3.06.2008
Don't Just Talk Sustainability, Live it
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What does this mean? Some people go to a lot of trouble to 'solarize' their house (even building an optical focus steam-powered power plant), design/build/keep 'smaller' sustainable homes that are engineer-friendly but drive a vehicle that gets 5-10 miles per gallon.
If we're really serious, we'll get into gardening and farming. But this is really time consuming and we can't do this and be online all the time.
Instead, we should modify our diets to be seasonably appropriate.
Luckily, there's a ready source of high-protein food available (particularly for people in the SF Bay Area).
It's called an Acorn. I can just see people picking up a few pounds of acorns at Whole Foods, cracking them, grinding them up with a metate, throwing out the shells, steaming or boiling the centers, and making an oatmeal like porridge or flatbread, baked in a solar oven.
If you did this, you would be following what the first Californians did for thousands of years. In fact, a lot of people have a plethora of acorns in the yard. Your food staple is no further than your driveway. Eating acorns would reduce "green" landfill, save money spent on bread and pasta, and substitute for farm-grown legumes (the fertilizer used in growing the legume contributing to our expanding methane problem).
Top it off with a roasted salamander or a handful of pan-fried seasonal grubs. Yum. When the Spaniards came to California (and even more New England Congregationalist Yankee tallow traders, merchants, whalers, and seacaptains who arrived in Monterey in the 19th century) they decried the sloth of the local inhabitants. The Spanish were creating a here-and-now version of the "City of God" in the form of the missions, with people organized as they would be in the countryside of Spain, while the Yankees wanted to make money and integrated mercantilism with Faith - you know the saying "the devil will make work for idle hands to do."
So, try some acorn bread. See if you like it. You'll be helping to preserve the Earth.
Read the Nutritional Breakdown of Acorn Flour on Nutrition Data
Making ACORN Pancakes - Bay Area bites
Labels: acorns, live, missions, oak, sustainability, tan, yankees
