My Journey to Going Soy Free
I’ve been at my computer all day trying to write a witty post that held the ultimate list of things to do to transform yourself into an Eco Diva. Five tips for this, 7 steps to that. Every attempt fell flat. It wasn’t portraying what I want in terms Eco-Diva -ness. Being an Eco-Diva is more than a collection of checklists and tips. It’s more than 4 steps to a better kitchen or 7 ways to improve your cleaning or eating or yard or whatever. Lists are great but…True divas immerse themselves in their passion. Why would it be any different for an Eco-Diva? Being green means you’ve made a philosophical shift. You’ve decided that the status quo of the way you and your family walk through this life must change. Once you’ve made that decision, the actions permeate in all areas of your life.
My transformational eco-moment came when my, then 5 month old, daughter was diagnosed with a soy allergy. Since she was breastfed, that meant I had to be soy free. How hard could that be? No tofu or soy sauce, right? Take a moment to go to your cupboard and look at the labels of every cracker, granola bar, salad dressing, cake mix, frozen meal, and everything else in a package and you will see things like soy lecithin, soy protein, soybean oil. It was everywhere. This suddenly made us incredibly aware of what we were eating mindlessly.
Would going soy free be hard for you?
We quickly realized that soy tended to also be accompanied by all the other additives and preservatives. Suddenly we weren’t consuming any of those chemicals. But we also had very little in our pantry. What was left to eat? We found ourselves jet propelled into the arena of whole foods. If we wanted bread, we had to make it. If we wanted a pizza, we had to make it. If we wanted salad dressing…well, you get the idea.
We became so attuned to labels and questioning our food, it was a natural leap to start wondering about our ingredients. Where did the wheat come from that we were using to bake our bread? We live in the wheat belt of Canada and were shocked to discover our flour wasn’t local. So we went directly to some farmers and asked how to get the grain we saw in the field near our house into our kitchen. We spent time at the farmers’ market and learned about organic vegetables. We began freezing them for the winter, and then canning them, too. Once we realized how much time and energy went into producing a jar of tomatoes, we addressed many energy leaks in our own life and recognized the need to grow way more of our own food. We starting reading books and changing our habits like unplugging the coffee pot instead of leaving it plugged in (unplug it to truly stop the power supply).
going to the source
And so it went… suddenly, we were making most of our food from scratch with ingredients whose source we could identify. We’d supported our local farmers but also turned our lawn into our own garden. We’d sourced humane, antibiotic-free meat directly from the farms. We then ate less meat. We rid our home of cleaners and other toxic materials. We started composting. We stopped getting plastic bags at the store. We turned the computers off. We turned the water heater down. We got a programmable thermostat.
We had BECOME green. Being eco-smart is at the core of our family, our daily living, our philosophy. Our world needs you to be eco-smart too. Our health and our earth’s health can wait no longer for ‘someone else’ to do something. We must each take saving the world into our own hands. Do you have to be as hard core as me in your quest for Eco-Diva -ness? No, an Eco-Diva takes action with purpose and passion. Choose something to do, to green your patch of the world, then choose another and then another and proudly proclaim yourself an Eco-Diva.
As a human ecologist by trade and and eco-warrior by passion, Jodi is determined to protect her patch of the world. She believes we can all participate in creating a more sustainable, healthy, and beautiful world one green step at a time.
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