thehealingjournal.com: Aug-Sept 2007 - Nutrition: Food Security – What Do You Know About It?

This article is dedicated to all the hard-working food growers who are harvesting exceptional quality local foods and often just making ends meet. Their passion and dedication is deeply appreciated.

How often do you think about where the food you buy comes from? Or how it was grown, stored and processed? How much do you really know about the items you are purchasing? There has been a real separation or detachment, especially in modern urban societies, from our knowledge of our food sources. We are so busy, all of the time, that we often simply eat for fuel, for survival.

I want to encourage the revival of honouring our food and therefore our potentially malnourished bodies and souls. I want people to be aware that every time we purchase food from a store we are making the choice to send out the message to ourselves and to food manufacturers: “This is acceptable to me” and by spending our money on de-vitalized and denatured, processed foods we are also sending a message to our bodies that its health is not our priority, regardless of our knowledge of foods.

Congruently, it is so crucial to support natural, clean, chemical-free, locally grown food. Many people do not realize the full repercussions, beyond the use of fossil fuels, of buying food that has traveled halfway across the continent (or world!) for our consumption. It’s bad enough that the average piece of raw produce travels thousands of miles to get to us, but highly refined, processed foods often skyrocket that distance much higher.

So our choice of food represents not just the effect on us and our global environment but worldwide social consciousness, politics and economics. So if you want to make a real impact on the state of the world today, buy quality, natural, local foods as much as possible. Make a statement with your dollar. I’m not suggesting that you categorically reject foreign trade. However, we need to be cognizant of the fact that it increases our dependence on huge economic players, whose priority is likely the bottom line, not our health. “The scandal of our contemporary food system is that not just a few exotic luxuries but virtually everything, including the most basic and mundane staples, is transported vast distances…” (Sandor Ellix Katz – The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved – America’s Underground Food Movement). This may mean giving up, or at least cutting way back on, exotic foods such as pineapples and other tropical fruits, chocolate, coffee (I’ll be getting flack for these!), but it’s a small price to pay in the grand scheme of things.

This idea of becoming far more localized does not abandon foreign countries trying to make a living. Infact, it could encourage them to become more self-sufficient and not need to rely on foreign trade where they have to undersell their product and labour to pay all the middlemen.

“Producing food locally, urban centres included, is the only way to have true food security – albeit more costly than mass mono-cropping. Food production is essential everywhere in the world. Global surpluses can certainly sustain people through drought and crop failures but our primary dependence on a globalized food system makes us all very vulnerable. Farming everywhere needs to be re-oriented toward local needs rather than commodity mass production. We need to bring food back to earth, making it production we can see and be a part of, production based on the community and sustaining the community” (Sandor Ellix Katz – The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved – America’s Underground Food Movement). This past Spring I bought a share in a farm in Aldergrove, BC. As a member I am privileged to receive ultra-fresh seasonal produce weekly: June through October. This is an excellent example of a step toward making changes for a better planet. This is Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) and supports the farmer (the local economy) with a fair, guaranteed wage (you pay early in the growing season), while the shareholder gets the best produce you’ve ever tasted, with virtually no risk. (For more info on CSA farms and how to obtain a share - check back here at this column in the next issue: October/November. (Expanded CSA description at: www.v1.thehealingjournal.com/prev_issues/june_july04_organic.htm, “ORGANIC in BC”)

Other ways to make a difference:
Read your labels and get to know your foods
Shop at your local Farmer’s Markets (May through October)
Grow your own food (you don’t need a farm!)
If needed, look into community garden spaces
Harvest chemical-free weeds
Save seeds
Raise some farm animals or bees
Talk to your local market; ask them to carry more locally produced food

*Inspired by: The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved – America’s Underground Food Movement by Sandor Ellix Katz – a well researched, thoughtful and very inspiring read (rather than just painting a bleak picture of global food issues).

Lisa Marie Bhattacharya (Whitaker) is a Registered Holistic Nutritionist (RHN.) who is passionate about whole, natural foods, progressive food policy, sustainability and the environment. She can be reached at spreadvitality@yahoo.ca and www.lisamariewhitaker.com.

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