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:: A Year of Ethical Feasting - Chilli Beans

As part of A Year of Ethical Feasting I will be posting a weekly recipe that has been taste tested by me, my family and friends.

This week I am sharing a fab, frugal and fair recipe from my kitchen. It is tasty and hearty and particularly nourishing. YUM!

#1

Chilli Beans

Ingredients

2 cans kidney beans, drained and rinsed

2 tbsp olive oil

1 onion, chopped

1tsp cumin seeds (ground)

1 tsp coriander seeds (ground)

½ tsp chilli powder (or to taste)

½ tsp turmeric powder

½ tsp ginger powder

3 cloves of garlic

2 cans chopped tomatoes

1 large carrot, grated

1 large parsnip, grated

Sea salt or stock powder

1-2 tbsp coriander leaves, roughly chopped

Method

Sauté onion in oil until slightly browned. Add spices, garlic, chilli, ginger and turmeric; continue to sauté for a couple of minutes. Add kidney beans and tomatoes and mix well. Stir through carrot and parsnip. Cook on low heat for 1 hour. Serve with steamed rice and a fresh green salad.

Let me know what you think, I’d really love to know.

Enjoy!

xxAmanda

A Life of Ethical Living

Did you know that I am starting a Year of Ethical Feasting as part of my ethical living life project? Starting in mid-May, I will be posting a fab, frugal and fair recipe every week for a whole year! Look out on May 16 for my fabulously feisty chilli beans!

Also as part of my ethical living life project I will share my super second hand finds and my ethical inspirations (fab people doing fab things).

I am not about sharing product reviews or information about new technologies. There are heaps of websites and blogs catering to that market segment.

I am more interested in how to live an ethical life with a small environmental footprint. I’m all for stepping back from the market, buying second hand at flea markets or charity shops. I’m fascinated by the adage: living better with less. That doesn’t mean I am not a bowerbird that likes to collect things (I have got a pretty sizeable push-puppet collection and enough books to fill a local library). 

It does mean, however, that I try to buy most of my consumer items second hand. I don’t want to be preachy or just talk to the converted; I just want to put ideas out there and raise awareness and possibly change minds.

I really think that living better with less can be fun and certainly doesn’t have to be labourious. 

I am acutely aware of the inherent contradictions in what I am saying here about living better with less and consumption. But it’s all part of the process in coming to terms with what a new philosophy of consumption may look like.

xxAmanda

:: DO THIS! Letter writing campaign: asylum seekers held on Nauru or Manus Island

Will you be a pen-pal to a refugee locked up on Nauru or Manus Island?
Simple, compassionate gestures like this can make a huge difference.
Please consider getting involved and please SHARE this post to help spread the word.

Letter writing campaign: asylum seekers held on Nauru or Manus Island

How to do it:

1.     Write a letter, but not directed to a specific person.  Say who you are, so the recipient will not wonder whether you are acting for the government. Tell them something about yourself.  Let them know that not all Australians are hostile to them.  Be sensitive to their circumstances.  Encourage them to write back to you.

2. Send the letter to me:

Julian Burnside

205 William St

Melbourne, 3000

3. Enclose a self-addressed envelope
4. I will post your letter (with your self-addressed envelope) to a specific asylum seeker on Manus or Nauru.  I will explain the letter-writing programme and I will include some writing paper and your self-addressed envelope so they are able to reply.
5. When you get a reply, just keep writing to that person.  If you want, you can ask them for the names of other people you can write to.

People of various countries are held in Nauru and Manus Island, including Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Sri Lanka.  If you prefer to write to someone of a particular nationality, let me know.

If you have a preference for which detention centre your letter should go to, let me know.

It is simple.

A similar letter-writing campaign in the early 2000s was very valuable in helping keep up the spirits of asylum seekers.

If you decide to take part in the letter writing campaign, you might like to share the responses you get, and encourage your friends to write to asylum seekers.

:: RECYCLED CAT BED

Even Betsy is getting with the re-purposing project.

:: ETHICAL CONSUMPTION: a purist challenge?

 

It has recently been suggested to me that ethical consumption has the tendency to be purist; it sets the bar too high – setting consumers up for failure before they have even started. Traditional consumption, based on the belief that it is up to the consumer to make their own purchasing decisions and up to businesses to give them what they want, often has unwanted consequences – over-consumption and the unethical treatment of people, animals and the environment.  

The claim that telling consumers what to buy has the tendency to be purist initially made me uncomfortable, but it also forced me to think about whether it was correct and then whether there was something wrong with being a purist. 

Finally it led me to ask ‘Am I just being a stickler for excessive correctness?’

Yet I kept thinking that certain consumer decisions are unethical and should be avoided. The actions of certain companies are so unethical that they should be boycotted. Nestle, for example, has been the target of a sustained boycott campaign for its marketing of infant formula in developing countries. Coca Cola, Shell and Nike are other well-known examples. 

One thing that deters people from following ethical guidelines is the belief that it takes all the fun and enjoyment out of shopping (and life). It is exhausting if not impossible to make the right choices about everything we buy. 

I don’t buy this argument. I do not get any enjoyment or satisfaction out of consuming a product that has, for example, been tested on animals, harvested or manufactured by slaves, or manufactured by a company that has deliberately thwarted environmental protections. Very rarely are these products necessities – products that we cannot do without. Luxury products, those we want but don’t need, are probably the easiest to avoid. Necessities are the real challenge for ethical consumers. How does one buy ethical petrol, dairy products or electricity? I want to tackle these questions head-on.

Is it time to rethink product such as petrol, dairy products and electricity as necessary? If they are indeed necessary and, as is likely, there are no ethical alternatives, is it ok to choose the best of a bad lot? Or, are we ethically obliged to personally boycott them?

The benefits of choosing ethically are immediately apparent. My conscience will be clear knowing I have not consumed a product that is produced or sold under unethical circumstances or supported a company that has ethically questionable practices. 

I choose to boycott companies (and parent companies) that engage in ‘greenwashing’ not just certain products e.g.: I don’t think it is ok to get Rainforest Alliance coffee at McDonalds. So what if your coffee is produced sustainably McDonalds, it is not your coffee that is destroying rainforests it is your beef production! 

Anyone who claims it is ‘all too hard’ is taking the easy option out. Tell that to the factory workers, child slaves, guest workers who bring you your cheap clothes, electronics, coffee and chocolate.

One problem for ethical consumption, however, is the widely held belief that consumers should not be told how to act, what to buy, or how to choose. It is my contention that soft persuasion such as education is not enough on its own to persuade consumers to buy ethically. Consumer choice is a convenient myth perpetuated by marketers. So many of our consumer choices have already been made for us long before we get to the point of sale. 

Yet another criticism of the ethical consumption approach relates to the claim that consumers will go elsewhere if they are unable to get what they want. This view, based on the belief that consumers should have whatever they want – whenever they want it – is fundamentally unethical.

So this is my ethical consumption challenge: to make as few unethical choices as possible. The challenge is ultimately to me, but also to anyone who wants to redress the balance and make the best decisions about what we buy. It will be a permanent challenge to illicit lasting change and it aint going to be easy, but here I go.

An Abundance of a Different Kind

(Original image here)

Goodness me, I have been having an extended break from this blog. Five months is a huge chunk of time to remain silent. This is partly because I have been busily writing elsewhere (my new book – edited with Samuel Alexander - Simple Living in History will be out later in the year) and partly because I haven’t quite defined what this blog should be about. I have been feeling somewhat directionless and without a sense of purpose.

Events of earlier this year saw me re-evaluate many of my aspirations and forced me to think about things in a more holistic, long term way. I keep coming back to the idea of abundance as it has, and continues to, inform my life and work. What I am essentially interested is a different kind of abundance than the one usually associated with material wellbeing which has all kinds of negative connotations connected with over-consumption.

I want to explore a more authentic kind of abundance – something that goes beyond material acquisition that puts people, animals and the planet first. I’m not attracted to new-age-ish abundance, one that is sold to consumers as an alternative but is, in reality, driven by the same materialistic values that it purports to reject. Neither am I interested in a religious spiritual awakening.

I’m interested in lifestyles that don’t require participation in special workshops or retreats, special diets or superfoods, or clothing or likeminded proponents and gurus. There are no magazines or journals that target this market segment, because such a market segment doesn’t exist.

Real alternatives to a life defined by consumer culture are not easy for marketers to co-opt, brand and re-sell the purported benefits back to consumers. Much has already been said about choice and the extent to which consumers have the power to ignore or repel advertised and marketed messages. Much has also been made of consumer’s power to choose. I want to ask that if consumers have the choice to buy or not to buy certain products whether it might also be possible for them to opt out from the consumer market altogether. I tend to think so.

The answers, I imagine, will not be straight forward or easy to come by but this is hardly surprising because the questions themselves are far from simple. But they are well worth asking.

I hope that this blog will examine these and other questions as I consider what it is to pursue the ‘good life’.