Dumpsters and Roadkill
Dissecting the Food Politics of Evasion and Feral Visions
How can we meet our basic human needs while simultaneously doing what keeps us going? It is the dilemma of our day: finding a way to follow our true passions while surviving in a capitalist society. Some attempt to incorporate their interests and values into their jobs. Others choose to separate work from their passions, holding down often mind-numbing occupations just to pay the bills.
Regardless, we all have to work to pay rent and food. Or is there another way? Is it possible to eat and live outside of the system?
In fact, there are already people out there attempting to do just that. They are living a completely different way — trying to follow their passions with reckless abandon while subverting the traditional strategies of survival.
But is this way of life as simple and romantic as it sounds?
Two different examples of this "third way" recently swept through Madison, WI. The first was a presentation by the author of the infamous book Evasion, now a cult classic within the punk-traveller subculture. Later, a group of North Carolinian primitivists stopped here on their Feral Visions tour.
Both presentations offered radical critiques of traditional American society but focused on putting these ideas into practice through alternative lifestyles. Although the critiques were fairly similar, these two events offered very different approaches to acquiring and consuming food.
Although Mack, the author of Evasion, likes to stress that his book is just a collection of one person䴜s stories, it does present a provocative analysis of alternative living, particularly concerning the acquisition of food. This is summarized by his slogans of "militant unemployment" and "conscientious criminality."
Basically, Mack decided to never work again and to survive through dumpster diving, shoplifting, squatting and clever scams. It's a way of life that he details through travel stories in his book and that he talked about more in his presentation.
In terms of food politics, Mack is an extremely militant vegan who acquires meat-free, dairy-free food via these unlawful methods. He feels very strongly that veganism is a moral imperative, as he explained in an interview with Clamor:
"The largest holocaust in the history of the world is taking place right now, and it's caused by the consumption of animal products. I think I owe the victims of animal exploitation my voice of opposition. Not only to 'the system' directly responsible for their deaths, but also the culture which tolerates this, and on down to the consumers who consume them."
Furthermore, he dismisses so called "freeganism", the eating of non-vegan food only when it's free. On the Evasion website he addresses the common inquiry about the challenges of remaining vegan on a dumpstered diet:
"Don't let anyone tell you it can't be done. I've had friends stay vegan in prison, as well as the world's furthest corners. And I hear Zanzibar is rougher than Albuquerque. But the heartless and weak will always have an excuse..."
Not paying for food allows Mack to live a work-free lifestyle. However, he stresses that work-free does not mean just hanging out or doing nothing. Rather, it provides a limitless opportunity to pursue various projects like writing a sequel to his book.
In a sense, Mack and people with similar lifestyles depend on the waste of the system to feed themselves. Even though they are not providing economic support, they are dependent on capitalism's abundance to survive.
Outside of Asheville, North Carolina, a community called Wild Roots functions as an alternative to the system, independent of "civilization." These primitivists own their own land where they grow food and live free of modern technology.
This past fall, a few of them embarked on the Feral Visions tour with a slideshow about "breaking free from the tentacles of civilization, and realizing our wildest dreams." They further explain the goal of the tour:
"By showing examples of people attempting to live outside of [complex industrial and social] systems, we hope to plant seeds of rebellious renewal... Many are coming to believe that in order to live an ethical and fulfilling life we must subvert the inefficient and exploitative paths that lie between society and the physical world that surrounds us, and embrace more direct means of existence."
In terms of feeding "apart from civilization's institutions," Wild Roots practices a "scavenger-forager" food politics in which they eat only what is available in their bioregion. This includes wild plants and wild meat — including scavenged roadkill.
Although the speakers on the Feral Visions tour were former vegans, they feel strongly about the benefits and ethics of this primitive diet. In their zine, Feral Forager, they list the reasons for eating carcasses found on the side of the road:
- IT'S FREE!
- Wild meat is satisfying, and for many of us vegans who don't get enough protein (yes, I know the average American gets TOO much!) it's a healthful protein fix, minus the chemicals and drugs in commercial meat. Blood type and ancestry can require more or less protein for optimal health. Also, significant research is now showing that vitamin B12 can only be found in animal organs, contrary to the previous consensus of vegan nutrition experts.
- Energy flows through all living beings, connecting us intimately. The food we eat is absorbed into our blood and feeds our cells. Eating a wild animal can nourish our cells in ways our bodies haven't known in millennia.
For Wild Roots, this gets down to a romanticization of primitive cultures as they note that "veganism is generally not practiced by primitive people, historically or currently."
Just as Mack exhibited an almost violent extremism in his rant against meat eating, the anti-civilization philosophy is tainted by a fundamentalist tone. Although both are inspiring in their attempts to live and eat in radically different ways, they are equally problematic in their logic.
In both presentations, the question of privilege was dismissed in discussing these lifestyles. Both philosophies also exhibit elements of a callous, social Darwinism — they suggest that their superior approaches will provide them with better health, true happiness and post-civilization survival after everyone else dies. Whoa.
Perhaps this critique is too harsh, but that's for you to decide. How is your diet related to your happiness? Read more about these ideas and lifestyles and look for alternatives that present other ways to deal with the dilemma of passion and survival.