KINDNESS CAN BE A GUIDING LIGHT DURING HARSH TIMES
Credit: Sophia Apkalikov
“May you live in interesting times,” is an English expression believed to be a translation of a traditional Chinese curse. At first the words seem like a blessing, but with a little thought, the irony soon becomes clear.
Life would certainly be better for us all in uninteresting times – without our current disasters of political instability, the war in Ukraine, climate change and the cost-of-living crisis.
Amidst such disasters it can be hard to find ways through what can feel like a never-ending thicket of thorns.
Dancers perform during the Diwali on the Square celebration, in Trafalgar Square, London.
Yet kindness – the root of most traditional festivities – can be a guiding light for navigating harsh times. As I hope you will have experienced over this festive period, Christmas, along with Diwali, Purim, Eid, Vesak, all have acts of kindness at their heart, with the giving and sharing of food a common factor.
Choosing food more kindly
Making kind food choices during festivities and beyond can be one way of taking control amid some of the crises we face.
For decades now, our food system has been geared to producing ‘cheap’ intensively produced food that costs us all dear – through our taxes and the detrimental impacts on our health and environment.
Intensively produced food is something we pay for three times: firstly, at the supermarket check-out. Secondly, through our taxes to pay for the billions of pounds of subsidies every year that go to agriculture, largely to encourage further intensification. And thirdly, and again largely through our taxes, for the clean-up cost to our health and environment.
The cost-of-living crisis has brought into sharp focus the tension between high quality sustainable food and the needs of low-income families.
Yet everyone deserves access to healthy, sustainable, nutritious food. With so-called ‘cheap’ food, somebody, somewhere along the chain pays.
Expert commentators are clear that simply making food cheaper isn’t the answer. Many of the 4 million people working in food and farming in the UK for example – whether farmers, those working in the processing industry, supermarkets or hospitality – are the ones experiencing food poverty.
Decent food for all
What is needed is a change of system so that decent, healthy, animal-friendly and environmentally sound food becomes a basic human right.
There are encouraging signs that governments are increasingly asking how such an overhaul can be achieved.
The European Union has been debating the future of food and farming, not least through its ‘Farm to Fork’ strategy which aims to make food systems “fair, healthy and environmentally-friendly”. Which is a welcome admission that currently they’re not.
At global level, the 2021 United Nations Food Systems Summit brought world leaders together in New York to focus on how food systems need to be transformed. Food is responsible for a third of greenhouse gases. In addition, intensive farming is damaging to soil, can produce unhealthy food and often doesn’t result in fair incomes for the workers involved.
Henry Dimbleby
In the UK, the Government’s food tsar, Henry Dimbleby, published a National Food Strategy which declared that Britain must change what it eats and the way it produces food to stop “terrible damage” to people’s health and the environment.
It called for meals with more vegetables and fruit and less fat, sugar and salt.
It built on advice from the Government’s Climate Change Committee, which said that we must reduce the amount of meat we eat by 35% in order for the UK to reach net zero by 2050.
So, where does this leave us during a cost-of-living crisis?
Throwing a lifeline
Recent research by Oxford University revealed that, in countries such as Britain, the US, Australia and across Western Europe, adopting a vegan, vegetarian, or flexitarian diet could slash food bills by up to one-third.
It’s perhaps no coincidence then that each new year is now greeted by a phenomenon known as Veganuary. This year, the organisation is again encouraging us to try vegan for January and beyond by pledging to eat plant-based for a month.
Veganuary’s CEO, Ria Rehberg
Using the slogan, ‘Where there’s hummus, there’s hope!’, Veganuary – now in its 10th year – is supported by Made in Chelsea influencer, Lucy Watson, and X-Men and Taken star, Famke Janssen.
Talking about food price inflation, Veganuary’s CEO, Ria Rehberg told me, “It’s actually quite inexpensive if you eat a wholefood plant-based diet where you eat a lot of vegetables and legumes”.
“We know that people do Veganuary for three different reasons: either for their own health, for animals or for the environment”.
The organisation’s survey of participants suggests that half of those who take the pledge quickly notice health benefits.
“It’s a win-win; a lot of people will feel better after doing it, but they will also feel they’re doing their bit to protect animals and the environment,” Rehberg told me.
Making a difference
Which puts me in mind of something legendary conservationist, Dr Jane Goodall once said:
“You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”
My resolution then for the year ahead is to choose food based on kindness and what might make the most positive difference.
Kind choices have the power to make an incredible impact – to tackle and help beat the otherwise interesting times we face. And as an added benefit, they might just save money too.
Note: A version of this article was first published in The Scotsman on Monday 2nd January, 2023
