Hi, my name is June and in the neighbourhood I grew up in they rather bizarrely refer to me as Tiny June or sometimes even as just Tiny, which is bizarre to the outsider because I’m far from tiny. I don’t take the typical mould of a chef, having spent a good chunk of my life beefing up in the gym, so whenever the chef’s coat comes off you might be surprised to see something of a real beefcake.
Now, the reason for the paradox is that growing up I was a really skinny child – like unusually skinny, simply because of my super-fast metabolism. It wasn’t until I hit puberty that the name Tiny June had stuck, at which time it should have been updated because that’s when I started hitting the gym with the sole purpose of bulking up and getting ripped, as they say.
More paradoxes
So if I opened with a discussion of my life as a beefcake gym rat, then how does this appear to be a blog about eco-nutrition, with a particular emphasis on veganism and vegetarianism?
It’s simple really and it’s all about sustainable nutrition in more than the eco-cooking / eco-eating sense. Considering something like the amount of protein a bodybuilder would need to construct some muscle mass, it’s hard to imagine this can be done as a vegan or vegetarian, which strikes at the very heart of what this blog is all about.
Confession – I’m not myself a vegan or vegetarian, or at least not all the time. As part of my own nutrition plan I sometimes fall into vegetarianism and sometimes even into veganism, but not on a full-time basis. I do indeed enjoy eating meat and quite bizarrely I enjoy preparing it as well, which is why I’m part-owner of a commercial butchery.
About the blog
I’ll concede to the fact that at this particular point I’ve not done all that much to address these growing paradoxes, but upon learning exactly what this blog is all about, I believe that you will have a better understanding. You’ll know that these aren’t paradoxes at all!
So let’s start with the part-ownership in a commercial butchery. In line with my mission to help spread awareness around a more sustainable way of feeding ourselves, I decided to strike at the very heart of one of the industries in which the most wastage occurs, which is that of meat production. So my part-ownership in a butchery is so that I can be in a position to effect some real change via the implementation of more practical solutions in sustainable food production.
So no, I’m not one of those people who can’t stand the sight of a dead animal – if I have to I’d go hunting myself and prepare a nice meat dish with these two hands of mine! Also, I’m not being some kind of hypocrite. As a part-owner in a butchery, I’m at the ground-level which grants me access to direct channels through which to make sure food is being produced more sustainably.
This I do by insisting we source organic meat which is produced form free-range animals and also insisting on the source of the feed for those animals being organic and farmed in a sustainable way.
Bring that together with my past as a non-competing bodybuilder and you’ll probably start to see sustainability in the context of food production and consumption in a different light. When you’re beefing up or merely feeding your muscles as a gym rat then you’re making sure to make full use of the nutrients you ingest, so that’s one iteration of sustainable nutrition.
The other iteration I just discussed, which is that of being the change I want to see in the meat production industry and as a knock-on effect to all industries connected to it.
There’s a third iteration though, which is perhaps the main focus of this blog, and that just has a lot to do with how we consume food. The goal is to share more sustainable methods of our interaction with the food from which we get our nourishment, so whether the chef’s hat is on or off, when you come and visit this blog, you can expect to find the most informative of content regarding sustainable nutrition.
