It Was Never About What We Put In Our Mouths

Bill Gates isn’t wrong.

He says most of the world won’t choose to change their diet. But he invested heavily in synthetic meat companies forecasting they will take a portion of the market and have growth potential by the wealthy countries of the world, he predicts. (or manipulates?Depends who you talk to.)

I think people have trouble following a gazillionaire on his techy play date with our food, as he flys his private jet all over the world to promote his financial interests in the name of climate change.

That’s not how most of us live and most see through the hypocrisy.

The majority of the world lives with very little choice in how we feed ourselves and doing the least harm as we do it.

It’s a privilege to choose what we eat.

I help breakdown a cow with my dad , who at 70, has seen many, many years where it wasn’t a choice to decide what to eat, and I think about “food”.

“Food” that may be produced in labs without farms or animals or skills that can be passed on.

Choosing to eat this way, means choosing to lose the ability to feed yourself.

It’s never been about what actually we are putting in our mouths. You do you.

But it is about dependency.

I think about his father doing this with him, and my greatgrandfather doing this with grampie and all the welsh farmers who came before them. Passing on skills and knowledge so they know how to feed themselves- when did that become privilege and not the norm?

I stand in the middle of the field, watching the crows circling for the feast of the carcass discard. I know what doesn’t get eaten by them or another scavenger will go back into the earth, providing an ecological miracle as it breaks down.

I think of us taking a whole day to properly breakdown a cow, and of slaughterhouses doing 25,000 head a day, and 3D printers making fake steaks.

I think of the privilege of drawing a knife out of a holder my dad got at 17 years old when he learned to butcher. I think of all the nourishment we have gotten from these skills over the years.

I think of all the life systems that depend on this cycle of life and death.

I think of how simple and beautiful it truly is.

Love Jenn xx