Ewww has become a meme. Its an expression of disgust synonymous with gross. Its also the most common reaction to most kinds of sustainable protein that is consumed by indigenous people, wether its the Aranda aboriginals eating witchetty grubs, the Japanese fondness for natto or Inuit eating raw seal the ‘outsiders’ reaction is usually… ‘ewww.’
If we were to map, tend, process and learn to depend upon the myriad, extant sources of sustainable and renewable protein in our bioregions we must first overcome oikophobia, the fear of our own place.
Microbiopolitics permeates the subconscious relationship to the places we live. Traces of dogshit permeate the dust settling upon the cityscape. Landscape maintenance workers drag tanks of weedkiller down arterials, herbicide atmospheres drift aimlessly. The coughs, farts and sneezes of a thousand strangers blend into a gentle breeze of malodorous distrust with xenophobic airs. Disinfectants and antimicrobials clutter our pantries. The sterility OCD zeitgest has us wiping, wiping, wiping to vanquish invisible viral demons.
Meanwhile our immune systems have forgotten what a parasite feels like and thus wither into flaccid memories of immuno-fortitude, and an epidemic of auto-immunity unfolds.
Historically, we defended the thousand forms of protein that coursed through the veins of our bioregions, as if our lives depend upon them. Now, we breath a sigh of relief as we push grocery carts down impossibly long air-conditioned aisles of brightly colored, hyper sterile, packages of every processed food we can imagine. And the thousand forms of protein, central to every indigenous economy, every ancient permaculture, is forgotten, withers into a tokenized unit of carbon accounting, or becomes monetized into photoshopped landscape photography for the annual reports of corporate philanthropy.
Can we imagine tracing the supply chain of the average veggie burger or soy-feedlot-hormone/antibiotic pumped beef burger? Did they start as soy beans in the amazon jungle and make its way through silos, ports, shipping containers, factories and delivery trucks. Did the fifteen other additives touch a hundred or a thousand processing machines? Or was the protein grown on a regenerative family farm on the outskirts of town and lovingly hand formed by a happy and well paid employee?
With the highly processed supply chain it takes a cohort of data scientists to unpack the social/environmetnal footprint, and then frame the data so it sounds convincingly virtuous. With the ‘know your grower’ supply chain you hear the story with your own ears, can see the farm with your own eyes and ultimately feel the quality with your own body.
These are the questions that we must ask as inhabitants of our bioregions and consumers within a globalized supply chain with its own internal logic, an ‘invisible hand’ that has gone psychotic.
Can an apartment dweller or a suburbanite dig into a sense of place as much as a traditional wildtender or a rural organic farmer? I believe this is the central question humanity must ask itself if we are to strive for peace and prosperity for all life.
