Earth, permaculture and food
Earth is about dealing with the reality of the ecosystem and society around us. It’s about the importance of diversity. It’s about finding a balance between living in the new paradigm and yet complying with the structures and laws of the old. We aim to be realistic, grow organically within the limits of the existing people and capacities.
It’s about connecting with the seasons and understanding the laws of nature. How the continuous shift between growth and decay regenerates all living systems.
In Avnø Oasis we aim to use the permaculture principles as best we can, when designing various parts of the project. Permaculture consists of a set of thinking tools that, when used together, allow us to creatively re-design our environment and our behavior using less energy and resources.
The ethics of permaculture is earth care, people care and future care (sometimes expressed as fair share). It’s much more than sustainability. It’s about regeneration and using natural law in our approach to life.
The 12 basic permaculture principles that revolves around the ethics and are used when designing projects are:
- 1. Observe enough and then interact or change.
- 2. Catch and store energy.
- 3. Obtain a yield. Сonsider the harvest is everything that is available to you and use it.
- 4. Apply self-regulation & accept feedback.
- 5. Use & value renewable resources & services.
- 7. Design from patterns to details. from the whole to small.
- 8. Integrate rather than segregate. Effect of synergy. The more elements you have the more stable is your system.
- 9. Use small and slow solutions.
- 10. Use and value diversity.
- 11. Use edges & value the marginal.
- 12. Creatively use and respond to change.
Our community kitchen serves 3 meals a day. There are no options for cooking private meals – yet. Food at Avnø Oasis is 95% organic or self grown. We aim to grow most vegetables ourselves and eat what’s in season. We purchase from local shops as well as organic whole food companies.
The bulk of the food consists of organic whole grains, beans, seeds & local vegetables, complemented with fermented foods, fruits, nuts, seaweeds and a small amount of animal foods (mostly fish and eggs). Vegan options are provided when requested. Slower sweeteners make wonderful desserts and snacks and we enjoy grain coffee and various herbal teas.
We use macrobiotic principles in our food preparation. It is an energetic approach and the most holistic and least dogmatic approach to food we know of, as foods are assessed as appropriate or inappropriate in regards to a certain purpose, rather than being judged as good or bad in an absolute sense.
Besides tasting and looking delicious, this approach to food is known to open the door to a much richer life on a higher vibration, activate the body’s self-healing powers, reconnect you with your inner core, open up your senses to the world around you and it offers a safer approach to vegan food, which is becoming increasingly more popular for ideological reasons – not wanting to kill, industrial farming and for climate reasons.
We support a healthy and stimulant free life as stimulants work in the opposite direction of our vision statement and often are very unsustainable both in terms of how they affect the health of the person eating them, in terms of transport and often unfair conditions for the people who grow them in poor countries. Thus our community kitchen is free from refined sugar, coffee, alcohol, food additives and other stimulants. Personal use of mild stimulants is at each other’s discretion as long as use of them doesn’t become part of our community culture. Our shop offers healthy and more sustainable snacks. We are happy to support newcomers who are motivated, but need to get used to this way of eating and drinking.
