Deep roots grow slowly, creeping down over time to intertwine with that of others nearby, creating a pulsing, thriving ecosystem. This has always been my dream-deep luscious roots, making change from the inside out.
Roots are a funny thing as a child born to two wanderlust parents, my grand debut happening in Chang Mai, Thailand, where, the story goes, we stopped ten times on the way back home for one snack or another. I hadn’t even been alive one day and the importance of food was already upon me.
My first utensils were chopsticks, and eating communally on the floor with our hands has always seemed normal (a vast departure from my cattle farmer, rural Alberta family).
Our adventures didn’t stop in Thailand.
A stint in Bangladesh, which gifted us many round the world trips, exposed us to a new set of flavours, people, customs and also to a new level of poverty that I had never experienced.
Because of the privilege of my birth, the poverty wasn’t mine. In fact, despite being only a few streets away from one of the biggest slums in all of Dhaka, we were living in a behemoth white marble mansion - the most luxury I’ve ever experienced in my life up until that point or since.
With it’s close proximity to India, and easy travel, our palates learned to both love and loath curried flavoured everything. We learned about what a luxury it is to be able to drink things with ice in it (for fear of getting sick), drink fresh milk (after being force fed powdered milk drink “for our bones”) and most profoundly not have to sell our shoes or our bodies for our family to afford to eat.
One of my most life changing experiences has been witnessing how little value the lives of the poor and vulnerable can be given in so many places here and abroad. Further, it has shaped a strong belief that it is our obligation as those born with privilege to use it to help those without a voice. The belief that all beings are equal, and deserve a life free of unnecessary suffering and harm has inevitably led me to question what I put on my plate and what my habits contribute to the world. Who am I to end something’s life because I like how it tastes? Who am I to continue to eat foods with a cataclysmic environmental effect on the Earth? Who am I to eat a hamburger, when the cost in water alone to produce it could bathe and drink an entire family for years?
When one sees how little others have, who am I to take so much more than my share?
I am no one to do those things, and so, I’m vegan. I eat this way for me, and I eat this way for you and I eat this way for all the babies going to bed hungry when the grain could feed them instead of livestock.
Our business, Knifey Spooney, was born out of a need to fix a broken world. It was created out of a need to put down and plant deep roots in our beautiful community, that grow big trees, wild with change and abundance for all Earthlings. We aim to teach people how to eat, help them take care of the earth, their bodies and their hearts at the same time. All lessons that were instilled in me as a child overseas.
We were built on a need for genuine human connection and a desire to connect people to the joyful hands that make their food. There are many types of roots: actual roots, pulling nutrients out of the soil and feeding nourishing plant life; or metaphorical roots, connecting and anchoring you to your community, and reaching, reaching, reaching into the big blue beyond. We hope our work brings the two types together.
Born in Thailand and moving every year or two after, Christina traveled the world with her family as they worked in international development. Settling in Kingston, Ontario, she finally feels like she can let her roots grow wild and free. As for what she's doing now that the world thinks she's a grown up, she spends her time with her partner Rad growing their dreams of a thriving food business that changes the world, Knifey Spooney, nourishing their beautiful saplings Oliver and Lola, and letting the sun shine on her passion for authenticity through writing.
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