Feeling Good Week Four

Hello everyone, 

Well, here we are. Just about to embark upon week four of Locally Fed. Funnily enough, this coming Tuesday is my son's first birthday. It's going to be an important day! If I had known this time last year what I know now, oh boy. It has been a year of learning & growing & loving more than I ever though humanly possible. 

It sounds so cliché, and I am hesitant to even type it out, but having my son really reinvigorated my pursuit of good quality food. I have always sough out organic and local as much as possible, having grown up with parents who fed us good quality food and having worked in organic produce since 2012. But still, there is something about being, not only responsible for another soul's life, but also his teeny tiny microbiome and what he eats and what goes on his skin and all of that. It is a lot to think about! Especially now a days with all the information so readily available to us as parents about the ingredients in kids food, just the word 'Red 40' gives me the shivers. 

Having only had 4 jobs in my life, and 3 of them based solely around organic & local food (Sprout Organic Market, The Juicery, Discovery Organics. I worked with Parks Canada & BC Ferries as a Coastal Naturalist aboard the Coastal Renaissance ferry for the summer of 2018 and I got to talk about Orca's all day. It was wonderful!), I sometimes forget that this isn't at the forefront of other peoples minds. To me, good food and nutrition comes with the territory of work, of play, and of life in general. 

Now don't get me wrong, we all have our guilty pleasures when it comes to food. Mine are almost too shameful to admit, but hey, here goes. Chocolate cake with chocolate icing from Safeway (has to be a specific kind or it just isn't the same) and Hawkins Cheezies (just found out these are from a Canadian company so I feel marginally less guilty). 

Knowing where your food comes from, literally shaking the hand that is growing your veggies and fruit, or delicately picking up that freshly-laid egg, or needing your sourdough or cutting a beautiful sunflower from its sturdy stalk, it makes a difference. It just does. Putting a face, or hand, to your food gives a sense of place, of belonging, and of appreciation far beyond what you get from buying garlic from China or pears from New Zealand. There is nothing wrong with doing that, but no one can deny that it is different. 

During my masters in Italy, all the students came in bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready to take on big-agri (that's what I call the industrial agricultural overlords), and then we quickly realized that the problem of food and climate and hundreds of other puzzle pieces that make up the global food system wasn't going to be solves overnight. We knew that before the program started, but hey, we can still hope! 

After six months of classes and learning experiences, I had gone through all of the emotions a human could possible have: excitement, incredulity, hopelessness, acceptance, hope... and then landed on determination. 

There is a quote that I opened my thesis with, as I feel like, as simple and short as it is, perfectly summarized how I wanted to move forward in the world of food after the program ended. 

Find your place on the planet. Dig in, and take responsibility from there. 

- Gary Snyder

He has many more quotes, and I need to read more of his poems, but I just love that quote. How simple that is. Find your place, and go from there. 

A theme of my thesis was sense of place, and I found in my research that it is much easier to feel connection, love, protection and kinship with your physical place on the planet, when you have built community there. To me, and many others, community is intrinsically linked with food, or for want of a better word, communion, with those around you. And what is included in these community meetings and building sense of place? Most likely there will be some food.

How beautiful would it be to have a meal with your community, in your place, and only be eating what had been grown by the hands beside you on the table?

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I'm just reading back on what I started the blog talking about, and what I ended with. Welcome to my brain. My goodness, that is a journey through my consciousness as I am tallying up how many Harvest Boxes & eggs & bread I need for this weeks pick-up.  

If you have read this far, thank you. If you have ordered from Locally Fed and supported our vegetable venture, thank you. If you're curious what I'm talking about all the time on emails and Instagram, welcome to Locally Fed, and thank you for being here. 

Week four is going to be good, I just know it. 

 

Big Love, 

 

Sev & Locally Fed