VOICES 06
“I CAN’T EAT THAT…”
YOUNGSTERS SEEM TO HAVE A MUCH CLOSER RELATIONSHIP WITH THE EARTH AND NATURE THAN WE DO. IN SHEENA ADAMS’S HOME, HER CHILDREN’S GENUINE
CONCERN FOR OUR PLANET HAS FORCED THE WHOLE FAMILY TO RECONSIDER THE SOURCES OF THE FOOD THEY EAT, SHE WRITES
B
rown buggy eyes bulged above the plate of grilled calamari tubes. Leo, aged seven
and prone to questions of all kinds, was interrogating the life-cycle of the frizzled seafood he hadn’t yet touched. “Where did it live?” “Where are its children?” “Did it get sore when it was killed?” A dinner-time conversation of note.
When the answers are
unsatisfactory, the conversation moves on to motives. Why do we have to kill these sentient, delicate sea creatures to satisfy our hunger (or, rather, our tastes)? After a few sustained months of this interrogation, with Leo’s elder sister as back-up, the result is a family diet that now incorporates more vegetarian dishes. It’s surely a very good thing – but it’s a work in progress. It’s tough to beat the
convenience of you-know-who – open, nearby and so convenient. Not cheap – but definitely easy. Stores that specialise in organic produce and sustainably farmed meat are few and far between. Generally, we city folk have to weave our way through small greengrocers, neighbourhood butchers with a clear(er) idea of where their meat originates and a plethora of other stores (both bricks-and-mortar and online) for earth-friendly health and household products. I long to live in a city where the Bryanston Organic Market is my local, but it’s not yet a reality. However, the
passion in our family is there, so we’re trying our best. The sustainable food retail sector is also brimming with creative and inspirational entrepreneurs, so it’s a journey worthy of its spoils. And if it leads you on meandering roads to locate free-range sausages or an oven- cleaner that doesn’t pierce the ozone layer, then all the better. The organic food
philosophy incorporates this lovely idea of slower living and smelling the fynbos. The cherry on the gluten-
free cake is that our weekly food bill has dropped, thanks to the increasing veggie options. More money for the holiday pot, at the very least. We also have to face
the fact that since the headlines about the “white slime” we’ve been blissfully consuming in our cold meats, everyone’s been double-taking the food they put in their mouth. Polony-gate has succeeded in making us hyper-aware of the pitfalls of the processed food industry. It’s not a far
stretch to question the health and safety standards of the hundreds of other food factories so far uninspected in SA. So it makes sense to support small, local operations on a number of levels. And if it makes the buggy eyes go away, it’s a no-brainer. * Sheena Adams is the
Editor-in-Chief of DESTINY.
PHOTOGRAPHER: AART VERRIPS
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