The Power of Food

I have just been reading some thoughts by Eilleen over at the Co-op regarding her recent $2 a day challenge for Live Below the Line.  As I have registered to do the Challenge here in New Zealand in late August, it was interesting reading about her experiences. 

What really stood out to me, was how unconnected she felt from those around her, in having to eat separate meals.  I wonder if this is something people experience when on a special diet (gluten free for instance)?  I was on a wheat-free diet for years as a child and I do remember going to parties and not being alllowed to eat almost all the food there.  I have extended family and friends who similarly have to be careful of what they eat. 

It amazes me just how much food and eating permeate our lives.  Somehow, the act of eating, which we do in its most basic form simply to stay alive, ends up being a highly social act.  How many times have I eaten something just because it was on the table, and I was sitting there with friends, staring at that piece of cake while we chatted?  How many times have I enjoyed a meal out with my husband or friends and family to celebrate a birthday or other major milestone?  I can't imagine not being able to do that. 

Even today, I bought groceries for the month and had a minor freak out at the cost.  But I did have money to buy them.  And even to splurge.  It so didn't feel like it though.  What's about this feeling of entitlement that I "should" be able to buy some treats and feel let down if I don't get to buy enough of them?  I still got some.  Many people don't get a choice in what they eat, and here I am feeling let down when I bought cordial for hot drinks, chocolate as my special treat, ham and a tomato for Munchkin's lunches (yes, one tomato - at $12/kg this is a big treat, it is winter, after all!), and some lamb and pork...farily expensive meats, really.

Food for thought.  Food permeates our lives.  Our ability to choose, and to make wise choices around the foods we eat have such a big effect on our lives.

Amy

Unsung Heroes

I have been knitting with Operation Cover Up for around six years.  I knit alone.  My mother-in-law got me started when I was sick with fatigue.  It was a great occupier.  I could sit on the couch, knit two rows, feel like I'd accomplished something, then have a rest.  Then I'd knit another row or two.  I was hooked.  Today, six years down the track, I still knit squares.  I thought about doing more advanced knitting.  You know, a jersey or two.  I knitted some bootees for babies, then decided that really, I like knitting squares.  No counting.  Just knitting.  Not too much thinking, so my brain can wander where it pleases.  Colour and shape, and some visible progress for each and every stitch I make.  An excellent choice for a high-achiever like me (when I say high-achiever, I am not meaning I have achieved highly, but rather that I am constantly pressuring myself to achieve, to cross things of, to finish, to start, to be DOING something).  I delight in having something that is relaxing and purposeful at the same time, that is giving but also personally satisfying. 

My mother-in-law knitted with a group from her local church.  They got together every week.  And I did go to a craft group for nearly a year, and was welcomed with open arms by the mainly elderly lady population of knitters!  But for the most part, my knitting has been a personal journey.  I very rarely meet other knitters, or see their blankets.  I have, therefore, had a really exciting week in that I have seen not one, but TWO other Operation Cover Up unsung heroes!

The first is an old family friend of my husband's.  We visited this week, and I 'happened' to notice the strips of crocheted squares on her footstool.  She doesn't knit or crochet these days, but she is still busy at work sewing crocheted squares together.  She even had a newspaper clipping and Mission Without Borders magazine with Cover Up news sitting beside her chair!  The magazine came home with me.  Yay, thank you!  The article was duly photographed and returned.  She showed me a blanket she'd just finished stitching together as well as the strips she had just started on.  It was lovely.  Sometimes it is just encouraging to find someone else doing something similar to yourself, you know.  And I find it amusing that we have known her so long without ever knowing she does this, or her knowing that I do too.

Then, to top my week off, we visited an old school friend yesterday.  There, sitting on her piano was a neat little tower of knitted squares, in all the colours of the rainbow.  I just had to ask.  She had just finished the squares for a blanket.  It's taken three years.  Now that is committment.  This is someone my age, with several children and a home to manage, who only knits when there is nothing else to do (like at the doctors, for instance!).  She could have knitted something for one of her own children, but instead she has chosen to knit for a child she will never meet.

Two unsung heroes, going about their daily lives, quietly knitting and sewing when they get the chance.  Two people who are among the hundreds who donate hours and hours of time to Operation Cover Up so that children who have so little and are so often forgotten are able to know that they matter enough to someone right the way across the world that they made them a colourful, warm blanket.  Just for them.  Just because we care.  Sigh.  Now I want to knit.  I'm nearly finished my blanket.  Nearly.  I get the twitches just thinking about being so close.  But life is busy just now, so I am waiting.  Waiting, and enjoying the knowledge that there are others like me out there, knitting and crocheting and sewing away. 

Amy

The Garden in June

Somewhat belated, that's what I am.  The calendar is telling me that it is already the second of July!  I am still in June!!!  Where has the month gone?  Ah, exams.  And car seat research.  And no, I am not totally confused about what day it is.  Today is not Sunday.  Today is Saturday, which is not a normal blogging day for me.  But I was awake at 5am, and by the time I had changed Munchkin's nappy and all of his clothes (yes, yet another disposable soaked through - a current nightly occurrence!), got myself a fresh hot water bottle, and climbed back into bed I just couldn't sleep.  So here I am!  Heading for a shower in approximately four minutes.  Otherwise I will get in trouble with Boyo for not being ready to head out later this morning at the agreed and specified time.

So the garden.  Not much to report.  The zucchinis have finally died.  The yellow one did give a few last fruits in early June though, which shows how warm it has been here.

The lemon tree is amass with fruit.  My mum took all last season's fruit off it, which apparently helps produce better fruiting.  I'd have to say the evidence suggests this is a valid concept!

I got some greens and mandarins this week from the Big Garden.  Yummy!

And at my place, I've managed to keep a few lettuces and spinach un-chomped by whatever ate the last batch.  I am rather excited!

What has been happening in your garden this month?

Amy

Free Rice - June

Well, June was definitely a quieter month on the Free Rice front than May!  I managed 1,990 grains.  Which probably means it was busier in other areas of my life (like studying for exams, perhaps?!).

It doesn't feel like much at all, but I have to remind myself that even if I manage to get someone who is hungry just one bowl of rice, that one bowlful will make a difference in their life.  Not only does it fill their belly, but it also tells them that someone out here cares enough about their desperate situation to do something to help.  So onward we go.

Amy

Attitude Isn't Everything

I have been thinking about this post on and off for the past year, since I first started writing it.  Then this week I was reading at To Find A Silver Lining about unrealistic expectations, and Elizabeth's advice to new parents.  I guess this in part, is mine.  A common saying it seems, is that “Attitude is everything.” I first wrote this post about a year ago, when I was coming to terms with not being able to breastfeed Munchkin. I concluded that sometimes, attitude isn’t everything. I managed to breast feed until Munchy baby was eight weeks old. It would take us an hour and a half per feed to breast feed then bottle feed, and it was exhausting for us both. We tried. I couldn’t will things into being that weren’t there, but I could (and did) try to use what I had available, and reassess my goals to suit. Being a planner, goals are important for me, but I’m realising more and more that the expectations I place on myself are often unattainable, and unnecessary. I need to remember that while my attitude is important, willpower alone will not always get everything done (there are after all, only 24 hours in each day and I have only two hands and one brain!). So here are some of my thoughts from a year ago, when I was so sleep deprived I was slurring my words:


"I was going to breastfeed my baby. This was not negotiable; I didn’t have plan A, B, or C. I knew how good breast milk is for babies (and Mummy too for that matter), and I wanted my baby to have it. I figured there was no reason I couldn’t or shouldn’t do it. After all, I’d frequently heard that ‘size doesn’t matter.’

Well, firstly, I’d like to state that attitude is not everything. Sometimes people can have a blasé attitude, and still manage something admirably well (I know some women who approach breastfeeding with a more ‘take it or leave it’ approach and end up ‘taking to it’ like a duck to water). On the other hand, sometimes you can have the best intentions and the biggest willpower combined with the greatest dreams and still end up falling short of your hopes. This has happened to me. I discovered myth number two: size really does matter. Apparently it is not that I am small busted that is the issue per say, but more that I don’t have much breast tissue (which is what makes the milk). Plus I have a long baby boy who has trouble getting latched on my rather small frame. Put those 2 factors together and you end up with a very hungry baby and a Mummy who feels like she’s let the side down.

So I’m coming to terms with the fact that I physically can’t breastfeed my baby to give him everything he needs. With the best willpower in the world, I simply can’t conjure milk out of thin air. And believe me, I have tried. I’ve used homeopathic remedies, medication, breast pump, nipple shield, prayer, diet and I forget what else to try and increase production. Hasn’t really worked. The result is that Munchkin is currently getting about 10-15% of his needs from breast milk, and the rest from goats milk formula. This current regime will last only as long as I can continue the breastfeeding fight…which by current indicators may only be another week or so (yup, it was). But I figure that every little bit helps.

Munchkin, two or three days old and having formula in a syringe!

Now I just need to work on the feelings of guilt that keep surfacing when I think about the possibility of stopping the breastfeeding. It’s downright silly, feeling this way, when I am doing the best I can do. After all, considering how much blood I lost after Munchkin’s birth, I’ve done very well to give him any breast milk. This is what my amazing midwife has been reminding me. And that formula was created for a reason. I don’t get a choice as to whether or not we need formula. We just do. But we are giving our boy the best we can, opting for goats milk to avoid any dairy allergies seeing as both Boyo and I have dairy allergy histories. And Munchkin is no less loved or cared for because he doesn’t get much liquid gold. He gets cuddled and talked to, and fed and changed, just like he would if he were breastfed. Only he now gets the added bonus of Daddy feeds…Boyo has been giving him one feed a day to give me a break so I can study. I think at this stage Munchkin is much more interested in the contents of the bottle than in who is holding it, but it is still nice for him to have that contact. Grin. (And at just over a year old, Munchkin and Daddy have a fabulous relationship!)"

Come on Daddy! I might be laughing, but I sure am HUNGRY!

Bonding with Daddy.

So there you go, attitude isn’t always everything. That’s not to say it isn’t very important, but sometimes we have to reassess the role it plays in our lives. I now find myself needing to shift my attitude from, “I shall breastfeed no matter what,” to the more realistic expectations of, “I am going to do the best I can with what I have and stop fretting over what I cannot change.” We cannot control what life hands us. We can only decide what we will do with it. We need to give ourselves a break, and run with what we’ve got.  Amy

Out and about!  He wouldn't be able to do this straight-legged now!

Banana Brain!

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about bananas. Banana brain, that’s me. It’s been on my mind a lot. I do not normally think much about bananas. I eat them. That’s about it. So why have they taken up so much of my thought life recently?

Here’s the thing: bananas are neither local nor sustainable. Not in my wildest dreams could I possibly claim them to be so. Unless of course you happen to have a banana in your backyard? I don’t. On my wish list, but they are finicky to grow in New Zealand even in our temperate-subtropical climate, so not exactly high on that list. I’m trying to live my life in a more ethical and sustainable way, and bananas don’t fit well with that.

Until now, I could ignore it. I knew that the bananas imported into NZ from the Philippines and Ecuador are not grown particularly safely, nor the workers paid a decent working wage. It bothered me. But not enough to stop eating bananas. It’s hard to break a habit of a lifetime, particularly when you have never personally been confronted by the reality of what that habit means to other people’s lives. So I put it in the ‘too hard’ and ‘doesn’t really apply to me’ categories.

But now things are different.

Fairtrade bananas have arrived at my local PaknSave and New World supermarkets. All Good Bananas. I got a brochure. I read their website. And I thought, and thought, and thought. Amy, you are a banana brain!

Do we make the switch? Do we carry on as we are? Why bother, why not? Ahhhh, back and forth I have been swinging. Here is a (brief) summary of my recent thoughts.

Why switch to Fairtrade bananas:
Less chemicals – better for me and better for the people handling and growing them, better for the land, waterways and overall health of the planet

Fair wages – the farmers get guaranteed a minimum price for their bananas, which means they can feed their kids and send them to school (now I’d be really upset if I couldn’t do that for my son)

The bananas come from a cooperative of 400 small community owned farms in Ecuador – that means that most of the profits actually go back to the community that produced the goods – they get to choose what it is used for, rather than a big corporation swallowing up the rewards of their hard work

Imported by a small New Zealand business that has obviously thought about the ethics of bananas and worked really hard to get Fairtrade bananas here!

Taste – fabulous! We have tried a few bunches while thinking things through. Mmmm, mmm. Yummy.

Why not switch to Fairtrade bananas:
Cost - $3.90 a bunch (850g-1.1kg), so more than ‘normal’ bananas (which are usually between $1.90 and $3.00/kg)

Our limited income – which makes a cost increase really difficult to absorb (could we eat less of them and more of something local, can we manage the cost of 20 bananas a week – our current horrifying total – no wonder we keep needing to traipse back and forth to the supermarket. We are nearly monkeys, we eat that many!!)

Availability – I’ve been keeping an eye out and sometimes there just haven’t been any in store when I’ve needed to buy bananas

Here we come to the crunch. Do I go with my beliefs, my ethics? It has been really easy to ignore the consequences of our banana-eating habits until now. There were no other options available. But now I have a choice.

A choice that will be better for my health, but in ways I can’t see.

A choice that will be better for other people’s livelihoods, but I will probably never meet them to hear their stories.

A choice that is better for the environment, but the effects seem so, so far away.

A choice that will cost, that might mean scraping some other little luxury out of our already thinned grocery list.

A choice that might mean eating less bananas than I WANT to this week because we don’t have money for the Fairtrade ones.

Hard, hard, hard. I really want to support Fairtrade. I buy Fairtrade hot chocolate, but hardly ever drink it so it’s not like it is making much of a difference in the grand scheme of things. But this is something we eat EVERY week. The more people who choose to buy Fairtrade, the more Fairtrade goods will be offered. The lower the end price will become, as costs of scale and production improve. The more standard businesses will be forced to look at the ethics of how they produce goods. Fairtrade is worth supporting. But not necessarily easy.

Having thought about this for a few weeks, and discussed it over and over with Boyo, my final conclusion (which is subject to change – does that mean it isn’t really final?!?) is that we will buy Fairtrade bananas when they are in stock and decent quality. We will try it for a couple of months and see if we can manage the cost. If there aren’t any there when we go to buy bananas, ‘normal’ ones will do. We will see how it goes.

If you want to know more about All Good Bananas and where you can buy them in NZ, check out their website here!

Amy

I Found the Photos!

Out of the blue, in a random occurrence, I finally relocated the missing photos sent in by Aynsley to Turn on the Tap!  Yay!  Thanks, Aynsley, for joining in!

Here they are:

Has anyone else managed to take photos of taps around their place to raise $2 towards safe drinking water for others?  It is still on my to-do list: I'm thinking of taking photos of my parents taps next!

Amy