The Politics of Lawns

I have a problem with lawns. Topsoil is quickly becoming a scare resource.  We are running out of the material which we use to grow our food. Yet in North America, we have been conditioned to waste our topsoil growing lawns.

The average home owner sits on a very generous portion of land, which could be used to grow food. But instead of growing food, people put down sod, drench it with chemicals, and use it to grow grass.

The lawn has become the ultimate status symbol. If you have a perfectly manicured lawn, it is a sign of affluence. People who let their lawns get overgrown are a source of scorn by the other law-abiding citizens who 'put in the effort' to maintain their yard.

In the most extreme cases,  we hire low-wage workers to mow and fertalize the lawn. The low-paid workers are exposed to the carcinogenic chemicals, while we sit in our houses and sip chardonnay or go to Choices to buy ridiculously over-priced organic produce.

Am I the only one who finds this bizzare? Why don't people grow their own food on some of their land?

Organic swiss chard, grown on my patio in garden boxes

My parents are a prime example of this. They have both a front and back yard, which they painstakingly maintain every weekend. They love to garden. But they don't grow any food. I recall growing up as a child and not being able to play on the lawn because it was covered in lime, or fertalizer, or it was being airated, or the new grass seed needed a chance to grow.

Why the hell bother having a lawn if your children can't even play on it?


I raised this topic with my parents, and asked them to plant a dwarf fig tree in their yard. They weren't warm to the idea. I pointed out that they could save money on food if they grew some of their own. They still weren't convinced. I argued that they should at least try to grow some of the more expensive food items, like spring mix or figs or asparagus.

After a few weeks of badgering, they have now planted some asparagus. Not a complete victory, but it's a start.

They have recently put up a huge fence around their back lawn, so that their dog can't go in it. So, now the lawn is really just used for:

1) Looking at
2) Walking across

Somehow I feel the land could be put to better use. Especially given the rising food costs coming our way this year.

What do you think? Should more people set aside some of their lawns to grow food? Is the lawn losing its foothold as a status symbol and quickly becoming a sign of stupidity and vanity?

Leave your comments below!

Zen and the Art of Baby Stawberries

We spread leadened gloss on our vain lips and pay for the sin of vanity with our tumored breasts.

We demand cheap meat, feast upon the tortured flesh, poison the earth and are incredulous when we become ill.

We trust in the Corporation, and let It tell us what to eat, what to breath, what to swaddle our children in.

We buy new things to replace our perfectly good old things, on credit that we cannot afford.

Our old things are buried, our sins buried, our past worthlessness is buried until it pollutes the earth and our grandchildren grow up unable to swim in the oceans, not knowing the taste of real strawberries.

My soul weeps. My heart is heavy, it does not soar.

How has this come to be? Greed. Gluttony. Displaced values and low self worth.

All I need, is enough. More than enough is more than enough. If there is excess when I am done, then I have consumed in excess. And I am ashamed.

To boast of excess used to be a way of showing power, status, and affluence. Excess is gluttony, obesity of the spirit, impairment of judgment.

A one dollar hamburger eaten with one hand while one person drives an SUV one block. This is the isolating metric of our time.

The lucky ones work tedious jobs to earn more money to pay for expensive gym memberships and expensive organic food, so they can escape the diseases of the poor: cancer, obesity, unbridled consumerism and credit card debt.


And still, we are all so alone. Things cannot fill the emptiness.


A fast food bag, travels three feet from the drive thru window to the car. And it has finally fulfilled it's destiny.

The three second journey from the window to the car, where it is pillaged by the chubby, greasy fingers of child on the verge of type two diabetes, is the useful life of the paper bag. Three seconds. Millions of trees logged, barrels of oil burned, kilotons of pollution created for that three second journey.

My heart is heavy. My soul, diminished.

And so I plant a garden. I place seeds in the earth, till the soil with my bare hands, and wait. I am patient, I do not demand more of the earth than it can give. I accept.

I find Zen in my garden. I am sincere in my intentions. I will give to the earth, and will take back only what it yields, less a little bit.

This transaction between myself and my garden, this exchange of energy, is a microcosm. It is a model for world peace. It is the solution to climate change. It is my own little secret, my private revolution.

I take a deep inhale, close my eyes, exhale, and let my gaze fall on my plot of baby strawberries. I smile, and suddenly all is right with the world.

Vegan Condoms

While browsing at my local vegan food store Karmavore, I noticed that they sold vegan condoms. I had no idea that normal condoms were unvegan.

So what's in normal condoms that makes them unvegan? Most condoms are processed using casein, which is a protein derived from milk.

If you are a hardcore vegan, who wants their hardcore bumping and grinding to be 100% cruelty free, then check out Vegancondoms.com.

Semen Coicis Powder- WTF?

So I was doing some google sluething, trying to see if my favorite veggie bacon is still available in canada. A few hyperlinks later, I ended up at Whole Vegetarian Goods, an asian vegeterian health foods purveyor.

First off, I was suspicious of this website because this company imports food from Asia. Asian countries are not know for their rigorous or reliable food safety regulations. China, after all, was the country caught making soy sauce out of human hair (God, I hope there weren't any short and curly's in there).

This company carries vegetarian foods in chicken, beef, duck, mutton, pork and seafood flavor. I am almost positive that these foods are not vegetarian, and definitely not vegan. I just don't trust the Chinese ;)

The more worrisome of items was the coicis powder, touted as a healthy powder. Curious about what this product was and the potential benefits, I googled "coicis powder". Suddenly, links for "Semen Coicis Powder" came up.


Um...what? When did semen enter into the picture?

After clicking on some of the links, I ended up here.

The product description reads "Coix seed flour is the powdered product which using the good quality Job's tears' seeds through a process with high temperature and high pressure, and then with further processing."

Ever seen Lost In Translation? Yea. That's what's happening here.

The 'making process' reads:

"We use the advanced equipments to ripen the selected Job's tears' seeds through high temperature and high pressure ( the nutrient loss of the material can be reduced to a considerable extent through ripening process ) and then make them into powder. Then the powder will be exsiccated and sterilized at microwave production line. Finally, the products would be packed in the GMP clean-room."

I still  have no idea what the hell is going on here. I know Job's Tear's are a type of Asian grain, so that makes me hopeful that this is a vegetable based product. But that pesky word 'semen' keeps bothering me. Do plants have semen? Does this product contain plant semen?

Or is this another soy-sauce-made-out-of-human-hair fiasco waiting to happen? Ie. Coicis powder made out of frustrated Chinese businessman semen.

I don't read Chinese, so I am going to have to ask my Chinese friends to solve this mystery for me.

Either way, I don't believe I will be purchasing any 'vegetarian products' from Whole Vegetarian Foods anytime soon. The risk of semen consumption is about as high as spending a night clubbing with Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears and Katy Perry.