10 things

Quasi-relevant to minimalism; the items on this list. What we did before DIGG, I'll never know...

buy ingredients

Busy folks who have no time to cook eat shit. This is my personal opinion, not a statement of fact. The contemporary grocery store experience is bizarre and surreal to me, with the long lines and carriages heaped with goods, it's more like preparing for Armageddon then feeding oneself. I am aware of places like Walmart and Costco, but I never shop at these palaces of domestic supply, surely that comes as a surprise to no one.

Food is gross. This in not my opinion, this is a statement of fact. It grows out of dirt and picked by the lowest paid labor or it is killed, skinned and stripped from sinewy bone. The appearance of sanitation or cleanliness is an illusion. Milk comes from sore and infected cows tits, eggs come from a chickens ass, and bacon is a chunk of a pig cut from the fatty outer layer of its skin. Don't distress this fact - people are gross too. Teeth are designed for tearing through flesh and mushing it up, then it enters the body where acids and enzymes go to work on it and leech out nutrients. When that process ends, we shit what is not useful into the toilet. Any sign of sanitary or humane application to this is self-deception. The bright colors and inventive packages are designed for the specific task of distracting your mind from the facts about what you are about to eat. I am at relative peace with the sheer nastiness of food. I prefer to buy it from a cardboard box on the floor, a hastily crafted table or even out of the back of a truck, but it is very important to me that I am able to see, touch, and taste my food before I buy it. When food is put into bags and boxes and stripped of its functional appearance - there is something inhumane about that. If you are going to eat chicken or a chunk of cow it dishonors the value that beast offers when it is called another name or packaged with a cartoon likeness.

I live on the third floor. Not that I am lazy, but I simply can not justify carrying all that boxed up food up three flights - not to mention discarding it all means carrying it back down to the dumpster. It is a matter of pride for me to generate as little waste as possible so I avoid heavily packaged items, opting to refill my peanut butter from that cool ooze machine at the market and baked goods from the *gasp* Bakery.

There is an economic principle known as "Value Added," which I will explain thus using the subject of potatoes. Besides being a popular word to misspell, it is a staple of my diet. I pay about a dollar a pound for the spudsy treats that are trucked down from Maine, they end up in my soups, fried in oil with some salt, or smashed cruelly into oblivion before they end up in my stomach. The same amount of potatoes ushered into an industrial process will yield a frozen, bagged french/freedom fry product that will sell for about two dollars and fifty cents. Another version of the same food would be the semi-fancy potato chips, albeit more vigorously fried, their price per pound increases to nearly four dollars per pound of potatoes. This practice extends to all foods in all directions. The more complex the food, the greater effort of production - the greater the cost. Buying food in its natural form and then preparing it yourself saves energy from the cooking, packaging and shipping. Besides, packaged food is the logical destination for "Grade B," eggs and other deformed or maligned crops. The price is lower, plus you have some control over quality. We've all got that crazy purple potato chip or one with a Virgin Mary on it.

I use ingredients. Storage of several small, fresh items replaces endless cupboard space filled with boxes, bags, and packages of nonsense food. There are no food dyes, no chemical additives or preservatives, and everything is honest. No deceptive monosodium glutemate disguising something un-natural tasting, no petroleum derivitives, because food is gross enough.

Bring a Lunch

I got shit canned from a job once. Painful memories there. I had to go back to work at an old factory job while figuring out what to do next. It wasn't a terrible thing for me really, since my outlook is pretty simple: When you are at peace with badness, nothing overwhlems you. The best part of this terrible thing? Lunch.

My co-workers were mostly immigrants, dad's ditching child support, hustlers, drunks/drug addicts or some combination of one and the other. The finest collection of desperate losers you ever saw with a collected 180 years of experience - there was never a dull moment. We were located in Chinatown, and being even too broke for Chinese food, we bought up all these cool stainless steel lunchboxes. They were about $5-$10, depending how fancy you wanted to get. Myself, I splurged and went for the five tier, heavy gauge, fancy shit and it ran me $12. We would all bring in lunch together and share.

As meals go, there was a pretty interesting mix of cold pizza, curry and rice, chicken, ribs, mac + cheese, ramen, and all kinds of crazy vegetables. I used to go to the Arab market and score Pitas and hummus, dried apricots or raisins, olives, and goat cheese. We got tea from Chinatown real cheap. It was an extravagant daily affair and for some of the gentlemen it was the only meal they would get. We would set these Bento/Tiffin boxes on top of the big heater in the middle of the room and by lunch everything would be nice and hot. Somebody would sneak out early for smokes, an icy 30 pack, and scratch tickets. Cost to each of us? Under 5 bucks.

Our boss and his hot ass secretaries used to join us, even though they could get steak tips and mesclin salad from the yuppie place, just because it was like Thanksgiving everyday. I used to get stuff from the store to feed the others that I never even tried myself, like this knotted, herbed, cheese rope thing - just because it was cool looking. Besides, we were all friendly and there was unique bond of trust that gets forged from eating someone else's food.

The minimalist moral for this is simple. Bring a lunch. No Styrene box or plastic forks, no overeating, no food poisoning, no lines to wait in and - the price is right. For me the most important thing was the harmony of sitting down and eating with others. Even in a shitty, hot factory with people many would regard as outright evil, sitting and eating together is still awesome. I ate things I would have never tried and heard stories that might not have been told without that trust. No question - bringing a lunch makes you a better person.

Save energy

Being a minimalist has many parallels with other hippy causes. I used the word minimalism in the first place because the word I really wanted to use was already taken. That other word was "Conservative." At the time I got caught up in a "Green Building" project and all of my research for "Greening" kept circling me back to conservation. Using less energy from the start, and producing less waste meant not needing recycling - which uses A LOT of energy. I focused on the reuse/renew part of the triad, and literally factored the recycling part out as fat. "Put some barrels in the corner..." were my exact words when pressed on the subject. Not to bash Recycling. I do it when I get a plastic bottle or tin can or something, but I try not to buy packaged stuff. Its just more work.

Regardless of what you call yourselves though, here is a good list stolen from some earth day site with a list of some stuff that you can do to Green/LOHAS/Minimalize or just be plain old conservative (the list was endorsed by a wartime president). Its intended for earth day, but I think it should be used everyday.

Use the Energy Star program to find energy efficient products for your home. The right choices can save families about 30% ($400 a year) while reducing our emissions of greenhouse gases. Whether you are looking to replace old appliances, remodel, or buy a new house, the can help. ENERGY STAR is the government's backed symbol for energy efficiency. The ENERGY STAR label makes it easy to know which products to buy without sacrificing features, style or comfort that today's consumers expect.

Turn off appliances and lights when you leave the room.

Use the microwave to cook small meals. (It uses less power than an oven.)

Purchase "Green Power" for your home's electricity. (Contact your power supplier to see where and if it is available.)

Have leaky air conditioning and refrigeration systems repaired.

Cut back on air conditioning and heating use if you can.

Insulate your home, water heater and pipes.

Keep in mind that every trip adds to air pollution.

Replace incandescent light bulbs with Energy Star qualified Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs (CFL). If every household in the U.S. replaced one light bulb with a CFL, it would prevent enough pollution to equal removing one million cars from the road.

Use less water

Look for the WaterSense label to identify water-efficient products and programs. The WaterSense label indicates that these products and programs meet water-efficiency and performance criteria. WaterSense labeled products will perform well, help save money, and encourage innovation in manufacturing.

Don't let the water run while shaving or brushing teeth.

Take short showers instead of tub baths.

Keep drinking water in the refrigerator instead of letting the faucet run until the water is cool.

Scrape, rather than rinse, dishes before loading into the dishwasher; wash only full loads.

Wash only full loads of laundry or use the appropriate water level or load size selection on the washing machine.

Buy high-efficient plumbing fixtures & appliances.

Repair all leaks (a leaky toilet can waste 200 gallons a day).

Water the lawn or garden during the coolest part of the day (early morning is best).

Water plants differently according to what they need. Check with your local extension service or nurseries for advice.

Set sprinklers to water the lawn or garden only - not the street or sidewalk.

Use soaker hoses or trickle irrigation systems for trees and shrubs.

Keep your yard healthy - dethatch, use mulch, etc.

Sweep outside instead of using a hose.

Learn how to plant trees, build a pond, compost...

Reduce:

Buy permanent items instead of disposables.

Buy and use only what you need.

Buy products with less packaging.

Buy products that use less toxic chemicals.

Reuse:

Repair items as much as possible.

Use durable coffee mugs.

Use cloth napkins or towels.

Clean out juice bottles and use them for water.

Use empty jars to hold leftover food.

Reuse boxes.

Purchase refillable pens and pencils.

Participate in a paint collection and reuse program.

Donate extras to people you know or to charity instead of throwing them away.

Reuse grocery bags as trash bags.

Recycle:

Recycle paper (printer paper, newspapers, mail, etc.), plastic, glass bottles, cardboard, and aluminum cans. If your community doesn't collect at the curb, take them to a collection center.

Recycle electronics.

Recycle used motor oil.

Compost food scraps, grass and other yard clippings, and dead plants.

Close the loop - buy recycled products and products that use recycled packaging. That's what makes recycling economically possible.

— CAREY GREENBERG-BERGER