Why Do I Want to Be Self-Sustainable?

I’ve had a lot of people ask why I care about self-sustainability or emergency preparedness. I have already talked about emergency preparedness a few times – the government recommends it and so do all the aid organizations like Red Cross. Seeing what happened to people in Hurricane Katrina made me a believer. I don’t want my family trapped in the house on day three of a two week power outage waiting for someone to come rescue us and debating whether we should split that last granola bar and the can of soda someone found in the back of a closet into two meals or just eat it all at once because we only had a few days worth of food and no stored water in the house. But I haven’t talked much about self-sustainable living, so here goes.

First, a definition. According to dictionary.com, sustainable means capable of being continued with minimal long-term effect on the environment. So, self-sustainable means that I am able to feed and care for my family while reducing the damage to the environment. I can do a lot by growing my own produce or buying from local farmers who try to grow organically. Ideally, I’d also be able to produce all my own electricity, too.

Now, on to why I am interested in a self sustaining lifestyle:

• I want to be self-sustainable because lettuce, spinach, chives or what have you from my veggie garden is pretty likely to not be covered in E Coli or other dangerous bacteria.
• I want to be self-sustainable because I don’t want my guys ingesting 67 pesticides with their celery. 67! A CNN article talks about which fruits and veggies are the worst offenders and the damage this can do to developing brains.
• I want to be self-sustainable because trucks driving from one end of the country to the other to bring me some greens out of season is really bad for the environment.
• I want to be self-sustainable because it gives me a sense of satisfaction to pick my own fruits and veggies for a meal that I can’t find by buying them from the store produce section.
• I want to be self-sustainable because the freshest veggies have more nutrients. A friend of mine who did a lot of research on nutrition once said that by the time celery hit the store, it had as many nutrients as cardboard left in it.
• I want to be self-sustainable because a yard filled with edible flowers, vegetables and fruits looks a lot more interesting than an acre of  fresh cut grass.

So, there you have it, folks. That’s why I want to be self-sustainable. What about you?