The way we eat
Conscious food
I am Valerie Duvauchelle, the designer of the AWAMI Praxis food design that we used at the Life itself Bregerac Hub and I am thrilled to share with you our food principles. This food system aims at the magic balance between ethics, ecology and finance to fully be coherent with our desire to change our current culture.
The food guardian is also called at the hub the Tenzo and is part of a stewardship which includes the house care. In the Zen tradition, the Tenzo embodies the role of the community food spirit and the space where meals are prepared. Its function is to create a nurturing kitchen environment, sharing a design to support and inspire cooks, and fostering togetherness among all participants and more.
Our culinary approach is guided by three foundational principles:
Caring for all life: Mindfully considering the well-being of plants, animals, and humans within our food system.
Honoring humans: Supporting local organic producers and celebrating their stories to create an authentic food experience.
Sobering all energy: Minimizing waste and reflecting on our personal needs to protect our lives and the world, with a focus on finance, ethics, and ecology.
Throughout week days , we invite you to immerse yourself in a flexitarian sober experience that nourishes both body and soul. During the week we only cook plant-based culinary meals enabling you to explore new flavors and embrace a satisfying satiety with the aim to question our needs. During weekends we can appreciate cheese, fish or meat that we buy ONLY at the market from local producers . This approach allows us to reconnect with a sense of celebration while being aware of the cost for those sentient animals and deeply honoring their sacrifice.
We understand that individual dietary requirements may vary, based on specific physical or emotional needs, and that's perfectly fine. To help organize, we have an additional fridge exclusively designated for storing personal food, which may include dairy, fish, cheese, or meat. We insist that these items don’t come from any supermarket except biocoop, to avoid a maximum of suffering ; this is our only requirement. During the week, the collective fridge does not contain any sentient products, with the exception of butter, which we include in our breakfasts (sourced from grass-fed cows). Again, this should be honored as those cows give their veals to the meat industry for us to be able to eat this butter.
More generally, we are mindful even for plant based products of avoiding the purchase of industrial products that deplete aquifers by extracting excessive water, degrade land through monoculture practices such as palm oil production, and contribute to social injustice and chose to buy at our local market or biocoop to support as much as we can a regenerative system via organic producers. This needs to be fully accepted as a mindful way of consuming sentient beings when we do.
Our cooking time is based on a rolling system where everybody will have the opportunity to experience the privilege to nourish the community ( head chef) supported by the tenzo or others as a shared knowledge. When training residencies happen we can have a head chef that stays in this role for the duration of the residency.
Our hub menus are centered around three key elements: unseasoned cereals, a variety of beans (including tofu or soy proteins), and a refreshing raw salad. We can have dessert served with dinner, and cookies are offered during lunch every other day. We use a diverse range of grains, such as buckwheat, spelt, bulgur, and millet, along with ingredients like soy sauce, tamari, tofu, and seeds. Soy is incorporated in various forms. Desserts are thoughtfully prepared without white sugar, with a focus on promoting overall well-being. Breakfast is a self-serve experience, offering oatmeal, plant-based milk, coffee, teas, and ethically sourced cow's butter. Lunches are buffet-style, allowing you the freedom to choose to eat collectively, with one specific person or by yourself , and dinners are seated, creating a more intimate and shared atmosphere where we take the time to be grateful for our food. The cereal is typically unseasoned, and garlic or onions are not mixed in when raw. This approach directly related to the zen tradition which protects the “silent” taste, allows us to embrace a different sense of nourishment derived from the natural taste of ingredients rather than relying on heavy spices. This principle may vary among chefs to allow for freedom and variety in our meals.
During the week (monday to friday), we request drug and alcohol not be consumed in the hub.
More to come in Awami Design food system for Coco soon
( photo copyright Jess Griesnner)