EAT. REAL. FOOD.

Grocery Garden

When you go to a store to buy food, how much of what you purchase is from around the edges of the store, the fresh produce, meats and dairies, more locally sourced and stocked shelves...  and what goes into your cart from the rows and rows of big name, big agriculture, big production line food processing and packaging conglomerates?

And, how do we know food is .. real?  Like, it has naturally occurring nutrients in it.. vitamins and minerals that have evolved regionally to combine with cellular materials grown from the soil, from the earth elements that our humanimal bodies are made from and require a steady diet of in order for our physical, life-sustaining systems to function well.

Kraft Singles, a pre-sliced processed cheese product,
earned a nutritional seal from the
Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
The seal prompted outrage from nutritionists.

Here's something to NOT rely on..  labels, seals, endorsements, certifications... we simply cannot know what criteria these labeling decisions are based on, and oftentimes they are unfortunately based on a company contributing .. money .. to an organization's program.

"I am really shocked that this would be the first thing that the academy would choose to endorse," children's nutrition advocate Casey Hinds told the New York Times.

The academy said the seal is not an endorsement, but recognition that Kraft supports its Kids Eat Right program. Kraft declined to comment.

“A nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.”
– Franklin D. Roosevelt

And, what the heck is "Snackification"?  Can we call in that it be yummy fruits and vegetables in season, local nuts and seeds, greens and herbs from your garden, instead of pre-packaged processed food wrapped up in single-serve plastic then boxed up in a tree that was cut down so this 'snack' could be shipped in a cargo container on a vessel using fossel fuels extracted from the earth, thus destroying the place where the actual REAL FOOD could have been grown?

I took some time at a 7-eleven store, which is found in virtually every grid of every neighborhood in the country, to look for a food that did NOT have added sugar in it.  FAIL.  Incredibly, the ONLY food that did not have high fructose corn syrup listed on the label.. was the apples and bananas!

Seattle is at the forefront of a major new endeavor to tax soft drinks, which delights me, personally.  May it be the advent of a significant elevation in public awareness regarding what's in our food and how it's the cause of so much suffering, illness, disease.. not to mention the profiteering of the medical industrial complex.

From 100 Days of Real Food:  If you have friends or family members who “just don’t get” why anyone would avoid processed foods, this is the perfect read to pull back the curtain and to silently challenge them – in a non-confrontational way – to decide what they’ll do with their new found knowledge.

Okay that's my food rant today :)

OH!  What got me started on all this? 

 Occupy the Farm, the documentary from our kindreds down in the Bay, is coming back to Cascadia in April for three showings, Bellingham, Seattle, and Tacoma!!  I'm lining up some local projects to share at these community connectivation nights.. I wrote this blog post after seeing it myself for the first time.

The screening in Seattle is sponsored by PCC Farmland Trust, doing amazing work in our bioregion to save threatened farmland and provide spaces for community to reconnect with caretaking our lands and growing our own food, yay!  And, they have this awesome blog. 

Eat well, be well..  what you put in your body, you put in the Earth and what we do to the planet, we do to ourselves and our children, and their children, too. <3