Family reunification diet
My partner and I have recently applied for family reunification so that we can have our family life here in Denmark. Even though the right to family life is enshrined in the EU law, the process of claiming this right is time-consuming, stressful (e.g., I will not have full access to healthcare and cannot work while I am waiting for my residence permit), and very expensive. We decided to avoid seeking any legal help because I strongly believe that such procedures should be clear to any human being. Whenever something feels unclear, I would message the authorities. It goes without saying that when I contact fellow humans working for various authorities, I do so with gentleness and care. Dealing with bureaucracies can be incredibly frustrating, but fellow humans who work for them did not create them - systems and structures pre-exist individual human beings.
In my previous entries, I wrote about affordability of sustainable living, budgeting and buying less. Yet, some expenses cannot be avoided, and the fee we paid to the Danish authorities (DKK 8710 or approximately EUR 1168) is, this month, our biggest expense after rent. After this, our biggest expense is food. We don't buy much else, so we started to jokingly refer to our food consumption as family reunification diet. Of course, it is not funny. DKK 8710 is a lot of money, especially if one considers opportunity costs (what you forego when you pay this fee - which could be food and warmth, medicine and period products for fellow humans who cannot buy them themselves). I believe that authorities should not charge fees when persons are claiming their rights. It is heartbreaking when states find the money for non-essential purposes, but rarely find it for essentials such as mental health care, free kindergarten and school lunches, period products, and reuniting families.
I think that we could joke about our food consumption for two reasons, while feeling sorrow about this situation too, as both human beings and social scientists. The first reason is trying to have a positive outlook. In the past few months, I've been feeling unwell due to a pregnancy complication (hyperemesis gravidarum), and I do not want to feel even more unwell. And the other reason is that our consumption of food now is not different to our food consumption more generally.
Most often, we buy vegetables. We try to choose organic, local (Danish), seasonal, and unpacked vegetables. It's not always possible to satisfy all these conditions at once. At times, organic and local vegetables are packaged in plastic, and available unpackaged options are imported and/or not organic. For example, in the picture above are unpackaged imported bananas and organic Danish carrots and potatoes packaged in plastic. The vegetables we buy every week and almost always have in our fridge are potatoes, carrots, peppers, spring onions, onions, cucumbers and tomatoes (we try not to eat too many of them in colder months, as they require a lot of energy to grow). Very often, we also buy courgettes, kohlrabi (glaskål in Danish), celery, celeriac (celery root) and mushrooms. We buy fruits every week too. Usually it's possible to get Danish apples. In summer and early autumn, we buy Danish strawberries, cherries, plums and pears. We also buy organic, unpackaged bananas and oranges. Very rarely, we bring home kiwi fruits and grapes. Even more rarely, I get a fruit from my partner as a gift, or I buy a fruit for myself as a gift. It could be a pomegranate or a mango. Recently, we bought many organic kiwi fruits that came from Italy, as they are something I can tolerate in pregnancy. Apart from vegetables and fruits, almost every week we get beans, pasta and rice. Our diet consists primarily of soups, pasta dishes, and salads. For breakfast, we often eat oats or drink smoothies (my partner invited a blender some months ago into our life). While I couldn't eat much during the first trimester, these days I often eat cut up vegetables and fruits. We buy Danish rye bread (rugbrød) and often eat potato smørrebrød for lunch or even dinner. My partner eats eggs at times. Very rarely, perhaps once a month or once in two months, we buy fish from a small, local fish shop, but generally I much prefer vegan food (I was plant-based for 5 years or so). We do not eat meat. Cheese is another treat that we buy. We prefer to buy it from small cheese shops.
Apart from the items I mentioned above, we regularly buy oat milk and jam. As for drinks, I used to drink tea, but these days I drink mostly carbonated water with a slice of lemon (my partner brought a sparkling water machine from his previous home). Before getting pregnant, I loved drinking plain tap water. My partner drinks coffee, plain water, sparkling water, tea and very occasionally Danish apple wine that we buy from a small, local store.
We order organic olive oil, dried fruits and nuts from an independent Danish online store in large quantities. While we eat dried fruits and nuts, we mainly buy them to make a snack for my partner's child.
We eat out very rarely. Now there is a financial reason for it too, but I have always enjoyed cooking and eating at home much more. Eating out less is one of our new year's resolutions, and I'm very happy about it. If we want something sweet, my partner bakes banana breads, but I am usually happy with a piece of fruit. For special occasions, we buy cakes from a local bakery.
Something that helps us practise sustainability when shopping for food is avoiding very concrete plans when we go to the supermarket (or a food market - though we shop there rarely, it's very expensive). I appreciate it that having a shopping list helps some fellow humans. When we need very specific ingredients (such as baking powder or vanilla), we also sketch a list. But in our everyday life, we simply decide what we want to eat (e.g., a soup or pasta salad), go to the supermarket and see what they have that matches our requirements as closely as possible (local, organic, seasonal, but also affordable). We almost never follow any recipes, but rather rely on general principles of cooking food that we've learned throughout our lives. At times, we buy food spontaneously. I'm not an advocate of spontaneous buying, but I do it if, for example, there is a good offer. Last year, our local supermarket was trying to sell local Danish apples, of which they probably had too many, so they were offering the apples almost free of charge. We didn't plan to buy them, but we bought them nevertheless, as we love apples. Oftentimes, there are very inexpensive but delicious and organic Danish potatoes and carrots too.
Perhaps to some fellow humans relating with food this way would feel like deprivation. To me, and to us, it feels natural, nourishing, and liberating to consume this way. I love vegetables and fruits. I wish I had an opportunity to grow them myself, and hopefully one day I will. Whenever possible, we forage. We pick, for example, leaves, berries, and wild plums and cherries in summer.