Water, gift from the gods

My writing ended as fast as it started. This was due to school pressure: two essays, one dissertation, and one scholarship interview in Finland within the scope of four days. These days are now gone, I am back to revision, eating and writing.

I ended my fast on Sunday after six days of fasting. However, once an ordeal such as this one is stopped I have to say that the amount of calories devoured during the first days is not anymore than during the fast as the stomack is the size of a raisin and eating can make you very sick. The whole thing was definately a great experience, would and will definately do it again. I would say that especially after day five I started feeling very good, experiencing no hunger and no problems in reading and working. 

Since I have been talking about the consumption of fresh water, I think it is good to recognise that today is UNICEFs thirst day. It continues until the 30th. I will try to pay specific attention to the amount of water I consume and not to overconsume. Soap can be used while the shower is not flowing and the kettle can be filled with only the amount your tea mug can take in. Also dishes do not need running water to be clean. I would also donate Unicef some money, but since my Finnish bank has screwed up my internet banking system that is out of the question at the moment.

There has been various projects on water so one might hope there to be more knowledge about it. Yet the disparities between the developing and developed world are huge. Finland has the greatest water reserves making it perhaps the Iraq of the 22nd century unless, of course, it pollutes everything before that. It is pretty successful in throwing toxins in at least its rivers and the sea.

I will continue my fasting in one way: i will have a juice day once a week, this is what they recommend you to do. I think this would be a great way of keeping all the reasons I did it for in my mind.

The World's Water

Unicef's Tap Project

Day four: considerations of quitting create moral controversies

I cannot believe it.

I woke up feeling so sick and had almost zero energy to get out of bed. Once I reached the library I wanted to vomit (I wonder what) and just sat on my chair and waited. I was completely ready to give up on the fast because of academic aspirations, but slowly, everything changed to better and at the moment I truly understand what it means to achieve a body that is on the fasting mode. No hunger, no interest to eat, feeling great and energetic, i.e. no problems.

But at the moment I was ready to give up, I felt quite bad. Because I can choose. This is just a small experiment in my life, and once hunger becomes a problem, I can toast some bread. Similarly, I have always found immersion journalism a bit hypocritical, when a journalist researches for example the homeless and lives with them for week http://www.jou.ufl.edu/sji/1997/stories/f1.htm
or just me going to Cameroon to live in a village in the midst of the rainforest very ascetically. To then speak as if you’d know how their life is is ridiculous. Even if one would spend there forever, it would not be the same. Because for us, it is a choice and it is much easier to be if one possesses the power to stop ones situation at any point. I am not even trying to say that with this fast I will understand how it is to be starving (actually at the moment, not too bad:) but I do hope it makes me appreciate more what I have.

We have become so distanced of the lives of the poor that it is so easy to not care. The rich have less and less of an idea, what it is to be poor and have no interest in contributing to their misery.

People have gone crazy in Finland recently. Our city has now beggars. But not just any beggars, foreign beggars imported straight from Romania. This might sound weird, but until now, Helsinki has had no beggars and that’s how the people like it. They want to continue shop in their H&M without having someone reminding them of the inequalities of the world. So what are we to do? Media and the authorities declared with the same mouth that no one is to give any money to any of them. This would only increase their amount. They were shipped back to Romania and a fund was created to help them in their villages of origin.

http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Helsinki+sends+beggar+mothers+back+to+Romania+on+child+welfare+grounds/1135233973925

But are people not expecting too much when they want no beggars in their doorstep. Wouldn’t it only be a good reminder also to the Finns that their consumption and choice of how they use their money affects people further? How long, with our constantly growing inequalities are we to expect to have a beggar-free Helsinki in the first place?

By allowing Romania to join EU, the old EU countries have agreed to promote the development of Romania. I agree that the people in the streets of Helsinki should be helped in more profound ways than just the occasional coin, and I understand that it is not easy, since they come to Finland with no language skills and no professional skills. But why is a SOL cleaner for example required to speak Finnish? Finland is in dire need of more labor. If the people from Romania, who actually reach Finland, would be allowed in a system of integration including work, I wonder what the huge loss of Finland would be. In the long run, probably rather the other way around.

Day 3: getting better and the joy of not drinking coffee

I better stop reading about veganism. It only makes me think about all the wonderful things I can eat after my fast, which is not helping. Will come back to that during the first week of recovery. Had a bit of a hard time last night, felt like staying horizontal after I came home. The second day of the fast is always the worst, and until now it's been pretty damn easy, so I don't think this will be too much of a problem.

This morning I woke up to tormenting muscle ache, which I suppose came from a Monday aerobicks class, but honestly, why was the pain not there yesterday. Felt very very unenergetic, but a dl of carrot juice and a cup of green tea made my whole life better and I am off to study again.

Found out that the production of one cup of coffee uses 140 litres of water. So good I got rid of that sin after Cameroon. I used to be a extreme coffee drinker, with barista papers and all. I still would love a perfectly made espresso, but don't know if I will ever have one. Perhaps one day I visit Italy again.

http://www.unesco-ihe.org/about/press/press_releases/water_footprints_drinking_one_cup_of_coffee_costs_140_litres_of_water

http://finfood.fi/finfood/finnfoo1.nsf/154b9be36a0177ddc225718800384f71/e7113d6504de0453c22571d50031734e?OpenDocument

Day 2: a convincing argument to become vegan

Thank you Erika for the following Guardian article. I am considering more and more turning vegan. Or keeping my previous promise: almost no meat (pretty much eat it when others cook it for me) and less milk products. This week I am not only vegan, but also a raw foodist and a fruitarian:)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/15/food.biofuels

and another

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/nov/11/food.climatechange

Day 1 of Fasting

Ok, firstly a few things to reply to Elias's comment. I am fasting in a completely nutritious way and have fasted before, although with less preparation. And the comment about the body shape was a joke for all those who think I would be crazy enough go on a fast to lose weight (I just think that even if that is not the reason, nobody minds the side effect:). 

And I would love to have some vegan recipes. I barely eat meat as it is, therefore one of my aspirations for the year was not to become vegetarian. And vegan, although I completely admit to be the right thing to do, is difficult. I am from Finland, and have gone through Valio (Finnish dairy company) propaganda all my life, and it is quite hard to drop milk. And since I eat so little meat anyway, I do not see the reason to move to being a vegetarian, when ethically I actually find milk products to be pretty much just as evil as meat. Except less evil perhaps for my body. But roquefort is so gooood:) But I will ponder on it and definately perhaps use less milk products.

Having said that ... this is so easy. I am taking a juice fast, which allows me less than 400 cal of of vegetable and fruit juices per day. And I should be getting all nutrients I need. I have not felt hungry once, which is a good indicator of how much a person would actually need to eat purely for hunger. I wonder how much you will eat, Juliane? (you can see her comment below) However I do think that a person can easily create hunger just by knowing that they CAN EAT. It is much easier to drop solids, I think, than to reduce in quantity. I have been thinking of continuing a once a week juice-day after the fast is done. Because all the nutriets, it is completely healthy and one day does not really require much preparation. Might be worth a try. That would be a good life-style change to any of you, who are not interested in fasting immideately. And Juliane, keep us posted on when you decide to go for it.

The funny thing is that in Finland it is adviced to always cleanse the colon before fasting, otherwise the body will start using the crap left in the intestines as nutrition, and since its actually toxins, this can apparently lead to terrible head aches and a generally crappy feeling during the fast. And one should never go to a fast unless done in an orthodox manner. Well, in England they advice against it. So much so that in the city of Colchester you cannot find a kit to empty to colon. So we're gonna have to do without. Go figure those doctors. Let's see what tomorrow will bring. At the moment the most difficult thing is to get used to the fact that you cannot always be eating. It is just the normal past time and I continuously notice thinking of combining food with an action or routine I have. Well, that all will go now, and I waiting for day three and four, when this all should get easier.

But what Juliane said about the soup kitchen reminded me of something. Juliane goes once a week to distribute food to the poor Parisiennes and I had the opportunity to join her as I previously visited her. I found it shocking, how little influence it had on us. We were happy to go our merry ways afterwards and enjoy a big precious dinner. Similarly, I am surprised how my experience in Cameroon had no effect on my consumption. I have always been quite aware of my consumption, which has been limited and ethical. It is rather recently, within the last few years, that I have let go, and I don't allow the feeling of wrongdoing always to stop me from purchasing. I would like that moral voice in my head to grow louder again. And studying human rights, it is not as if I lack information on what a shithole the world is. Perhaps I have become cynical. I have had people be shocked by my reaction to a movie on the El Salvador civil war, which was that it was too soft. This is while a boy my age was hysterically crying. But what did he expect? It's a civil war after all. 

Thank you all for your support, there has been quite alot. And there are more who have promised to make some changes than have actually posted on this page. And Juliane, you will always be much more of an inspiration to me than I could ever be to you.

Day of Preparation

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4443111.stm%20gives gives some encouragement. It is absolutely dispicable what our relationship with food is today. While we not only eat too much (weight has become the single most destructive disease in the western countries), we also throw a big portion of our food away. I will never encourage stuffing yourself with too much food when you are full, but I will never understand why too much food cannot be saved for the next day, or why food in the fridge that is going off cannot be used first.

Simultaneously food and fuel prices have gone up by 40 percent in the previous year

(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/7284196.stm).

World population has grown, biofuels and cash crops have taken the place of food products in the fields of the developing world and climate change increases desertification. Egypt, El Salvador and Haiti haves seen riots, as the poor have grown poorer and hungrier.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7331921.stm

One thing is for sure: I will not throw food out because of fasting. Today my diet will be grapes and apples and I will see if there is anything in the fridge that wont wait a week for my recovery to normality. My target is to fast for seven days and I will start tonight by taking the glauber salt. Disgusting stuff that will get all your juices flowing very fast. Idea is to get everything out cause there will be nothing coming in for awhile. I will allow myself green and herbal tea and organic juice on occation.

Starting a lifestyle and kicking off with a fast

This is an experiment. I will start with a commitment of an year. I will try to do a little good. I study human rights and politics and it seems to me that all people around me, me included, have a great understanding on what should be done to help others. Yet we continue to enjoy their life of excessive consumption and gluttony, while most people cannot. 

By writing this blog I will try to encourage myself and others to find the ways to change their everyday lifestyle to help others and themselves. 

I will kick off by fasting for a week, starting tomorrow 14 April. Join me please. Would not mind to have others to share this with. For me, there are various reasons to start this, and getting rid of the winter weight is right there with the rest of them.

But seriously, I notice that my eating habits have changed from eating the necessary to eating all the time and endulging myself with wonderful food and sweets almost on a daily basis. This is while 14 percent of the world population is undernourished, 16 percent lack access to safe drinking water, 40 percent lack access to basic sanitation, and 854 million are illiterate. 15 percent lack access to health services, 17 percent have no adequate shelter, and 33 percent no electricity. One in three children in the developing world are underweight. So I think I'll be quite fine not eating for a week. I still have my warm bed, my shower and a toilet with running water. Even another one outside, although not eating, I doubt I need either one very frequently.

I hope a week of fasting will give me the possibility to reflect on my own lifestyle choices, and its affects on other people. I will try to end my fast by making some new choices that might reduce my weight on the world. Anyone with me? If other things wont change, we'll all have a kick ass body for the summer at least:)