By Dana Heriot

Elaine, 32, is a crunchy mum from Brisbane’s premiere crunchy suburb: Bardon. Residing just down the road from the famed Bardon Shed (which floods each rainy day), she proudly states that she doesn’t even buy the produce there – it’s a window shopping journey only.

“Crunchy” is a modern term that has been used to describe parents that opt for the ultra natural, ‘simple’ lifestyle, but still burn through high prices and long pay offs for bragging rights.

When asked why she isn’t having anything on the menu, Elaine opens her homemade, sustainable, upcycled, twine tote to reveal several erratically shaped carrots.

“I grew them from the scraps that my neighbour threw away in November” she smiles, smugly shaking the dirt from her snack. “I don’t rinse them because the rain from Gaia is so much better than the city piped tap water! Earth’s soil has so many nutrients”.

Elaine is a mother to one indigo child who was welcomed “Earth-Side” six years ago in an outdoor pond aided by Elaine’s handstitched cashmere towels, has just been brought up to speed with the daily life of equally crunchy mother of two, Aylanne (27).

Both women insist there’s never been competitiveness over the wildly different spellings of their names – because they both know which one is correct.

Aylanne diverts “I have stopped wearing foot prisons recently and my toe pain has drastically improved! Honestly, were in nature, we should experience the world as human beings with our souls bared.”

I refrain from making a pun.

Aylanne sips unflavoured kombucha from a Bardon Shed embossed glass bottle, and crosses her legs displaying black soles free from the benfits of arch support. “Plastic is so wasteful, this way I can reuse the bottle with a dried granola recipe, or collect the remains of soap bars to make a larger soap in future!”

Aylanne is interrupted by Elaine who gleely asks if the drink was purchased. The women sit in tense silence, punctured by Elaine’s soily crunching. She quickly injects that she has been growing a kombucha skin in her kitchen for over two years. No doubt her indigo child is delighted by it’s resistance to removal (unlike his resistance to preventable diseases) and isn’t bullied at all.