31: Back to More with Less

Canada

A Climate Pollinator story by Sierra Ross Richer

As senior, and now executive editor for Canadian Mennonite Magazine, Will Braun has had a front-row view of the issues important to Mennonites in Canada over the last decade. When it comes to climate change, he said, “Climate has been a big issue for so long, you see it come and go.” 

“There is conversation in churches, for sure,” Will said. “It sounds too critical, but there’s not much that catches my attention. We don’t need more lists, more compilations… we’re stuck.” 

Will lives on a small farm in Manitoba, Canada with his wife and two sons. The family grows much of its own food, raises sheep and chickens and tries to reduce its energy consumption by minimizing travel. 

“I don’t see any way to address climate change, or more generally over-consumption, other than by reducing what we use,” Will said. “We’re using up too much stuff.” 

How does he suggest people do that? 

“In the last ten years,” Will said. “I don’t know that I’ve heard an Anabaptist voice that said anything related to climate that was more profound than what Doris Janzen Longacre (said in the More With Less books)… I think we’d do well to go back to that.” 

The More With Less cookbook was originally written by Doris Janzen Longacre and published by Harold Press in 1976. It was created during the global food crisis of the 1970s, in response to a statement by Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) encouraging Mennonites in Canada and the United States to decrease their food consumption by 10 percent.

“It may not be within our capacity to effect an answer (to the food crisis),” Doris wrote in the preface to the original edition. “But it is within our capacity to search for a faithful response.” 

The More With Less cookbook aimed to help households in North America reduce their consumption by providing a compilation of simple, nourishing recipes submitted by Mennonite service workers around the world. 

200,000 copies were sold in the first two years, with hundreds of thousands more since then. A few years after publishing the cookbook, Doris died of cancer. Her husband finished and published her almost-complete second book, Living More With Less, in 1980. 

The two More With Less books didn’t specifically address climate change, but Will believes the advice they offer is as pertinent today as it was 50 years ago. 

“Doris Janzen Longacre was a gift to the Mennonite people,” he said.  “I think it’s time to go back and revisit what she has to say in this moment.”