We MUST change

We MUST Change, it’s not an essay on what I think of Australia and NZ (which are both old corporations owned by England, the Queen, Rockefellers, Rothschild anyway …hehe)

Hello my dear mates,

2010 was a year full of discovering and I would say a year of introspection for me. Not only I met amazing people who are now good friends, beautiful souls from all over the world, but also I found my own true love.  It also helped me to open up my mind a bit more and confirmed my doubt in the viability and sustainability of our so called society. Bababababa

While traveling throughout New Zealand and Australia gave me a tremendous perspective on my own life. I’ve encountered during my journey revolting behaviour and attitude. At some point, I needed to make some great effort to keep my faith and compassion in humanity. So I decided to write this article to give you a glance of my personal feelings about what must change in the so called ‘developed’ modern way of living.

Travelling throughout New Zealand or Australia means enjoying nature in all its glory .  New Zealand & Australia offer beautiful landscape. Both are blessed with a climate and environment that enables them to produce and grow pretty much anything that they need. Living on such beautiful land should raise people’s interest on subjects like sustainable living, waste management and food ethic; it is in fact the opposite that happens. Some people have absolutely no incentive on these subjects and yet seem not to have any interest whatsoever in learning a better way to live. They ’ve already made up their mind based upon what they’ve been told to think by the mass media (conspiring to propagandize via TV, radio, and newspapers); so why bothering to confuse them with the truth?

Food ethic

What I’d define as food ethics in my own term is the ability of one to recognise and identify food that he eats in an ecofriendly, sustainable and healthy way. A crucial point about being good consumers is to be self-conscious and respectful of our planet. This can’t go on forever. A good example that illustrates what I’m talking about is being aware of buying certain products such as Palm oil. Wilderness areas and wildlife habitats are under pressure from intensive use of the land, with palm oil culture being one of the worst. It has caused the extinction of several species and is now threatening the survival of Orang-utan in the Amazon forest. An easy solution to this issue is insisting the government passes a law forcing food companies to have a clear labelling of their products. As consumers could then make the distinction on whether or not to buy the so called vegetable oil. Is it canola, olive, or blend, or just plain palm oil? How can we make a right choice when we don’t know what they put in our food?

One of the reasons of unawareness in New Zealand and Aussie is probably caused by lack of education, and of course a deep conditioning from tv and mass medias that succeeded in their attempt to drain people’s brain. People are stuck in a belief system that they are conditioned thinking “they are protecting their programming which has settled into the ego mind”.

 I’ve read recently an article about how manufacturers of unhealthy food (Mc Donalds, Coca cola, Pepsi to name just a few) are dominating Australian supermarket shelves and junior sports clubs as they target their wares to children. 92% of food and drink sponsorships representing children were selling unhealthy food. The study also found out that manufacturers of unhealthy food were using sophisticated internet marketing techniques to target children. For example, they are using games designed to gather children in front of their computer who are consciously or not taking an active part on the development of their new Cyber commercial space. “It’s like a cheap ad agency” said someone in the minister to give you a little touch of Australian humour. The truth is that they don’t take it really seriously, like a bad Australian joke. They say parents feel helpless. I guess governments that are controlled by those big companies can’t do much either to stop that from happening, can they…?

While I thought I witnessed the worst behaviours during my stay in the U.S when it comes to consumerism, little did I know that there were actually countries out there trying to compete for the same inadequacies.

Not surprisingly to me, Australia has the highest rate of obesity per capita outplaying the big America in their own field, like the English taking over Australia’s supremacy in cricket.

 While I do my shopping I make a habit of looking in people’s trolley and it is despicable. Among the dozen of bottles of soda you can only find processed food, such as white bread (how dare they call that bread anyway? It’s my French side that speaks now), pack of 50 frozen (non-organic) sausages, meat pies (also non-organic nor free range), caged eggs and vegemite (which is probably the most healthy item they have in their daily ration). I could write a long article about vegemite or how the typical white Australian, and New Zealander in the same bag, spent his all existence thinking vegemite is its own food group, but let’s not go there now. Overeating is obviously a major problem in developed countries and of course fast food which are omnipresent in Australia. For $4.95 you can have a double cheese burger, fries, big frozen coke and Sunday. After all, why would you bother buying vegies and fruits that are more expensive and needs to be cut and cooked…?

Huge consumption of non- organic meat is also a major problem that needs to be issued at a higher level. Not only human body doesn’t need such a big amount of protein (on average American and Australian consumes 100 gr of protein/day while they don’t even need half of it!) but also it takes a lot of resources (100, 000 litres of water to produce 1 Kg of beef) not to mention the amount of methane that is produced. There are also good veg alternatives to meat when it comes to nutrients and protein, good free range quality eggs, nuts, legumes, organic milk, yoghurt etc.

 So take it easy with meat, unless you’re pregnant> J

Waste management

 

We all know (or maybe not) that waste disposal is an ongoing problem that needs to be issued. Chances are our children and grandchildren will get buried under our own trash if we don’t take drastic action starting now. The truth is that we live in a disposable society where everything is single use and thrown away… For example in Australia, when you buy a coffee, not only they generously offer you a nice looking (often non-recyclable) disposable cup, but along with it comes:

- A nice white plastic lid to keep it warm

- A little jacket so that you won’t burn your pampered hands

- A sophisticated single serving sample of raw and white sugar

- The same sophisticated single serving of cream

- A plastic stick or spoon to stir

- A rigid paper tray so you can put it on the ground

- Plastic bag to carry it to your car without burning yourself…

 And there you go, you can have your warm sweet latte while driving to work. How remarkable… How developed… Well done Australia.

Speaking of waste, did you know that in Australia for one trolley full of food that is purchased, another identical trolley full of food is thrown away? In Australia 7.5 million tons of food is wasted annually. It would feed 13 million Australians for an entire year (and were not talking about rotten tomatoes or meat that turned bad here, but food that is perfectly fine to eat). For example, they throw entire bags of oranges because one of them happens to be on a different shape or is a bit softer than the others…

While in NZ, Rachel and I made a habit of going during the night and looking into dumpsters (what is called ‘dumpster diving’ and some people actually make a living out of it) to find amazing stuff that people would throw away. Brand new desks worth hundreds of dollars, printers, desk chairs and a lot of food. We found dozens of unopened bottles of organic apple juice, yoghurt, bread, fresh veggies and fruits. We even salvaged around 15 Kg of golden kiwis one day that we gave away to people in Wellington streets shouting ‘free kiwis’,’ kiwis are for eating not for throwing’. Hehe good times !

Well that’s it for today, it was not my intention to write a treaty on ecology, but there are some things I can’t keep to myself. It’s just that revolting.

“The choice becomes whether we want to remain

part of the problem or become part of the solution.”

Anyway about me(because after all that’s what I like talking about the most),  like I said in the introduction I spent an amazing year with Rachel, she’s the most beautiful and amazing girl I’ve known. It just feels good to love freely and purely.  She has everything that I needed in my life and I am pretentious enough to think I bring her happiness as well. It is so good to share with her! We have so much love for each other that a new life has formed as a result. As I’m speaking she is 20 weeks pregnant and almost halfway through her pregnancy.  She is well and joined me in Aussie.

I proposed to her to be my fiancé presenting her with a ring that I made. We plan to marry this year. We’re sharing a room in greater Shepparton, 2 hours north from Melbourne where I work at the Orchard. Her belly is growing at a phenomenal rate, and we are able to feel it moving. He’s responding by kicking especially when I speak French to him/her.

We are so happy and joyful about the good news, very excited. So as you can imagine 2011 will be very promising. Anyway hope everything is well in your life as it is for me, dear readers, family, friends, strangers…

Peace! ;-)