We All Gotta Eat

In this age of abundance and rapid technological advancement, we often forget that we're biological creatures. We have smart phones, ever present wifi, fast cars, jets that will take us around the world in a matter of hours, endless entertainment options, stylish clothing, advanced buildings, and food anytime anywhere. While this is not true for everyone throughout the world, this is true for a large number of members of western societies. However, no matter what our "advances" may be, we're still humans, and still biological beings. We first require air, without which we'd last a matter of minutes, we still require water, without which we'd last a week at best, and we still require nutrition from food, without which we'd last a couple of months at most. It's this latter need, that I'd like to bring our attention to.

Food. For many of us in the western world, it's a complete after thought. Eating is something we do for pleasure more than necessity. In the melting pot of America, we have everything under the sun; raw, cooked, processed, packaged, and just short of being digested for us.

Food comes from the grocery store, or the convenience store, or the restaurant, with the land, sunshine, water, farmer, community, and good luck completely detached from the end product.

Think about it, even the most processed item, say a Twinkie, has to get its man made chemically derived raw ingredients from somewhere. Yep, somewhere, way way back in that Twinkie's supply chain is an ear of corn, or a sugar cane stalk, or some nuclear waste.

Well the fact is that food doesn't come from the grocery store, it comes from nature. Yep, even the all mighty human being is still reliant on the natural world for life's true necessities.

What we eat, when we eat, and how we eat has an incredible impact on the world in which we live. Every day we vote with our dollars. If you go to the nearest grocery store and buy a conventional tomato in the winter, you're probably voting primarily for the grocery store and its stockholders, secondarily for some middle man, and way down at the bottom for a large industrial farm. "But what about the farmer?" Industrial farms don't have farmers, they have contracts and migrant workers who are often paid very little and treated very poorly.

"But that tomato is cheap and available anytime of the year." On this you are correct, so you just voted for your wallet and your convenience. But you voted against the environment, against migrant laborers, against your local farmer, your local economy, and your local community.

What's my point?

The point is that our connection and relationship with food has vast implications that spread like rings on a rippling pond far beyond our narrow personal scope. For those of us always seeking to find ways in which we can help the Earth, help our fellow beings, and live better more sustainable lives, one of the easiest, most rewarding, healthful, and delicious ways to do so, is through conscious eating.