Finding joy in simple living
Underwood-based Green Living Australia director Valerie Pearson is helping others become more sustainable, financially savvy, and self-reliant.
Valerie’s interest in the do-it-yourself approach began 40 years ago when she moved to the United States, where her daughter was diagnosed with multiple chemical sensitivity.
‘She couldn’t eat food with artificial flavours, colours or any man-made preservatives,’ she says.
‘We couldn’t go to the grocery to buy a jar of jam or pasta sauce because something could give her a violent allergic reaction.’
The family ended up moving to a farm in Pennsylvania where Valerie went back to the basics: planting fruit trees, tending a veggie patch, baking sourdough, and making her own jams and preserves.
It just so happened that not far away was Lancaster, which is home to the largest Amish population in the world.
‘If you ask these people how to do something, they’ll tell you,’ Valerie says.
‘It started for health reasons, but I ended up falling in love with the lifestyle – it gives you time to smell the roses and I do that by cooking, baking and breaking bread with others.’
The concept of simple living is the core of her business, which includes a popular e-commerce business and three books to her name: Home Cheese Making in Australia, Sugar Free Home Preserving and Gut Health & Fermented Foods.
‘These traditional methods, like pickling and fermenting, is more financially savvy and environmentally-friendly,’ Valerie says.
‘If you grow something yourself, it uses less resources than a commercial crop. My work is about going back to the good ol’ days with all the best science and technology we have available to us today.
‘It’s more important than ever in our current climate with uncontrollable inflation and huge cost of living pressures.
‘I’m less affected because of my simple lifestyle and I believe most people can live on half of what they’re living on now if they change their lifestyles.’
Learn more about Valerie’s work on Green Living Australia.
