Thanks to NPR.org for image. See related story below in the "confusion" link.

Untangling Confusion from Distraction

Confusion invites distraction.  Confusion - for me, the state of not being aware of and/or comfortable with what to do next -  isn't fun. I don't think it's fun for anyone. Spending time "what-iffing" is only so helpful. Often it leads to ruminating or being in a mental rut that blocks out productive inquiry or action. So when confused and beckoned by distractions, it's easy to say, "Sure, I'd love to spend a few minutes on something other that this thing that's making me unhappy/crazed/stuck (fill in your word...)." Then hours/days/months (fill in your word...) later, you look up and time has passed, confusion is still in the same place, solid and unchanged. If it's gone, you may find someone else made the decision for you, replacing the old topic with a whole new one.

In all candor, sitting with confusion is not something I gravitate toward. Confusion isn't comfortable and I want it over, gone. Being confused feels like I'm failing to figure out what to do and since we're all responsible for our lives, I'm failing at life. I've learned I feel this stuckness and reluctance to act because of things that happened to me decades ago when growing up, most likely not due to anything in front of me now. And intellectually I know that whether I like it or not, some things can't simply be thought through. They require engagement; they have to be lived and worked through. Acting with imperfect information, taking reasonable risks and possibly making a mistake, equal learning and progressing. Being distracted can cause decision making to be unnecessarily deferred, engagement postponed and attending to the results of our actions (learning) to be missed.

Untangling distraction from confusion and holding it while letting distraction go is a skill. It pays to learn it.

Further thoughts on confusion and distraction.

The difference between immoral and illegal

Source: Wikipedia "Junk food" page. This image is a poster at 

Camp Pendleton’s 21-Area Health Promotion Center that describes

the effects of junk food that many Marines and sailors consume.

I've been scratching my head for a while about this. If profiting from misery is immoral, and being malnourished is misery, then those who produce unhealthy ("junk") food are acting immorally.  Right?

What is the difference between immoral and illegal? According to Dictionary. com, immoral is defined as "not conforming to the patterns of conduct usually accepted or established as consistent with principles of personal and social ethics." On the other hand, illegal is defined as "forbidden by law or statute."  While society is involved in both as one reflects "social ethics" and the other is the result of societal action, from a spiritual standpoint, being immoral may result in a condemnation in the next life; breaking a law may result in a conviction in this one. 

Today, unhealthy food is not only legal, it is profitable.  It's profitable because its produced cheaply, easy to prepare/consume, accessible and - dare I say it - addictive. In the minds of many, producing junk food is in the process of becoming - or already is - immoral. What is unhealthy food? My definition is: most anything that's processed in a factory rather than cooked in a kitchen if it contains lots of salt and/or sugar and high levels of fat and/or things I don't recognize or can't pronounce.

Chances are unhealthy food will be legal for a long time. However, it's legal because we allow it to be. And sadly, because some of it really tastes good. We can work to change laws or, as the Mayo Clinic suggests, tax the potentially bad stuff. The tax money could fund research on epidemics that have been linked to food (e.g. diabetes) or education on recreating more self sufficiency in producing and preparing food. Slowing down the pace of life wouldn't hurt either...

A long time ago, a commercial featuring a man answering tough questions (tongue in cheek) hit the nail on the head. When asked what the difference between ignorance and apathy was, he, for once, quite wisely said: "I don't know and I don't care." Can the difference between immoral and illegal can be summed up similarly?

Deconstructing grocery shopping

I went grocery shopping

Grocery shopping still conjures up images of me 50 years ago accompanying my mother to multiple stores, all small by today's mega-store standards. We would go up and down the aisles and she would purchase thing things that spanned a variety of categories: produce, fruit and meat (typically fresh), milk, ice cream, cottage and other cheese (even though we lived next door to a dairy farm and had previously had milk delivered), bread (typically day old because it was less costly), canned foods (beans, tomatoes, soups, etc. because they could be kept and used quickly - e.g. no soaking beans overnight), cake and pizza mixes, frozen TV dinners and pot pies (it was the time convenience foods were getting a foothold in the stores).  Rarely if ever do I recall purchasing fish other than during Lent and the fish were frozen sticks. I didn't like them. Although my mother cooked from scratch, canned and preserved it never occurred to me to question that these new, sometimes tasty, labor-saving foods might not - in the long haul - be good for all us eaters. We humans have a little problem with thinking about "the long haul." Over time food producers of all kinds researched the heck out of what we wanted (not thinking about what we might need) and food became saturated with synthetic (as well as natural) preservatives and additives that led to foods that were high in flavor and calories and low in nutritional value. I may be a member of the last generation to remember the groceries that primarily stocked other than highly processed food rather than fresh ingredients.

Fast forward to today. The choices are often mega-stores or specialty stores (like Trader Joe's). Then there are health food stores (which I'm sure were around 50 years ago but they were mostly vitamins and supplements, not food.) If you are in a progressive area, you may be able to shop at a co-op and get largely organic, vegetarian and vegan food with an emphasis on health. And then there are farmers markets. These have always been there but often obscure from visibility and perceived as for people with money. People have offered food items for as long as they moved away from everyone hunting and gathering on their own. It was only with the advent of the industrialization, mechanization and concentration of food growing and production that this practice began to wane. But it's rebounded as people want to know more about what they eat and are rediscovering the difference between a tomato bred for shipping and a tomato bred for flavor.

It didn't come from Walmart

So, rather than going to mega-stores for the convenience of one-stop shopping, or buying highly processed "industrial" foods that abound, I'm drawn the small shops that celebrate the skills and flavors that I almost let slip away from me as I grew up. When I ask about an item I find myself often listening in awe to young people who create or grow food using skills that I might have dismissed as too much work or beyond my abililty. And I remember my elders and am grateful.

A Tribute to Evelyn

Back in May I posted about starting to rid myself of excess paper and the weight of past. Lots of things intervened in the months since then to thwart my progress at shredding all those old tax returns. But I'm going back at it and also trying to eliminate lots of other "stuff" in preparation for transitioning to a tablet (replacing a notebook) and transitioning to a different home (downsizing and simplifying).

I've started to throwing things out again. Literally throwing them in the trash as I run across them. Real trash that gets taken away every week. And the swooshy/crumply sound as computer files hit the virtual trash.

The other day I ran across a Word doc reflecting on a friend who had died. It was (I think) written shortly after her funeral. Shown to no one it sat on my computer for several years before I stumbled on it again. I vaguely remembered writing it and reading it I was glad I had run across it. Maybe some things need to be carried on life's journey. Understanding what is important and what isn't is a lesson I'm still learning. I'm keeping this. Here it is...

A Tribute to Evelyn

When I knew she was dying my first thought was for myself. I suppose it always is for everyone – “what will I do” or “I will miss her so” or “oh, we never got to....”. As time passed, my self-absorption gave way to a healthier focus on her. “She is dealing with this so gracefully” or “you are such a great friend because you....” or “you have every right to decide not to have any more chemo or radiation.”

She had been the glue that held a small band of people together around breakfast, once a month. Breakfast Club had been going on for decades and in my last conversation with her just nine days before she died, she said she was looking forward to the next Breakfast Club. Did she think then it would be her last? And she also said she was looking forward to the Greek Festival this same group of friends had been going to for even longer. It was two weeks after Breakfast Club.

The day before Breakfast Club was scheduled the email arrived saying she’d been taken to the hospital in great pain. Pancreatic cancer is a bitch; I’ve seen an aunt and another good friend die of it. They were going to try to regulate her meds to deal with the pain. I knew this wasn’t a good sign.

Later in the day, in the shower, I found myself saying out loud, “Evelyn, I don’t want you to die, but you do what you need to, do. It’s ok for you to die. We’ll get along, muddle through without you.” I had given my father and uncle permission to die as I was by their bedsides, and even though I wasn’t by her bedside, I guess I believed she could hear me. Hearing is the last thing to go the experts say.

During the evening I exchanged emails with a mutual friend and learned that she had been moved to a hospice, that the hospital had been an effort to regulate her pain so she could be in hospice at home. When I saw her last less than a month ago she mentioned she had to see her insurance guy; I didn’t ask why. Was she making moves to hospice then? She knew she was dying; was she that determined to be as organized and as little of a burden as that?

As is normal for me, I woke early, before dawn and read to fall asleep again for a while. In that early morning sleep I often dream, and today was no different. I dreamed I was in my garden working with people who I had just the day before been working with in horribly hot sun and high humidity. We were slowly, slowly building wood paths through all the gardens, ostensibly to keep the weeds out of the paths and the weeding to a minimum. It was a much bigger process than envisioned. (Evelyn had had a small garden in her back yard, probably as big as one of the 50+ beds we have where I garden. Enough. Not so much as to be overwhelming as I’d been finding mine to be.) In the dream the people I was working with  were in various gardens, one on the other side of the greenhouse where I couldn’t see them. Suddenly there came a high pitched “Oh!!” from the other side of the green house. In the dream I thought to myself, “oh, Brad has hurt himself” then I thought “no, Evelyn has died.” I woke from my dream to realize this, and looked at the clock. It was 6:15 Eastern time.

A while later, I got up and was doing laundry before going downstairs to eat and start the day. The phone rang and I groaned. Of course, I already knew. It was a number I didn’t recognize. Oh, let this call not drop the way so many do on my cell, I thought as I answered. “Hello?”  Again, I said “Hello?” Then I heard his voice, “Paula, I have...” and I knew “...bad news. Evelyn passed away over night.” Without missing a beat I said, “I know.” He said, “Oh?” “Yes, I said, I heard her.” He went on to tell me she died without pain (a blessing of hospice where she had been moved) and that he didn’t know anything about services. I was enlisted to pass the word to others as Jim didn’t have their phone numbers at home and his internet was down. He had known Evelyn longer than I (and I had known her 31 years) so he was likely feeling even deeper loss than I.

Recently at my brother’s funeral (just a few months back) I heard a saying that at an earlier time in my life I would have taken umbrage at. “Don’t let the dead get in the way of the living.” It is true; it is not heartless. The living have to live – that is what they do. Grieve, yes. Reflect, yes. But live, nonetheless. Dying while alive is not giving tribute to all that life is. Evelyn knew that. She lived so fully until she couldn’t. Then she died. It was simple. It was 

If it's true...

After my mother died in the late 1980s, I was afraid that my father wouldn't be able to cope. But he surprised me. Pleasantly. For a number of years he lived in the same house, taking care of it (even mopping floors on his hands and knees) and the yard, traveling with his brother and seemingly doing well. But eventually (as expected) it became more than he could handle so he ultimately sold it and moved into a relatively small condo. It was hard on him and me.

In the condo over a few years, things deteriorated, and his mental capacity began to slip. Normal, right? By the time he died in 2002, he had some form of dementia, had lived four years in a nursing home and had progressively less and less quality of life.

When I first noticed the decline, I also noticed that he had stopped cooking for himself and had taken to getting Meals on Wheels, a well intentioned, likely chronically underfunded service that dropped off meals designed to fill people up as cheaply as possible. That meant lots of processed carbs, processed meats and relatively few if any fresh fruits and veggies,  I found the meals abhorrent and tried to intervene to get better meals to my father, but he protested that they were too costly, even though I had paid for them. Not eating well was something my mother would not have stood for. And for her, eating well involved her making most things from scratch.

In today's New York Times, Mark Bittman discusses the possible link between poor diet (heavy carbs like my father got in his delivered meals) and Alzheimer's with the possibility that it is an extension of the varieties of diabetes - Type 3 to be specific. We have known for a long time that the SAD (standard American diet, to use Bittman's term) is not healthy, leading to obesity, diabetes and more. Now it appears that it may wreak even further havoc on the end of life. How can it be that companies can continue to make money while making us sick? There is something so very wrong with that. And I'm paying for this tsunami of illness in my insurance rates. Less than those with the illness to be sure, but paying none the less. And if Bittman's article is correct, we stand to see costs rocket to the further stratosphere in the future, putting even more strain on families and stressed health care providers.

I believe it is immoral to continue to produce foods that are literally killing us. And if you want to say the data isn't all in, or it's wrong to regulate what people eat, then I respectfully ask that for insurance purposes we split into two risk pools, those people who aren't convinced that certain foods and behaviors are the enemy be in one pool, continuing to do what they do. Then those of us who believe that that food - it's type, quality and variety - matters be in a second pool. You can continue to eat what you want and I won't be paying for it.


To read a summary of the research behind Bittman's article, click here.

I can't touch your food

Last week I did something I've wanted to do for a long time, combined a desired long train trip (I wanted the experience) with a hog roast in New York state (I've always said I'd travel for pork...). My paternal grandfather was a stationmaster back in the heyday of rail travel and I thought the trip a fitting homage to a man who died long before I was born. The pork was purely a selfish endeavor.

The trip involved overnight travel so inevitably there was food involved. There was a cafe car (snacks rather than meals with somewhat extended hours) and a dining car (meals from a menu, wine etc. with limited hours). How lovely it seemed. Oh, but not so fast.

In the 40+ hours I was on the train to and from my destination, along with catching a horrid cold, I was introduced to today's version of train dining. Perhaps better than in-flight meals, but not much. Everything that needed heat was microwaved. Ok, to be expected I guess. But I learned that they microwaved everything in its wrapper. On styrofoam plates. Ug. And I found that the veggie burger that I thought was so lovingly prepared for me in the dining car, was just another microwave offering in the cafe car. I felt duped.

But I had to eat and the veggie burger seemed to be the least worst choice. So when the person behind the counter offered to warm the meal without the wrapper. I thought that was better than in it. But then she said "I can't touch your food." She literally could not take the wrapper off my food and warm it. That was up to me. If she'd had her way, I would have warmed it on that styrofoam plate rather than on a nice, plain, unbleached cardboard box. But I prevailed, so enjoyed eating my bread-toughened scorching hot, nuked veggie burger with no toppings, for sustenance. A picture wouldn't do it justice...

Farm to Everyone's Table

Yesterday I enjoyed a lovely meal in a lovely setting. It was fresh from the farm and prepared well. All local, including the wines. And the company was lovely as well, as was the setting. In many ways, it was the ideal meal - consciously chosen, locally produced and enjoyed with friends and good conversations.

Try as I might to eat that way every day, at least one of the ingredients is often missing. Some days I eat a quick meal standing at my kitchen sink so I can get back to work. Other times, I succumb to purchasing something that is out of season or from out of the area. Rarely do I purchase processed or fast food, but even there I sometimes fall down and do. Yet I can choose to do those things so I am choosing how I eat. And this consciousness is something that would not have been present 20 years ago for me.

On the other hand, there are so many people who cannot make the choices I do. Perhaps it is because they have a limited source of fresh, seasonal foods or don't have the financial ability to choose them. Perhaps it is because they are unaware of the impact of their choices on their health, the health of small farmers and the land on which their food is grown. Or perhaps they are so pressed for time that any thought of cooking is elbowed aside by convenience. For whatever reason, by choice or by default, these people reach for the fast, the processed and, as evidence continues to mount, the unhealthy.

As I've written and said so many times, eating isn't optional. However everyone should have the opportunity to choose the food they eat. Truly choose - not between Burger King and McDonald's, but between fast food and fresh food. Idealistic? You bet. A big change? Yep. Something that will continue to require education and support. Most likely. But something that has started and is gaining speed? I do believe so...

Fooling Mother Nature

Found this image from a Google search on "Mother Nature".
It was on a blog site (Nifty Atheist).
Don't know who owns it so don't know who to credit.

Back in the 1960s I think, there was an ad for a margarine that supposedly tasted so buttery, it fooled Mother Nature. But she wasn't pleased and there were thunderbolts and lightening behind the announcer's voice that said, "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature" as a regal Mother Nature looked annoyed.

Man's thoughtless endeavors far beyond buttery spreads have been fooling (with) Mother Nature for a long time, and we are just beginning to understand that it goes beyond not being nice. We seem to have reigned down all manner of horrible problems by being ignorant of, or ignoring, the delicate interrelationship between the natural work and our ability to live. The New York Times today has a story - The Ecology of Disease -  discussing this in length. It is worth a read, and worth taking seriously.

Oh, come on already!

Sometimes it seems that people don’t agree for the simple, and in my view perverse, joy they appear to take in disagreeing. What is the big deal about labeling food that has GMO ingredients? Alarmist, they say? If I want to know what I’m putting in my mouth, that’s unreasonable? Big food companies have been putting all kinds of things in my mouth for a long time. Yes, perhaps they are on the package, but if I’m not a chemist, botanist, a food scientist or a particularly curious person, I probably don’t know what they are. When we grew or raised what we ate, we knew. Yes, we needed to get more efficient and grow farming to feed the people. What we didn’t need to do was lose the connection between people and their food that we’ve managed to lose in the process. 

Its time to make that reconnection and it needs to be made in many ways. This is one. We need to give people a true choice of what they choose to eat.  If you don’t want to eat GMO foods and I do, we should be able to make that choice. If I want to save seed and you want to grow GMO crops, you shouldn’t be able to sue me if my seed becomes “contaminated” with genes from yours, or vice versa. Food prices, well, there is another sticky wicket. And an important one that must be addressed. But allowing information about if a food includes GMO ingredients, that seems to be a simple choice.

From today's New York Times:

Battle Brewing Over Labeling of Genetically Modified Food

Concern over the possible health and environmental effects of such food has prompted a move for labeling it, but scientists, farmers and technology companies call the measures alarmist.

Well-Pict Package

Photo from the Well-Pict website

I believe in eating local and in season. But every so often, I succumb to the temptation of a fruit or veggie that's out of season. Recently it's been occasional strawberry binges. I avoid the giant ones that taste like nothing and try to find what I consider to be more normally sized berries, typically in those clam-shell packages that at least can be recycled. Its a small comfort that maybe it's not as bad as if the packaging couldn't be recycled.

As I was getting ready to recycle my lastest package, I noticed something embossed onto the bottom. I'd never noticed anything on such packages before and was curious. In addition to the symbol showing that the pack could be recycled and the type of plastic it was (it was "1" or PETE, polyethylene terephthalate) the embossing said:

www.penpack.net
70% recycled drink bottles and 50% energy from the sun

This little bit of information was eye-opening. This particular brand, Well-Pict Berries, had made a conscious choice of their packaging and the packaging maker had made a conscious choice to use recycled and renewable in making their products. I was impressed. Not only was I not buying from the apparent gorrilla of the berry business, Driscoll, I was also buying from people who were concerned about sustainability. Hooray me.

Addtionally there have been concerns that reused PETE bottles are connected to health issues and their production new is not sustainable. So the idea of safely reusing such a land-fill hog was even more satisfying.

Here is more information on Well-Pict and Penpack. I still will eat primarily local and seasonal, but when I stray, I'll look more closely at the packages as well as the source of the food (which I had been doing) and make my own conscious choices.

When to stop trusting experts

I grew up with parents who put great faith and trust in experts of all kinds. Expert was another name for authority. Whether it was science, doctors, the church or any other of all types of authority, if they said it, it must be right. I remember my father voting his stock proxies and when asked why he didn't vote against some proposed board members or proposals, he was genuinely taken aback and told me he always voted with management because they knew what needed to be done.

Then came my teen and college years and they were full of the rebellion of war protests over Viet Nam and hippies and all the anti-establishment actions you could imagine. My coming of age. Yet I wanted to believe in the benevolence of the authorities out there as well. I went back and forth trying to make sense of it all. It never did sort out exactly.

Today I believe most people, most of the time are good and want to do the right thing. By "right" I mean right for most people, not just themselves. And I believe that bad systems can, over time, corrupt good people. George Bernard Shaw said "Custom will reconcile people to any atrocity." At the same time, I believe that what is considered good, can, with more time and information, turn out out to be bad. Good intentions have unintended consequences. A case in point in today's New York Times:

How Chemicals Affect Us

Scientists warn that chemicals we’re exposed to every day can cause genital deformities and even breast cancer. Is our government paying attention?

I don't believe for a minute that the chemical industry set out to create dangerous things that would cause health problems. I do believe that nothing should be assumed and over time, careful, honest investigators should learn more about such creations. If what they learn is negative, they have an obligation to share that information widely and unambiguously. I also believe the people have to pay attention to what they do because there is so much information out there (reliable and unreliable) it is overwhelming and critical thinking skills often seem in short supply. Yet, having people whose job it is to pay attention (regulators) makes sense to me, as long as they remain honest and committed to the welfare of the whole as opposed to the interests of a few - whoever those few are. 

The Zen of Eating Consiously

I have a bad habit. I've had it a long time. Since I was small I have bolted my food. I can recall my mother  telling my father and me to "slow down" at the table. Slowing down to appreciate the work she put into the meal would have been reason enough to do it, but for whatever reason, even if we slowed down then, by the next meal we would be shoveling it in again. Not a pretty picture for a little girl or a grown woman.

While I am far better now than I was, the idea of slowing down and truly savoring the taste of what I was eating has been on my mind. Also the idea of chewing each bite deliberately many times to allow better digestion and access to all the nutrients that are there makes total sense. But for me there is another reason to slow down and that is to make a true connection with the act of eating.

As said elsewhere in this blog, Eating Isn't Optional. We must eat to live. However every day we can choose how consciously we eat. The choices we make about what, how it is prepared, with whom we share the experience, the speed at which we attack the meal and the satisfaction we feel are all ours. The most modest meal can be an elegant experience when eaten consciously. The most glorious one taken for granted without paying attention.

Today I found I am not alone....read more...

How to cook...

Although I find it hard to believe, I know it’s true that lots and lots and lots of people don’t know how to cook. Or think it is too difficult to do. Or say they don’t have the time to do it. It saddens me that they may never know the joy of walking into a kitchen redolent of simmering onions and bacon, or for the vegetarians, a pasta sauce slowly cooking on the back burner. Or the aroma of homemade cookies in the oven. Somehow between the 1960’s and 1980’s cooking became verboten for anyone who had a modicum of cool (not entirely true but you get my point) and then suddenly celebrity chefs made it cool again to cook, but not every day. And that revived version of cooking required shiny new pans, equipment, togs etc. to complete the look. It became a fashion statement that could cost a lot of money to do the “right” way.

Not for me. I cook every day. I use some of the same utensils that my mother used in her kitchen more than 50 years ago. They work just fine and bring back memories of her. I have some modern conveniences as well, but do just dandy without lots of specialty gizmos. And cooking allows me to know – to the extent possible – what is in the food I put in my mouth. And when friends come over, you know as well as I do that people congregate in the kitchen for a reason – food and food preparation nurtures our spirits and our bodies. And there is something so incredibly satisfying about really making something whether it is a meal, a bookcase, a knitted scarf or a painting. I consider all of them works of creativity and art….

Three "cooking spoons" from my mother's kitchen

The Good Guide (online and through a Smart Phone app) allows you to find safe, healthy, green and ethical products based on scientific ratings. Recently they showed that leaving processed food behind isn’t as hard as it might seem to those who didn’t grow up cooking. Five tips from their website blog are below.

"Five ways to leave processed foods behind 

5. Soup. These recipes and strategies for making soup, courtesy of Mark Bittman, will make you say goodbye to canned soup forever. Too difficult? Consider recommendations from GoodGuide.

4. Pasta Sauce. The jarred versions may seem really convenient, but there’s just something about the smell of bubbling tomato sauce that can’t be beat. Here are recipes for a Five-Minute Sauce and Tomato Vodka Sauce. Too difficult? Consider recommendations from GoodGuide.

3. Granola. The options are endless when it comes to making your own granola. Hate raisins? Don’t put them in. Love sunflower seeds? Throw in an extra handful. Get some ideas from this AllRecipes list. Too difficult? Consider recommendations from GoodGuide.

2. Yogurt. You’d be amazed at how simple it is to make your own yogurt. The best part? Making your own cheese is only one more step. Too difficult? Consider recommendations from GoodGuide.

1. Pasta. It might sound labor-intensive, but there’s no comparison between fresh, homemade pasta and 

the boxed stuff. Learn how to roll your own with this video from our friends at CHOW. Too difficult? 

Consider recommendations from GoodGuide."

My two cents on the whole topic of cooking: If you don’t cook, try it. If you do cook, cook more. There is nothing to lose and lots of goodness and satisfaction to gain.

What happens when....

In Skyping with a former professor of mine turned friend and mentor we talked about the things I'm interested in and working on to make changes to the food system. He didn't ask, but the changes I'd like to see are not most likely very different from those of many other people:

1. I'd like to know where my food comes from and how it was grown/produced.
2. I'd like to have real choices in all types of food, not be limited to eating GMOs, foods that have additives etc. 
3. I'd like to be able to buy most things without having them travel hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of miles to get to me. 
4. I'd like to be able to buy fresh as much of the year as reasonable and have regional food processing done (like the time when every town or area had a brewery, which is happening again....) so that I could support local growers year round. 
5. I'd like to have more of the price I pay for food go to the people who raised/produced it and less to the intermediaries, packaging companies, shippers and marketers.
6. I'd like to see healthy, fresh, sustainably raised/produced food available to everyone at a fair price. 

 Tall order, yes. And he raised some questions. Specifically:

1. What happens when the activism to get these things may hit declining returns relative to the effort to get them done?
2. What might be the countervailing activities that don't get put into action until the threat to the existing system takes a harder form?
3. And, what may be some unintended consequences of successfully changing the food system?

Worth some thought and some conversation....

The evolution of Slow...

Growing up things were too slow for my liking. Living outside of town, next door to a dairy farm and not having too many other kids around, I truly learned the meaning of slow. Time went slowly by. Seasons were clearly marked not only by weather and apparel, but by what my mother did in the kitchen and what my father did around the house. It was tedious and I wanted things to move along faster so that I could grow up, move away and be about doing important things. Looking back, it looks pretty good. Simpler, healthier and easier in many ways. 

Over the last several decades others have begun to sense that things are moving too quickly as well. Too quickly to understand. To quickly to be done well. And too quickly to be truly savored and appreciated. In 1986 this awareness went from individuals sensing that things were slipping a bit, to what is now a world-wide movement - Slow Food, founded by Carlo Petrini. It's still not quite mainstream, but understanding the importance of paying attention to what you eat, eatingwhat is local and eating fresh rather than prepared foods is accepted, acted on and promoted by more and more people every day. It's hard work going against a culture of convenience but I see young people doing what my grandparents did. My grandfather was a butcher and I see young chefs butchering and curing their own meat and home cooks wanting to learn how to do more in their own kitchens than microwave. My grandmother made legendarily-good "pocket book rolls," yeast rolls with aroma that filled the house. Young people are baking artisan breads regularly, leaving behind the Wonder Bread-like product that so many of us grew up on.

I don't think my parents would believe that there was a willing turning back to a world they grew up in. It was physically harder. They saw progress in prepared foods, chemical fertilizers and pesticides and all the advances of science. They believed the people in authority in those businesses always had their interests at heart. My father would never vote a stock proxy other than the way management wanted, because in his mind, "who knew the situation better than management?"

Unfortunately, even well-intentioned actions have unintended consequences and the pesticides, and fertilizers and antibiotics and scientific advances lead to outcomes that are far from the best intentions of those involved. I don't want to believe that people knowingly do things that are harmful although I know they have in the past. Caveat emptor was a saying I grew up hearing - let the buyer beware. Good guidance for today's world and yet another piece of wisdom from my elders I see being lived out by consumers who see access to healthy, fresh food as a right for themselves, their children and their communities. 

Healthier cleaning

Growing up I knew that some of the things under the sink were dangerous, but most things my parents used to clean windows, sinks, floors, tubs and more were not seriously dangerous. Today it seems that just about every cleaning item is. And people don't want those kinds of things in their homes.

At the same time, when I was growing up cleaning was hard work, and those chemicals that crept into the cleaning products over the years were intended to make life "easier" and "save time" while imparting a lovely "fresh" scent. But it seems that was short term easy because illness is hard. And I've never understood what happened to all that time that was saved, if it was...

Now we seem to be circling back to the old ways, and that may just involve taking more time and elbow grease to get things clean. I'm really ok with that. What about you?

How can we...

There is much work that needs to be done to create a food system that is sustainable, healthy, profitable and fair. And there are those who say that it can't be done, that healthy food is inevitably going to be out of the reach of the less well off. That it isn't possible to change a culture that is addicted to convenience (even at the expense of health) and disconnected from the seasonal patterns that defined an earlier time. But I refuse to believe that we don't have the grit required to tackle this.

Truth lies in the the statement: "the answers you get depend on the questions you ask." There are people out there who are making attempts to change the system, bit by bit, brick by brick. Asking "how can we create..." is so much more helpful than trying to "fix" something broken. Fixing something without being clear on whether it will work toward a desired future or deliver more of the same is wasting time, resources and spirit.

"Fair Food: growing a healthy, sustainable food system for all" by Oran B. Herserman, PhD provides some jumping off points for people willing to take the risk of going against the grain of the current food system. But if you are like me, it won't feel like a risk, but rather just a logical step toward a better future.

You can learn more about this at the book's website. Oh, and I don't make anything if you buy the book there or anywhere else.