Month Number 1: No Sugar

I'm choosing sugar for the first practice month because I feel like I am quite dependent on it, and I want a challenge! I've been feeling quite sad for quite a while now whenever I think about the things I consume, not knowing where they come from, but knowing that damage is being done. The sugar I consume is most likely grown on mono-cropped farms, and most of it is package in plastic and transported a big distance. I'm guessing large scale mono-cropping, plastic packaging and long distance transport will not be very common post capitalism, especially for low nutrition and unhealthy foods like lollies and chocolate bullets. The other reason I'm choosing sugar is because I use sugary junk food to self soothe when I'm feeling anxious, and I'm pretty sure I can do without it. I will probably still get anxious and stressed post capitalism, so I need to work on other self soothing and self care techniques! (If you're interested in the difference between self-care and self soothing I found this really interesting!)

Before I even started the month I got into some good conversations about what sweet things can grow around where I live. Someone told me that sugar cane still could grow around the Kulin Nations, and so can sugar beet, so I could grow some if I wanted to. Despite this, I decided I really want to prove to myself that I don't need sugary food, especially lollies and chocolate, and going out for a month will pressure me to think about it and find ways to deal with the reduction.

Day 1: In the morning my friend was eating a croissant and I took a bite without even thinking! First fail... From then on I wrote on each hand "NO SUGA" to make sure nothing else with sugar would enter my mouth.

I quickly realised my favourite soy milk, and all the soy milks that don't taste horrible, have sugar in them. I tried to organic unsweetened stuff but it really ruined my tea, so I'm going to try and make soy milk and sweeten it with dates (which can grow around where I live)!

Day 3: I've got my period and it's getting really hard. I didn't really realise how much I just use sugary foods for self-soothing, especially at this time of the month. But I'm staying strong, I want to prove to myself that I can do this, hooray for the slow journey of strengthening my will power. Day 4: I bought some dried bananas, yum! I also tried making my own soy milk which was a huge disaster... which led to a meltdown.

Day 6: After another fail in making soy milk I finally made a batch and it tastes good!

Day 10: One of the interesting things about this is how much I think about things I am consuming. Checking ingredients, having to think before I buy or eat. I love the greater awareness it is bringing, making me think about all the things that had to happen to get the food I'm eating to me. It makes supermarkets pretty hard to be in, with so much plastic and colours and things shipped from very far away. It inspired me to go back to getting a local organic veggie box which I got from Joe's Market Garden. Check out the open food network if you are interested in finding local stuff to you!

I keep coming back again and again to how much the options available to me are even more than even a king would have had for most of human history. That is definitely going to change post capitalism, which is a shame because some of the choices are delicious. But I would rather not have systemic oppression of people and the rest of nature, so less food choices would be ok.

Day 15: A few more batches of failed soy milk later I'm really starting to wonder if I can get the hang of this. I seem to end up making some sort of coagulated tofu like substance. Oh well, you're often not good at something until you practice!

Day 16: My dad's birthday today but not cake for me! I'm very lucky to have a supportive and interested family, and my explorations into post capitalism always cause some good conversations. We've recently been talking about an article I found that argued those of us in the minority "developed" world need to consume one tenth of what we currently do on average if we want all of the humans in the world to have their needs met and we want to stay within planetary limits. One tenth is a lot!

Day 23: I visited my friend's nan and she had made freshly baked strudels, and I didn't have the heart to say no, so I ate one! I'm gonna add another day onto the end of my month just to make myself feel better, but making an exception for home baked Nana food feels ok! This isn't about being perfect :)

Day 28: I find myself thinking about sugar so much these last days of the month. It feels good to know that I have the will power to say no.

I've been having lots of great conversations with people about this Practice Probable Post Capitalism Month, reflecting on what we consume and why, and what we think is ethical. Someone told me about people who buy nothing for a whole year, which sounds like a fascinating project. I had a bit of a google and there are lots of great blogs and articles out there, talking about things like voluntary simplicity. It would be interesting to see how many people and how much of the discussion is around individual lifestyle change and happiness, and how much capitalism and toxic systems are talked about.

Day 32: The last day of the month was yesterday, though I added an extra day for that delicious strudel. I'm driving past a rural bakery that does the best passionfruit sponge cake and so I'm going to buy one and stay up till midnight to eat it! Yummmmmm

A couple of weeks later - I'm definitely eating less sugar and appreciating it more when I have some :)

(Tea without milk for those days I didn't have any soy milk)