to nature as we do, we have two options. We can grow our own potatoes that we harvest by hand and grow without any pesticides, the only fertilizer we use is 100% organic and natural – horse poop. We also have the opportunity to go out into the bush and harvest wild potatoes, following the snow melt up the mountain.
There are countless other ways we harvest from nature too – from fishing in an alpine lake to harvesting one of the many berries that grow here including Saskatoon berries, thimble berries, soopolallie berries and choke cherries. There are also wild onions, mountain sorrel, pine nuts and birch water. And speaking of water, instead of drinking chlorinated water from a city tap or spending money to buy water in a plastic bottle, we can drink pure mountain water direct from the creek or gravity-fed into our house.
Now what about meat? This year I got my hunting licence and my reasons for doing so were two-fold, one to contribute to conservation through predator management and two to become more self-sufficient in obtaining food.
Predator management means to harvest bears, cougars and wolves from the environment to increase the number of ungulates such as deer, moose, mountain goats and California Bighorn sheep. While predators play a natural role in removing injured or sick ungulates from the population and preventing these ungulates from overpopulating and damaging the ecosystem, the influence of human presence means that the natural balance of predator and prey has been disturbed and can no longer keep itself in check.
For example, the creation of a hydro-electric dam here in the 1950s turned what used to be a river into a large lake that freezes in the winter. Ungulates will swim or jump across a river or creek to evade a predator, but they can’t run on a frozen lake as they slip. Wolves, with their claws, don’t slip and have an unfair, human-created advantage over the deer.
Harvesting a few cougars, bears and wolves each year keeps the predator-prey balance in check. The important point is not to remove all the predators, but a few at the critical times of year. Winter when the ungulates are snow bound or spring when newborn animals are most vulnerable to predation.
Then there’s the food aspect. Everybody knows you can eat deer meat, or venison as it’s more commonly known. But most people are surprised to find you can also eat bear and cougar meat. This means hunting bear and cougar provides a two-fold impact – conservation and nutrition. Eating this meat that is free of antibiotics, steroids and other hormones is better for our body. It’s better for the animals as they lived a natural life in the wild before a quick and humane death. It’s also better for the planet – there are no “food miles”, no land cleared of trees and set aside to raise animals or grow their food and no antibiotics etc that pollute the environment around where the animals are farmed.
As the farming industry has become more industrialized, eating wild game has become the healthiest, most environmentally friendly and most humane way to consume meat.
I am now creating a more natural and self-sufficient relationship with food, as I make food choices that are healthier, simpler and as nature intended. The outcome of this is that we are healthier, more self-sufficient and become a more inter-twined part of nature.
Charlie B. – UK
