This is going to be short and sweet, partly because I'm so angry. I look day after day at the lunches and breakfasts they serve at my school. At the same time trying to bring a much requested (by faculty, students, family) school garden, garden to lunch program to fruition. However, it is an uphill grind.
Read Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food to understand what I'm talking about. We have corrupted our food culture in this country. What is your personal food culture? I'm not talking about vegen, vegetarian, flexitarian, but your sensibilities handed down from generation to generation. What is your food "Culture"?
A friend and former fellow grad student sent this out: http://flickr.com/...
She documented for 5 days the free breakfast served at her child's school.
It is mind bogglingly defective, insulting, toxic, and filled with the detritus of the corporate food machine.
Does this affect you? Maybe not. But as long a children are receiving this crap, we are all affected. Short term, long term. This is the food that has created an obesity epidemic and other health epidemic health problems (stage II diabetes in children as young as 10, heart disease). It should not be lost on us that minorities suffer the greatest at the hands of these prepackaged, cheap, imitation food.
But equally insidious is the loss of our culture, our food culture. Our language and love of food, the loss of biodiversity in our food, the loss of topsoil, sterile soil.
It is not enough to smugly shop at farmer's markets, bike to the local market, and espouse the goodness of organic, natural, and local.
The least able among us to fend for themselves, to make these decisions, to access this bounty are at risk. They are a captive audience in the theatre of the inedible. We must work to ensure that all citizens have access to fresh, local, FOOD.
What is your story? What is your community doing? Let's build our collective consciousness on this. Support local school food/garden programs. Ask what is being served in you local public schools. Check out Slow Food USA. Tell your story, your food "culture". If you've lost it maybe someone's story will help you find it.
Peace.
"The day is coming when a single carrot, freshly observed, will set off a revolution." Paul Cezanne