Food Not Bombs

[serene]

[Edit: Thanks to glitterophelia for pointing me to fnb]

Been thinking a lot about Food Not Bombs lately -- I have known about them
for years, but dryadgrl and my Berkeley neighbors have kept it
in the forefront of my mind lately. Then I read their "What is Food Not Bombs?" page and
decided they are definitely doing something I want to get behind (I think
I already knew that, but the page was a really good reflection of how I
feel about the politics of food distribution).

So tomorrow I plan to go help out
with a meal. Any locals wanna come along?

Oh, and because I know it amuses some of you, I thought I'd let you know
that I woke up vegan today. This has happened several times in the last
two years and has usually lasted a few days at most. We'll see. (If
you're not aware of my history with vegetarianism, I don't do dieting or
rules about what I eat, so I resist calling myself a vegetarian, and I
sometimes call myself The
Reluctant Vegan. I just decide from day to day how I feel about food,
and I go with it. For eighteen years, I woke up vegetarian nearly every
day. For the following two years, it was veganism a day at a time. Then
the last two years, I haven't really known from day to day what I would
eat, but most days I've eaten some amount of meat/dairy/eggs. Anyway,
we'll see. :-) I'm having chips and black beans for lunch.)

Comments

[redbird]

Idle question: if you wake up vegetarian or vegan, and have perishable foods in the house that aren't part of how you're eating that day, do you give them away, feed visitors, leave them on the theory that you might wake up omnivorous the next day, or throw them out?

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

My live-in partners have always been omnivores, so it's never been an issue.

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

Wish I lived close enough to come with you and help out with Food Not Bombs!

I resist labelling myself, in the food department as well as others. "I prefer to eat vegan food" but occasionally organic animal products will seduce me... and when I forget to warn a host, I take the Buddhist view (remembering that a piece of spoiled meat is supposed to have killed Siddharta Gautama).

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

One of my very few rules around food is never to intentionally cause anyone else any grief over what I do or don't eat. There was a Gandhi anecdote (possibly apocryphal) in which he was said to tell his wife to feed meat to some visitors who were distressed at the thought of a meatless meal. When she demurred, he apparently told her that causing grief to people was as bad as causing grief to animals. Or something. Anyway, it fits how I feel about things, so I'm careful not to make my food choices anyone else's grief.

[glitterophelia.livejournal.com]

There is a food not bombs LJ community, btw :)

I wake up vegan from time to time. I want it to last, but I never manage to make it last. bah.

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

ooh, thanks for the info. and please, I know you are good at beating yourself up, but try to be as kind to yourself as you are to others and to animals. *big squeezy hugs*

[glitterophelia.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

Thanks hon. I
AM AMAZING at beating myself up. haha. I just try not to think about it. I actually fell off the veggie bandwagon completely during my pregnancy, I don't really talk
about it much since it's embarrassing for me. :(

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

I have been exactly there, hon, which is why I adopted the policy of telling people that I decide from day to day what I'm going to eat. That way, I'm not breaking my own stated rules if I eat something I'd rather not. (And I don't pig out on something I'd rather not eat just because I know the rules say I can't have it.) It really removed a lot of the shame in my life. You're such an amazing person. Life works really hard at making you unhappy -- you should get over on your own side, because you need all the friends you can get.

(This is meant as admiration and support, not lecturing.)

[glitterophelia.livejournal.com]

hehe, thanks, that's really sweet of you to say!!!!

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

Hmm - that Gandhi anecdote may have been in the biography which I read.

But I definitely agree that all kinds of 'harm to humans' need to be appropriately in the equation, along with 'harm to animals' - concrete humans, like myself and my host, as well as abstract humans, too.