Where Does Our Food Come From?

One of my biggest nutritional/food culture philosophies is this:  Know where your food comes from.  Yet, in today's society, it's almost impossible.  With giant grocery stores that receive shipments from all over the country (and even the world), your food could come from just about anywhere. 

So how do we know our food is being grown and processed in a sustainable, healthy way?  We don't.  And it's probably not.

Not to be a pessimist about the way humans are, but when you have one huge food company competing with another huge food company mainly on price, they're going to take some shortcuts.  They'll feed their cows corn to make them fatter, faster.  They'll use chemical fertilizers for faster growth.  They'll even use genetically modified seeds for plants that can grow in smaller spaces, in half the time.  Now, that sounds great in a business model...but for our health?  Let's think about this again.

I've already talked about the effects of feeding corn to cows, but for those of you who missed it, I'll recap:  Cows eat grass.  But, today, many farmers feed them corn, which fattens them faster and doesn't use as much space (they don't need all those fields of grass for them to graze on).  Eating corn (which their stomachs are not equipped for) makes them very sick.  Then, farmers use antibiotics almost constantly to keep their cows from becoming sick.  It is thought that this flow of antibiotics in our food system is producing more and more resistant strains of bacteria.  

And chemical fertilizers?  These fertilizers use three main nutrients for guaranteed plant growth: nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium.  They are chemically produced, unlike organic fertilizers like manure, compost, seaweed, and many others, which are formed from naturally occurring biological processes.  My problem with chemical fertilizers is that they are man-made and could be missing many nutrients we don't even know about yet that occur naturally in organic fertilizers.  Also, we don't know the long-term effects of using chemical fertilizers on our food supply. 

Another thing we don't know the long-term effects of are genetically modified plants.  Sure, they grow super fast and give very high yields, but we don't know what these genetically altered organisms can do to our bodies.  And we won't know for a very long time, most likely.  They could be perfectly fine, or they could be absolutely horrible for us.  We just don't know yet.  Until we find out, I'm sticking to what's worked for us for thousands of years.

The most nutritious foods for us are usually lower yielding.  It's hard to raise 5,000 healthy cows and have the space for them to graze.  It's hard to make enough compost to fertilize 450 acres of corn.  So why do we do it?

Here's a fact:  Most of us are lazy.  Well, not really.  But, most people work, and most children go to school.  Who's around to tend to the family garden or feed the chickens in the backyard?  As a culture, we have moved away from this kind of life.  And where has it put us?  Well, we're much fatter and much sicker, that's for sure.  

So what do we do now that our culture has changed this way and we know it's not good for us?  It's hard to justify quitting your job to become self-sufficient.  Where's the middle ground?  

The way I choose to be involved in my own food production is to cook at home as much as possible and buy as much food as I can afford at the farmer's market.  More and more people are starting to do this, and big, industrial food companies are realizing that this is now what many consumers want.  If we keep spending our money wisely, we can hopefully make a big change in how our food is produced.  Keep it local, people.  

If farmer's markets are a bit out of reach for you, just cooking more of your own food is a step ahead of the rest of the pack.  We live in a culture of fast food, so try going slow for a change.  If you only cook dinner once a week now, step it up and try two.  Or instead of cooking that frozen dinner, try making the same thing from scratch. I guarantee it'll taste much better!  Cooking your own food is very rewarding.

The important thing is to find the best way to incorporate sustainable food practices in your life.  However you decide to do that is up to you.  But at least promise me this:  I will NOT have that Pop-Tart for breakfast tomorrow.

Happy Eating,

KS

P.S.  My posts have been a little devoid of pictures lately, so here's a picture of the delicious veggies I picked up at the farmer's market this week:

That garlic smelled so good...

I made some kickin' guacamole with these ingredients.  And seriously, you have no idea how amazing the garlic smelled.  Crisp, punchy, and fresh--nothing like you get in the grocery store.