I just discovered a neighbour of mine in this ecovillage has started making organic tempeh – free of GMOs.  I love tempeh and I have been meaning to make some for ages, but unfortunately it has only stayed on my wish list so far. I fell in love with it in Indonesia when I was teaching permaculture over there in 1999 (and the many times I returned), particularly the fresh local village made tempeh.

Tempeh is a good way to eat beans and grains because they usually lose a lot of their lectin and phytate contents in the fermentation process. I really enjoy it added to a big cook up of our homegrown veggies and spices.

The texture and taste of my neighbour’s tofu was amazing – not like the hard and sometimes slimy tempeh in supermarkets. I had thought that was OK (because really I wanted to like it), but now I know where to get the ‘real’ stuff, I’ll be putting in a standing order! Luckily I have lots of plants and food in my permaculture garden to trade with them.

What is tempeh?

Tempeh is typically made out of fermented soya beans but can also be made out of other things such as things such as mung beans and chickpeas, but also grains. Partially cooked whole soybeans are aged overnight in an incubator at a tropical temperature with a starter culture. During that time a thick, white mat of mycelia, a kind of fungus, covers the tempeh and this binds the beans together as a ‘cake’. 

A local fresh source …

Every Monday the tempeh maker and his family invite people over to their place for a falafel and baclava feast – a lovely opportunity for people in this community to get together informally and chat.

It was there a few days ago, that on the table I saw the tempeh they had prepared as a taste test.  My three year old son absolutely loved it and asked if I could get some for his kindy lunchbox. How could I resist such an earnest request?

I picked up a couple of blocks up today – it was still warm. Fresh tempeh! 

This is how I prepared it.

How to make simple and delicious tempeh – for meal protein, or a snack.

Ingredients: 

• Tempeh
• Cononut Oil
• Chilli
• Fresh Ginger Root
• Garlic

Method:

1. Slice tempeh into 4mm slices
2. Heat fry pan and add the following – 2 tablespoons of coconut oil, a sliced chilli, 5 mm ginger root – grated finely, a crushed and chopped clove of garlic, a sprinkle of himalayan salt.
3. When oil hot add the tempeh to the pan. 
4. When brown on one side, turn over and brown the other side

The freshly fermented tempeh.

Chopped and cooked with a 2 tablespoons of coconut oil, grated ginger, sliced chilli, crushed garlic, and a sprinkling of himalayan salt.

After a couple of minutes, they were brown on one side, so I gently turned them over for another minute or two before moving them to a towel to absorb the excess oil.

I laid it out ready for my family to come back home from their outing.

Then I realised that it didn’t quite looked enough, so I cooked up the other half.

… and in the few moments after they walked in the door, it was gone! Even my picky food critic son loved it – so it must be really good. Now I have to make some more at 6:30am so that little Monty can have some in his kindy lunchbox.

A goal of mine is to grow some grains and more legumes in my permaculture garden to make my own tempeh!!! I’ll let you know how I go when I get to this point, and I’d love to hear your experienced of making various sorts of tempeh.

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Today, October 16, is World Food Day – a day of action against hunger. What could you do to help raise awareness locally and take personal action?

I’ll be making the most out of my permaculture garden abundance – collecting and processing the most flourishing seasonal foods and collecting open pollinated seeds to plant, eat and share. I am also writing this post to share with you in the hope that you will share it on.

Control over seeds must remain in peasants’ hands,” La Via Campesina. (Photo: Tineke d’Haese/ Oxfam)

Did you know that:

• 60% of the hungry in the world are women.
• Almost 5 million children under the age of 5 die of malnutrition-related causes every year.
• 4 in 10 children in poor countries are malnourished which damages their bodies and brains

But did you also know that:

• Peasants produce over 70% of the food consumed globally on small farms of less than 2 hectares, and 80% of the food consumed in those countries.  The best way to prevent hunger is to prevent land grabs and enable peasants to be free to grow a diversity of food using their own seed on their own land.  Rather than cashcrops, hybrids etc. ‘Big’ solutions are not the answer.
• Increasingly global food giants are involved in land grabs that are evicting poor farmers from their land to grow cash crops (often in the name of food security or economic development).

“No-one should come and tell us how to produce our food”. Elizabeth Mpofu of Zimbabwe is General Coordinator of the international peasant movement of La Via Campesina, a coalition of 164 organizations in 73 countries around the world, representing about 200 million peasant, landless, indigenous, and other farmers.

What’s the difference? Food security or Food Sovereignty

La Via Campesina, the global peasant movement which represents 200 million peasants in over 70 countries, prefers to celebrate today as World Food Sovereignty Day. Food sovereignty differs from food security.

It’s not just old peasants either who are calling for this. Young women calling for change at La Via Campesina’s Youth Forum.

More reading (just a small selection):

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About 8 years ago I made a short film called Think Global: Eat Local – a diet for a sustainable society that wove together projects and ideas from research I’d done over 15 years in 15 countries in a 15 minute film.  The focus was local food systems, and I shared examples from around the world and particularly my local region.

You can tell the filming was finished in Queensland summer with the cicadas in the background of some interviews, but despite that, I think the content is still just as relevant today.  I am working on getting a full quality version onto my new Youtube Channel: Our Permaculture Life, but in the meantime, here is the film in 2 parts (apparently easier to upload that way back in 2008).

Think Global Eat Local: A Diet for a Sustainable Society – part 1
Think Global Eat Local: A Diet for a Sustainable Society – part 2

Much of the inspiration for my work in local food, simple living, sustainable communities and relocalisation has been inspired by the many months I lived in Ladakh in 1992 and 1995. I volunteered with the Ladakh Project and for Helena Norberg-Hodge – who was in my early 20s and continues to be a major inspiration to me. (Her films are: Ancient Futures and The Economics of Happiness).

This is an old slide image of me with Amale (my Ladakhi host mother) 21 years ago – taking a break from harvesting. I helped to trial the farmstay program in Ladakh in 1995 which continues today. The Learning From Ladakh 2016 program is open for August intake. The lessons I learnt in Ladakh have shaped the work I do, the way I think and the way I live.

Me threshing grain in Ladakh in 1995 as part of the Farmstay trial program of the Ladakh Project.

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Today’s shopping at my local coop – plastic free – hooray!!  Bulk organic flour, organic tahini, freshly crushed organic peanut paste, local organic honey, organic buckwheat, organic rolled oats, organic chia, organic nicola potatoes, organic Australian dahl, and toilet paper.

My dinner tonight was salad with tahini, and I’m looking forward to buckwheat and chia porridge with honey for breakfast.

I love taking my own glass jars and buying in bulk – honey, tahini, olive oil, tamari, fresh peanut paste …

Another way I reduce plastic coming into my home is buying loose fruit or veg. I just pop them straight in my shopping basket as is – no need for plastic carry bags. I will wash and peel these spuds before I eat them anyway.

Buy loose vegetables to reduce plastic waste.

My old pasta maker is probably 20 years old and a little rusty on the outside, but it works just fine.

Hugh’s first pasta experiment – organic wholemeal spaghetti and fettuccine. It was absolutely delicious.

In trying to reduce plastic, I also notice that many of the personal items and cleaning products I buy are now in refillable bottles and unwrapped.

In the local food coop, there’s a whole range of household cleaners and personal items available in bulk – dishwashing liquid, laundry liquid, body lotions, conditioners, shampoos and body wash…  I simply take my containers in and refill.

This hand-made soap is made by Self Managed Soap, a South-East Queensland co-operative. They are a community based group who have social justice and environmental ethics. Their soap is made from pure vegetable oils with no added chemicals. Actually, the cold-pressed virgin coconut oil is extracted by the coconut farmers themselves which means the oil is fresher and of higher quality, and more profits stay in the local community.  The world coconut oil trade has been controlled by trans-national corporations, buying copra cheaply from tropical producers and sending it to Europe or Asia for processing.  

I love this soap – unpackaged, palm oil free and really affordable – and just $1.50 a bar. They have a great range of natural scents – my favourites are the peppermint and cinnamon scrub.

Paper wrapped 100% recycled loo paper that’s nice on your bottom.

I sometimes get caught out and don’t have enough cloth bags so I grab a box from the shops instead.  The boxes always find another few good uses – for mulching, for craft projects my children are doing, or for workshops I run. I dislike the poly reusable bags. they don’t last that long, then become rubbish too. I think it’s better to buy or make strong cotton bags instead that go back into the soil when they can no longer be repaired.

 

 

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In making Think Global: Eat Local our aim was to celebrate local food systems in communities around the world – farmers’ markets, food box systems, food coops, community farms, community gardens, school gardens and home gardens.

Meeting with Cuban community gardeners in Havana.

While exploring the ways many communities are meeting their food needs locally, the film touches on many of the issues caused by and impacting upon our current unsustainable food system including climate change and peak oil. The film points to relocalisation of food systems as a key strategy for working toward a more ecologically sustainable, health and socially just society.

Working with the community to collaboratively design and construct a new community garden in Balcova, Turkey.

Leading permaculture classes for young Korean student activists.

Over a fifteen year period, we collected includes footage and images of local food systems in fifteen countries including: Australia, Bulgaria, Bahamas, China, Cuba, Denmark, Germany, India, Indonesia, Scotland, Slovenia, Spain, South Korea, Turkey and the USA. The footage and images were taken as part of our action research over 15 years into systems that promote sustainability, a core part of our international permaculture adventures.

Exploring urban agriculture zones in the middle Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia.

Children tending to their Peace Garden on Eleuthera Island, The Bahamas

I remember the premier screening so well – I was heavily pregnant with Hugh and it was just five he as was due.  Climbing up onto the stage to introduce the film was quite a challenge!

We received support from the Maleny Film Commission, and arm of the largest Film Society in Australia, to make this film. So while we maintained an international focus throughout the film, there is a strongly local Maleny thread too (Maleny is in the hinterland of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland).  I found out about this small grant from another mum at the Maleny Playgroup – that was such a hotbed of creativity – all those fabulous mums joining forces and doing projects they could while their kids were really little.

The links here are to the youtube versions my brother uploaded for me some time ago. It’s not high resolution for screening, but OK for personal viewing.  If you’d like a copy send me an email.  I still have some DVDs remaining and I am planning to get it onto Vimeo in better resolution soon.

The film has been screened in many parts around Australia and internationally as a short introduction to the issues to stimulate discussion. It has been particularly popular with schools, local action groups, transition groups environment groups and the like.

You can watch it here in 2 parts. (NB: you can tell that we did the final couple of interviews in Queensland summer – the cicadas are ever-present during the daylight hours! I’ve always wanted to re-record those bits, but new projects beckon).

PART 1: THINK GLOBAL: EAT LOCAL

PART 2: THINK GLOBAL: EAT LOCAL

The post Think Global: Eat Local – a diet for a sustainable society. Our film. appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

We can become caught up in day to day actions – I know I do with three children, a big teaching garden and lots of interesting projects always on the go. It’s important though to remember to take a step back, take some deep breathes and look at the bigger picture – rethink why we do what we do, look closely at what change is needed, and how we can realign our work and life to contribute more positively to this.

Taking part in this online course is a way to start 2016 with this positive approach and see how perhaps I can be of greater service and use my energies even more effectively this year.  I just began listening to the first and second lectures yesterday I am absolutely engrossed.  I love being immersed again in the world of Fritjof Capra’s clarity of thinking and perception.

Image: www.fritjofcapra.net

From the first lecture I took some notes. I thought I’d share just this little snippit…. Fritjof asserts that all the problems we face in the world today are interconnected and that we are suffering from a crisis of perception. There ARE solutions to the major problems of our time, some even simple, but finding the solutions requires a radical shift in our perceptions, thinking and values.  Fritjof believes we are in such a shift – but that the realisation has not dawned on key decision-makers who continue with a peace-meal approach.  What we need rather are systemic and sustainable solutions – we need to build and nurture sutainable communities – designed to respect, honour and cooperate with nature’s coherent ability to sustain life….

My notes are so copious and the lectures have only just begun. My mind is abuzz with ways to refine, improve and add to the the programs we run here at the Ethos Foundation​, through SEED International, and in my personal life and work.

When I first studied with Fritjof Capra in 1992 on a 5 week program at Schumacher College​ it changed my life and set me on my current trajectory. The framework of thinking that is presented here in Fritjof’s new online course is the latest version of his thinking – a way of ecological thinking that has inspired and guided my life and work for the past 24 years. I returned again to Schumacher College in 2000 for a 2 week Capra Systems thinking reunion course which renewed my clarity and focus.  I can feel already that this new online course is going to do the same.

I have met with Fritjof and his amazing wife Elizabeth in Berkeley a couple of times and interviewed him for our short film Think Global: Eat Local – A diet for a sustainable society which Evan and I made in 2007. Only a small segment of the interview was able to be included in the 15 minute film, so we hope to release the whole interview shortly. We hope also to be able to visit him again soon.

I wish Fritjof all the very best with this new program.  If you are interested in joining his next online course, which begins in April, take a look at www.capracourse.net

Here is part one of our 15 minute film: Think Global: Eat Local – A diet for a sustainable society.  It features projects and people we visited in 15 countries over a period of 15 years.

Here is part 2:

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