Sustenance and Sustainability

Since Jeremy requested that I add my two cents to this blog every once and a while, I have been thinking about what kinds of things I could write about. The problem is that our entire existence is based on food. Many of our social and ecological interactions with plant and animal communities revolve around eating. So what is there not to talk about?

Food is like a religion. We all have our own belief system. And some of us don’t really have an opinion at all, we just do what we need to do to get by and once the hunger pains are gone, we can go about the rest of our daily routines. The means to and end does not matter for those folks. And I believe there are a lot more people around without a belief system than there should be. In fact, I feel the crux of sustainability, whether you are talking about small scale sustainable farming or large scale sustainability of the human race, is our relationship with food. Or rather, our lack of connectedness.

Oh sure, we think a LOT about food, especially in our western culture. We think about (or are told to think about) how food makes us look, but not so much about how it makes us feel (any aches and pains after all must be derived from something else that only a pill is needed to cure), or how our eating affects any other living organism besides ourselves. We worry about parasites and deadly bacteria on our vegetables (which I personally think is an asinine and ironic thing to have to consider given that these organisms are normally associated with meat products), and for most people, cost is of great importance. Aside from that however, with our jam-packed days, the biggest hurdle is getting something, anything into our bodies and hope we don’t get fat or poisoned in the process.

What is wrong with this picture?!!!! Yes, yes, we’ve heard this all before. Of course we have. And luckily, as numerous social and environmental studies all scream the same results, the origin and quality of our food are finally starting to make segue into the mainstream public eye. These are the things I would like to talk about in future entries.

When I got home from work tonight, I was starving, as usual. And like almost every night I thought to myself “Man, I really don’t feel like cooking.” But there was no other option. Jeremy and I have minimized our purchase of processed (fast and easy meal) foods. We’ve narrowed it down to the occasional loaf of bread, a once in a while box of cereal, dried pasta, canned beans and tomatoes, tofu, some condiments and my one major guilty vice: chocolate). So I dug around the fridge, freezer and pantry in hopes that something fast, easy, tasty, and wouldn’t make me feel gross after eating it would jump out at me. Finally I decided to make a quinoa salad, which is about as easy as it gets (even easier would be without the quinoa): boil quinoa and cool, thinly slice cabbage, apple, celery and red onion, pan roast some walnuts (these were from my grandma’s orchard), combine all ingredients in a bowl, add salt pepper, olive oil and vinegar and bam! During this process, I really noticed how stunning the red cabbage was that I used. Yes, I believe vegetables can be beautiful and on a scale of 1-10, this one was a smokin’ 9.5! (I took .5 away for the awkward shape, which in this case was a practical hindrance to cutting.) It came from a friend’s organic garden and had a radiant magenta colour like I’ve rarely seen. And the red onion (that came from the another local garden) seemed much more vibrant and rich in colour than the ones we get from the store. A major disappointment surfaced when I realised my store-bought apple’s skin was probably laced with lots of pesticide (which is not only bad for my body, but would also kill beneficial insects including pollinators) that was sealed in with wax. And this is when I thought about our relationship with food. Mine has evolved immensely over time, as I believe happens to everyone based on his/her own experiences, needs and capabilities. But until everyone develops a relationship with food that allows them to not only know, but to also care about from where their food comes, how it was grown/raised/transported/stored, we will never be sustainable at any scale. And I promise you this, like every trophic cascade in a food web, where even top predators are limited by the production of what they eat, we too will become limited. In fact we already are [starving], ironically in the countries where we get a lot of what goes into our pantries and fruit bowls. So hopefully, even if you are currently one of these people who knows, cares and acts, this blog will become a forum for thought and discussion that will allow our relationships with one another and our food to progressively grow.