subtitle random morning thoughts on food...
So, I have been into food politics for a while. Have done a lot of reading, and writing, and thinking about what ails us. But what I am left with is this sense that it is hard, sometimes really hard, to eat well. Partly why it is hard for me is I am currently living in japan. and while I can speak and understand japanese reading is really difficult so that makes label reading when I buy products difficult.
but that is not the crux of the problem I think.
It seems like we made bad food, in cities the world over, easy to come by. Convienience stores are a huge culprit, and fast food outlets. It is right there all that packaged sugar, HFCS, trans fats. All within easy reach. Where as real food takes time, time to find it, time to cook it.
When I went to the yearly kos convention I had the chance to go to OrangeClouds excellent food politics seminar. One audience member stood up and said we have to remember that these days loads of people don't even know what to do with fresh veggies bought at a farmer's market, since they never learned to cook.
The food politics issues include nutrition, heathcare, environment, small business, saftey, community, family values... it is a huge many pronged beast, and the first step is to really talk to one another about good food, about cooking, about our memories of what fresh produce used to taste like before it was totally mass produced and trucked around the country... we can come together on these issues and that would be a start.
My two favorite books at this time for a current understand of how we got here and what we can do are
The Best Thing I ever Tasted by Sallie Tisdale
http://www.powells.com/...
and
Barbara Kingsolvers' new book
Animal Vegetable and Miracle
http://www.powells.com/...