Sustainable Living - Part 1

For several months I have used the terms sustainable living, sustainable lifestyle, and sustainable products. But what do these terms mean?

By most definitions "Sustainable Living" refers to a lifestyle that attempts to reduce an individuals or community's "footprint" or impact on Earths natural resources. But it is much more then this to me.

To me sustainable living is an awareness, an empowerment, and a liberator.

In the following series I will talk about how anyone, young or old, rich or poor, city or country, busy or not, can live and benefit from sustainable practices.

OK now I'm going to say a "not so politically correct" thing here.

This is not about Global Warming, Being Green, or Political Left or Right Issues!

OK I said it, let's move on.

This is about the individual. The family. The neighborhood. The city. The state. The nation. Our world.

But let's start with the individual. It's a bit easier and I can write about real life experiences.

The first way to begin your journey of sustainability is awareness.

Becoming aware of a way of thought or a lifestyle one requires information about that lifestyle.

Find out what sustainable living is and how and why it is important for you, for your family, and for your community.

When the world conspires with fast foods, economic crises, disposable this and throw away that, does it make sense to try to do something different?

So the very first step is to...

Research. Make it pertain to you. Using your search engine, use keywords and questions that interest you. For example, even though I had numerous cookbooks in the house at the time, when I wanted to make bread from scratch for the first time, I turned to the Internet. Bread recipes. Then I just opened up websites until I found some that...well that spoke to me. It was as simple as that. Now I am making and baking my own bread.

But by definition making my own bread does little to reduce that footprint or reduce Earths natural resources. Or does it? Perhaps that bread truck is idling a minute less during his delivery because I chose to make my own bread or perhaps not.

What I do know is that I have taken the time to do something for me and those I love. I have stopped time for just a few moments of the day to do something ancient-- make bread.

I have gone to the market, planned and bought the recipe ingredients; organic flour, organic honey, oil, salt. Basic, real ingredients. That's it. No chemicals, no preservatives, wholesome.

I have learned to mix the ingredients, knead the dough, put away to rise (an hour only), punch down and knead again, let rise again, place in an oven and bake. That simple.

That simple. And I learned how to make and bake bread. That is sustainable.

We can and will take the same approach to each subject that we touch upon together.

We will discuss all aspects of sustainable living from alternative energy systems to keeping backyard chickens to canning and preserving food to home design and ideas.

Tomorrow I will continue this first part in our series of articles.

Brett