The Abundance Diet vs Harmless Eating

While studying permaculture and tending my own garden years ago, I started to notice that the Earth is capable of producing a surprisingly abundant amount of food on even the smallest patch of land.

It struck me as a complete contrast to the poverty and struggle that exists in the world. I got the feeling that we’ve lost a secret we used to know.

Even though we’ve developed great technology, it seems that we’ve lost some wisdom along the way.

What if you only ate foods that did zero harm to other lifeforms?

This is basically veganism. Vegans try to avoid all harm to animals, focusing on fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds as their sources of fuel.

What if you only at from the abundance produced by the ecosystem around?

This is possible if you only ate the food created by other lifeforms instead of destroying the lifeforms to harvest their energy. So instead of cutting down the apple tree, you eat the apples, which will grow back next year. 

Perennial plants, vines, and trees provide plenty of food to sustain human life without destroying the โ€œparentโ€ plant, since the consumption and excretion of their seeds actually helps them by spreading their genetics. 

Annual plants can also be harvested, but only the ones that arenโ€™t fully destroyed from the process. Cucurbits like watermelon and squash fit into this category

Eating Animals and What They Produce

With animals it’s difficult to argue that you would never cause harm while eating their meat.

However, dairy products could be a form of eating from abundance that is also relatively harmless. I’m not sure if the entire process for harvesting milk is harmless to the animal. But the fact is, gathering milk doesn’t kill the animal that produces it.

Unfertilized chicken eggs seem to be the best animal version of harmless abundance eating that involves an animal, since the egg would not turn into a life-form anyway.

Deer, wild hogs, pythons, lion fish, nutria, and other invasive species are an abundant resource. Especially when they threaten certain ecosystems in large numbers.

Of course, the individual harm still happens to each hunted animal. But after considering the damage they cause, it’s clearly worth hunting these invasive species as part of a larger conservation effort and then using their meat as food.

The Abundance Diet:

  • Invasive Meats
  • Eggs
  • Milk
  • Vegetables
  • Fruit

The Abundance Diet with Least Harm focus:

  • Eggs
  • Milk
  • Vegetables
  • Fruit

Overall I think humans would be much healthier and happier if they focused on eating a diet based on the natural abundance of the ecosystem around them instead of destroying the source with each harvest.

Our modern farms require a lot of constant human intervention.

The wild forest doesn’t need a gardener at all, and yet it’s full of nuts, berries, and wildlife.


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