Towards Self-Sustainability: Positive Steps I’m Taking Right Now

Something is infinitely better than nothing

True self-sustainability is physically unattainable, it would consume all your day, and you would still fall short. That doesn’t mean it isn’t worth achieving at least some degree of it and thus making your life a little more robust for the times ahead of us.

Here are the steps I took recently.

Investing in Small Appliances

This spring, I bought two things: a home mill for grains and a trolley for the bike. The mill allows me to purchase grains directly from (trusted) farmers and mill my own flour. I can also make more exotic types of flour; such as quinoa, chickpeas, sprouted grains, etc. These are usually impossible to find or prohibitively expensive. Milling grains before use preserves all their nutrients, which would otherwise oxidize and get rancid and make bread much more nutritious and tasty.

Photo by author

As for the bike, I’m not bound to my car so much anymore. I can do local shopping and other errands without burning any gas. It is liberating.

Connecting with farmers

Buying food directly from farmers has many advantages. It is as fresh as it can get, and farmers are unlikely to lie…