Photo: Nebarmix used under creative commons license

We know that food is the source of our energy – and in green living circles we think a lot about it. In recent decades the types of food have actually expanded – now there’s organic food, biodynamic food, authentic food, slow food.

Jump straight to: Knitlanders Living Food Template or keep reading to learn more…

Amongst all of these types of food, and the clear importance it has in making our lives green and healthy, the question ‘what is food?’ gets lost.

On one level we know food is energy from the sun that plants and animals have captured and contained in their forms.

A way, then, to think about different types of food is to think about different types of energy. Below are a few ideas about how to begin experimenting with what that might mean:

• Find Patterns with a Food Journal: Keeping a food journal might sound mundane, but, done right, I’ve found it’s a simple and surprisingly helpful way to start seeing the impact of food choices. The key is not just writing down what you ate (like traditional food journals) but also recording how your body and mind felt two hours after any meal, as specifically as possible. Once you have enough entries you can try experimenting with making small changes (i.e. changing the time of day you eat a certain type of food, eliminating or adding a food). Keep journaling and see how the experiments impact your day – your likely to find that you eat healthier and choose local (which are in season by definition) and organic foods more often. The Knitlanders Living Food Template makes it easy to begin to record these observations
• Observe Nature: Just as we can see how patterns in our food intake impact our body, we can look for patterns in nature that indicate how the planet is “feeling”. The field of biodynamics is largely based on these observations and applying them to choices about how we farm and garden
• See Your Food in a New Way: Try to see your food in a new way. Kirlian photography, which some think is a method of visually capturing the energy or “aura” of the photo’s subject, has been used repeatedly to visually compare the energy of raw and cooked food (I wonder if anyone has used it yet to compare organic and so-called “conventional” foods?). The image above of a leaf was created using Kirlian photography

When we started from the ground up, one thing we didn’t have at all was refrigeration. For about a year (before we had electricity), a large cooler was as close as we got. At the end of that time, we were so sick of wasting food because it went bad, dealing with dirty cooler water and refilling with ice.

Much of the advice we got was to invest in a propane refrigerator, but we were confused – to us one of the reasons to be off the grid was to avoid the need for using fuels like propane whenever possible. As we did some more research, we learned that the advice was based on a truth – or rather what had been true ten or fifteen years ago.

At that time, it really wasn’t possible to get a refrigerator that would work off the grid and wasn’t propane.

No longer the case.

Now, there are any number of refrigerators on the market that will work with our modest 1000 KW system (and also are a great energy and money saving idea on the grid). Energy Star is definitely the most comprehensive source out there for quickly assessing your options.

Note that often you pay a premium for the absolutely most efficient models, so you may be best off buying a model a little bit less efficient (think of all that propane you won’t be using) but making it much more affordable.

Of course, every little bit that we do to live a greener life makes a difference. And there’s so many little steps to take that we’ll be focusing, but thought to start out with a couple ideas if you’re looking for a total change of lifestyle – a new community, and new home.

So many people we talk to say that they wish they were doing what we are – that they dream of a “simpler” and more sustainable life, and yet aren’t how sure to start.

Looking back where this all started was with:

1. A Priority: We decided it was a clear goal for us build green. We talked about it in specifics, where might be the right community? what kinds of green building
methods would we incorporate?

2. A Willingness to Risk: When we moved, we didn’t yet have jobs in the area or know anyone – as connections started to pop up, we found ourselves more at home. Now we can’t imagine leaving Brattleboro, VT

To get our plans going, we starting thinking seriously about the community we wanted to be a part of and how we would get the skills to build green.

The community: A few ideas that worked well for us in looking for the community we wanted to be a part of:

-Co-ops: We searched for places that had a co-op. Wikipedia has a great list which you can access here
-Other characteristics. We used “Find Your Spot” to search for the place that would be a fit with the quality of life we wanted

Green Building: What worked well for us here was experiencing different methods as much as possible.

We had a chance to help out green builders at the places below:

-Earthship community, Taos, NM: Earthships are built to be autonomous buildings, providing as much as possible what is needed for life (food, heat, cooling) in one building

-Friland in Denmark: A community with natural buildings, each made using a different method, that has been featured on Danish television

Keep it simple and do a little bit each day. We built our dream into a reality over three
years as we worked, went to graduate school and lived on the grid. You can do it too.

We’re looking forward to sharing sites, tools and tips to help you live green.

Since one of the best ways to be green is to reuse, check out Green Sheet, to help build the green marketplace

What help for living green do you want? What are your favorite resources for green living? What’s hardest to find?