Why Homesteading?
Broadly defined, homesteading is a lifestyle of self-sufficiency and it is characterized by subsistence agriculture and it’s a household compound for a single extended family. So, why homesteading?
Some of the benefits that we get when we choose homesteading are:
- Quality of food and life: Regardless of the reasons homesteaders provide for living a life of self-sufficiency, at the end of the day, quality of food and quality of life is the main reasons why they chose this way of life. Homemade yogurt and eggs have a taste that leaves your mouth salivating for more. Homemade bread is so soft and fresh that the store-bought fresh seems tasteless in comparison. Good quality food helps us for a better life style.
- Happy and Healthy Life: There is a number of health benefits associated with homesteading. The food you produce, undoubtedly, has a number of health benefits than mass-produced foods. Eggs, bread, meat and other homemade foods have their nutrients intact while mass-produced food items tend to lose out on essential nutrients as they sit in the box waiting for you in the supermarket. Moreover, your backyard chicks and goats tend to feast on a variety of healthy foods that helps them produce nutrient-rich food.
- In addition to being nutrient rich, home grown fruits and vegetables do not have harmful pesticides and chemicals in them. Since home grown food are not genetically modified or artificially ripened, they retain their natural color, taste and nutrients. A number of diseases that result from factory farming such as E.coli, salmonella and other viruses are eliminated in homegrown foods.
- The health benefits of homesteading are not limited to food; in fact, the amount of exercise you get also helps you lead a healthy life. The amount of work involved in homesteading is exceptionally beneficially to your body. Even if you are into urban homesteading, you get a lot of physical exercise which is great for your health and general well-being.
- Economically Beneficial: Baking your own bread is way cheaper than buying a loaf of bread from the nearby supermarket. Some people might tell you that homesteading involves investing in a lot of fancy gadgets and tools; however, this is completely not true. Making your own soap, bread, eggs, meat and bread goes a long way in helping you save a lot of money. In fact, homesteading also involves various ways of preserving food items in an environmentally friendly manner.
- You can easily grow a container garden using spare containers at home or also look for square foot gardening techniques.
- Environmental Friendly: Our technology-enriched lifestyle has been consistently taxing our planet’s resources so much that we are on the verge of exhausting a number of non-renewable resources. Most of us assume that if we shift from travelling in cars to travelling in public transport or going in for carpooling, you are saving the planet. It is true that carpooling and travelling in public transportation helps save gallons of oil, we should also understand that it is not enough to help save the planet. Transporting fruits, vegetables and other food products from the farm to our home consumes hundreds of gallons of oil. Homesteading and gardening can help save the planet in a number of other ways too. Factory farming and mass-manufacturing of products is consuming a lot of resources. In fact, the toxins from these farms and factories are choking our natural water and soil resources. They are harming the earth’s repair and restoration efforts. However, this does not mean that you have to throw up your hands in utter exasperation and give up hope for a better future. You don’t even have to run off into a cave or give up your fancy home in the city. Urban homesteading helps you retain your home in the city and continue to enrich your life and save the environment as well.
- Creating a Sense of Togetherness: The idea of self-sufficiency and togetherness seem poles apart and contradictory. However, there are more related to each other than we assume. When you take up urban homesteading, you are indirectly encouraging others in your community to join hands in making the world a much better place to live. You will be surprised to learn that a number of people would be more than willing to help you in your endeavors. Self-sufficiency is not about providing only for self or isolating from others. In fact, urban homesteading is being taken up as a community effort in a number of places.
- Personally Gratifying: There is nothing more gratifying that seeing a beautiful bunch of carrots or baking a large loaf of bread — all by you. The sense of satisfaction and pride you get by growing your own food, raising goats and chickens and making your own soaps and other utilities cannot be compared with buying them from the supermarket. You achieve a deep sense of satisfaction, achievement, and also develop a positive and healthy attitude towards life.
These are benefits that homesteading may bring to your life. If you are actively searching for, perhaps, some of listed reasons, then homesteading lifestyle may be fore you. Keep reading!
Which homesteading skills do you need to acquire? Check this (long) list.
Originally posted 2020-08-21 21:39:44.
