The prevailing understanding is we quite literally are what we eat. We take the nourishment (or poison) of what we ingest into the very fabric of our bodies and as we do this, we absorb stories as well, for our food is not silent. It speaks to us in diverse ways:

Look, these are like the special cookies Grandmother baked for the holidays, they have the exact same red sprinkles she used to use. Mmmm, reminds me of family get-togethers. Too bad we didn’t know back then those red sprinkles were colored with a carcinogenic dye…

Oh, I remember these. My father tried them in our vegetable garden one year. They were strong growers. The vines ran all over. One reached our apple tree and grew right up it onto the garage roof and then along the gutter. Really, it did.

We let it go to see just how far it would get. Spaghetti squash. We had so many I took some to the supermarket to sell. In those days the markets gladly bought from local people. When I asked, they told me it was part of their “good neighbor” policy…

What is this thing? Never seen anything like this on a plate before. You actually expect me to eat this??  Well, it’s not gonna happen.

Oh, chicken soup. When I was sick my mom used to make the best chicken soup for me, right from scratch. It was so good I couldn’t help feeling better. She did something that made it taste special. Maybe it was the fresh herbs; maybe it was because the chicken was a free-range bird, not confined to a little cage its whole life…

See what a nice color this orange is? It may not be quite as ripe as it looks, though. It’s been treated with gas to make it seem ready to eat. The gas treatment makes its color change from green to the orange most shoppers will select. This makes it possible to pick the fruit before it’s ripe, extending its profitable shelf life. It may have been irradiated also. In that case we won’t be able to tell if it’s spoiled or not because chances are, if it has been irradiated, it won’t smell bad.

Coming to the orchard? The peaches are terrific this year. We can pick a whole mess of them. We’ll have a feast and then make jam …

Feeding Body and Soul

Under the right conditions, food truly feeds our bodies and we grow in a healthy way. Food also can be about love, attention and comfort. It can mean hanging out in the kitchen, helping and getting to lick that spoon covered with something good as a reward, sitting around the table telling family stories or cleaning up after a big lobster feast, everyone pitching in to get the job done and at the same time catching up on what’s happening to whom. Food is about eating, yes. It also can be about family and friends and sociability. The very successful organization Slow Food understands this. They call their local chapters “convivia.”

A Bigger Picture

Food tells personal stories about our immediate lives, reflecting back to us what we think is important. At the same time, it also tells stories of ecological, humanitarian and economic choices being made on a very large scale out in the bigger world. As we make our daily selections of what to eat, we all have a role in creating our world as we individually and collectively determine which items at market sell and which do not; what growing and marketing practices are acceptable to us and what ones are not.

Do we buy fair trade coffee? Do we know that it is legal to label coffee as fair trade even if only a small percentage of the beans in the container were actually traded fairly? Do we think this practice is fair to those of us trying to be discriminating shoppers? Do we know about genetically modified organisms? Do we understand that they have not been tested properly to determine health safety when ingested? Is this acceptable to us as consumers? As parents? Do we understand that practically all non-organic soy and corn grown in this country now can be expected to contain genetically modified material? Do we know this material is banned in parts of Europe? Do we know the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture division figures livestock production generates nearly a fifth of the world’s greenhouse gasses? Do we know that the American annual consumption of meat has increase by over 50 pounds per person in the last 50 years, that on average we eat twice the recommended amount of protein each day? Do we think this is reasonable in light of the millions of hungry people on the planet?

When we are well-informed and mindful of the choices we have, we can actively work for our own personal well-being and at the same time support those larger things we believe in; ecological sustainability and fair treatment of those who grow our food to name just two.

US Organics

In this country, we have a rapidly growing market for organic foods. People are coming to understand organic food is the healthy choice. For example, in a study comparing standard USDA nutrient data from commercial eggs with data from eggs produced by free-range hens, the range birds had eggs with as much as

• 1/3 less cholesterol
• 1/4 less saturated fat
• 2/3 more vitamin A
• 2 times more omega-3 fatty acids
• 3 times more vitamin E
• 7 times more beta-carotene

True organic methods, “deep organics” as Eliot Coleman calls them, are based on the understanding that farming is about relationships. This approach is fundamentally about working with nature. It is neither about mono-cropping nor excessive speed, meaning how many units of product can be realized in how short a period of time regardless of cost to product, consumer health or environment. Deep organics moves way beyond thinking of living beings as “units of product.” It is about commitment to a particular place and to understanding and maintaining a harmonious relationship with the various components of that particular ecological system in such a way as to sustainably produce the healthiest, best-tasting food possible.

Unfortunately, with the expanding market for organic food, pressure has come from agribusiness to change portions of the national organic standards to favor large producers at the expense, some of us believe, of both small growers and of deep organic principles. Now that general public awareness of organic goodness is increasing, the standards themselves are being weakened!

One way of working with this situation is to be aware that advertising is about selling product. It is not primarily a way of providing factual information to the public. For factual accuracy, we ourselves need to undertake the job of information gathering. We can begin by finding out what the actual national organic standards are.

Another way of knowing what is happening with our food is to learn who our farmers are and find out directly from them what growing practices they use and why. If they live within a reasonable distance of us, we might be able to visit their farms for a look-see. Nothing quite replaces first-hand information. For those of us in Maine who are not sure how to begin this process, the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners website www.mofga.org has a statewide listing of organic farmers, their products and where they are sold.

An Amazing Opportunity

We all have to eat. If we’re lucky, we do it every day. As we select healthy food, caringly raised and processed, and then prepare it with loving attention ourselves, we can create a healthful and nourishing situation that both permeates our own bodies and also radiates outward into our world. Quite amazingly, just by proceeding mindfully, we each can become ambassadors of the heart, the cooking pot, the vegetable patch and by extension, the well-being of the planet.

More information is available through the following: GMO info, Seeds of Deception by Jeffrey M. Smith; politics of food, Food First www.foodfirst.org; factual scientific info including info on food, Union of Concerned Scientists www.ucsusa.org; discussion course on the many aspects of food, Menu for the Future, developed by Northwest Earth Institute www.nwei.org (workbooks and startup available in Southern Maine through Earthrest); teaching people worldwide to better feed themselves sustainably, www.growbiointensive.org.

© Pat Foley, 2009