My mum`s foodprint

Lets`s try to be, to get or at least to think sustainable. Whatever it may be, as I get through the holidays, I notice that quite some people are focusing on the subject of sustainability. And that`s for the better. The more I cook, eat and think about food the more I feel conscious about food processing. Feeding my family and studying the allergy issues since the last 12 years with Solange, the more I know that we were since long thinking in a more healthy and kind of sustainable way about food. My first awareness about food has been developed by my mum as she happened to be an avant-la-lettre in the field of knowledge about food and pointing out the relation between food and a healthy body. Although I remember plates sprinkled with gravy, those memories go back very long ago. The real thing I do remember about my youth, is the responsability she transferred to my siblings and myself about feeding ourselves. And taking food seriously was for her directly linked with eating less meat, lots of vegetables and fruit and avoiding animal fat in general. No sauces, no butter and no mayonnaise. The average amount of meat my mother served us, as children and later as young adults, was never more than 75 gram daily and there were days without meat. Although the dishes weren`t so large in variety and the design was often like meat, vegetables and potatoes or rice (pasta became much later an ingredient of the diet) and a dessert of yoghurt with fresh fruit, I truly believe in the thoughts behind her diet. As she worked for years with cancer patients in different clinics in The Netherlands, she must have become anxious about health and even if the topic of food and health wasn`t something bothering many people, my mother was aware. I should really try to get notes from her about this issue and write more about it. Speaking with a friend last week - he works for an international organisation and is through his work focused on the undeveloped countries and populations - he mentioned that this food issue about less meat and so on isn`t really keeping him busy. And yes it is so true that the meat production in general on our planet is not the problem of the Africans nor the Asians. And I do agree with him that animals are serving mankind and not vica versa. So in the end I think there is this list of really interesting issues to discuss and to study more deeply: how should we feed ourselves in a healthy way? The way we feed ourselves has undeniable consequences for the planet. The production processes are destructive (you`l know after watching the film Food Inc.) and yet with millions of more people to feed in the near future how can we feed all these humans? The fact is that everything is so connencted to each of the elements of the chain. It is all about a new pyramid. And still the old one from Maslow is so actual.