Connecting with our food

I don't know how it is in the rest of the world at the moment, but here in Canada, we are stumbling and lurching and sometimes dying over continuing compromises to our (factory) food sources, recently we had a listeria outbreak linked to Maple Leaf Foods resulting in many deaths - still uncounted as autopsies need finalizations. The latest occurrence is in North Bay, in a well-known hamburger fast food chain: Harveys is now implicated in a fresh outbreak of e-coli.

The lingering horror of an e-coli outbreak due to a contaminated municipal water supply in Walkerton, Ontario is still with us, years later. I read in today's paper that the health effects - raised blood pressure, damaged kidneys - are still present in those who suffered from the bacterium. 7 people died and over 2500 were made ill in this small town, 8 years ago. And continued suffering is inevitable.

As we turn our very lives over to agri-business, the Cargills, Maple Leaf Foods, privateer water suppliers, et al, more and more of these types of outbreaks will be visited upon unsuspecting and trusting citizens.

I have read both of Michael Pollan's books:
The Omnivore's Dilemma

in which he explores the ubiqitous presence of corn in nearly all of our entire food supply and the near elimination of the independent farmer, all in highly readable form.

and

In Defense of Food

Here, he examines how very far removed from real food we have become and recommends how to shop (only buy products that are displayed on the outside walls of the supermarket, for one!). I don't think I'll ever forget the chapter on mushrooms. It has stayed with me.

Michael feels very strongly about what we are doing to our very lives by blindly eating the frankenfood on offer in most of our grocery stores today and has written a wonderful open letter, published in The New York Times, to the president-elect of the U.S. full of suggestions as to how we can reverse the harmful mismanagement of our precious food resources and put measures in place that restore us to healthful and mindful eating.

The key to a healthy outlook of course is in the very fuel we put in our bodies. The old maxim of garbage in and garbage out has never been more manifested than in what we eat. It affects our very souls.

I manage to buy at Farmers' Markets when I can or at the side of the road here. There is nothing more positive than connecting to the grower of your food or the catcher of your fish. Apart from doing it all yourself, of course.

How on earth did we all get to this fast-food, highly processed, Macfood world of ours?

Like Morgan Spurlock, we are all what we eat, unthinking robots, exactly where BigFoodCorp wants us.

The Joy of Food

It is the rare book that has a profound effect on me. I wonder how many books I’ve read in my life, I suppose I could average at 2/3 books per week, there have been sometimes more, sometimes less. Perhaps I’ve read 7,500 in my life to date. Maybe 10% were memorable, most are now forgotten best sellers and some are re-read classics - for instance I never tire of Jane Austen.

In the last few weeks I’ve had far too many books on the go, five at last count but two, by the same author, are still with me.

The first was the Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan. This opened up my eyes to the way we have let Agri-business baffle and confound us with food. It has removed our choices, often lied to us and taken away the simple joy of eating. All with the complicity of government who don’t protect its citizens as it should with correct labelling and proper oversight. A compelling read and I will never forget the chapter on mushrooms.

The second was also by Michael Pollan and called “In Defense of Food” where he encourages us to step back and refuse all the packaged food on offer today and get back to simple meals, the simple preparation of same and the old fashioned protocols of table society. Shared meals, mainly plants, and conversation.

If your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognise this food, don’t buy it, he advises. It is mainly corn and derivatives anyway and the long term effects are still unknown.




I was struck the other day by a photo of a woman stretching her meagre food dollars at Walmart, she could only afford to shop on her paydays. There was not one visible vegetable or fruit in her cart, it was stacked to the top with boxes and packages. This is how much we are all removed from real food. A captive audience for these behemoth frankenfood industries to tell us what to eat as they keep adding and subtracting suspicious additives to packages (now with Omega 3!) to keep grabbing our attention, (think of the years of trans-fats being pumped into foods with the nod from government).And of course the huge diabetes and heart medical industry is completely inter-reliant with said agri-business.

As Michael Pollan advises, just shop the outside wall of the supermarket, never venture into the middle, it is a dangerous place with killers lurking everywhere. One can’t go too far wrong on the outside wall and it sure speeds up the shopping process!