Monday, March 23, 2009

Taking Back Our Food

In a previous post I wrote on February 11, 2009 entitled "Quote: Beware of what you eat, you are on your own", I ended with a call for people to "take back our food". An article published March 21, 2009 in the New York Times entitled "Is a Food Revolution Now in Season?" elaborates and updates what I posted last month, as has a recent opinion piece entitled "Where Obesity Grows: Corn as a Health Issue" written George Will in the Washington Post on March 8, 2009.

I urge you to read those two articles and my previous post (links provided above) if you have not already done so to get another sense of what the "food revolution" is about and why change in what we eat plus how we grow and distribute our food is urgent and will bring benefits to our personal healthfulness, our local communities, and our entire planet.

I am inspired by one of my colleagues, Angie Tagtow, MS, RD, LD a Registered Dietitian and past Food and Society Fellow from Iowa, who says "healthy soil grows healthy food and healthy food nourishes healthy people who create healthy communities." Angie also reminds us of the words of previous leaders and visionaries who understood the vital connection between the health of our soil and our own healthfulness.

“A nation that destroys it’s soil, destroys itself.”
~~Franklin Delano Roosevelt

“Proper soil fertility which builds appropriate levels of humus in the soil is the basis of the public health system of the future.”
~~Sir Albert Howard, The Soil and Health, 1947

Yes, the time is now. We cannot wait, nor can our children or their children, to "take back our food". One place to start is in your own back, side or front yard (or a roof, windowsill, balcony, or community garden) by putting your own hands in the soil and planting some seeds, like I did yesterday, to grow some of your own food. Yes, this is a call to action, indeed even an "action alert", for the new season is clearly emerging all around us.

"A journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step".
~~Lao Tzu

There are other beginning steps that may be taken also. I suggest printing out the helpful Good Food Checklist for Families that Angie developed. I'll bet that you find at least one step that you have already taken that you can check off plus many more actions that are achievable by you and your family. Step, step, step, inch by inch, row by row!

I'm right with you, both beside you and sometimes a few steps ahead of you, hopefully helping to smooth the path for change just a bit.

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you...I am printing it now...

Rhonda

Anonymous said...

It's certainly a slow step by step process. I feel annoyed when I make an unthinking purchase, rather than the ones I make knowingly for convenience (even though I know I should do it differently). I'm excited about my new worm farm though.

Diana Dyer said...

Arwen,
I make those unthinking purchases, too, once in a while, which always gives me the opportunity to take a step back to evaluate what is out of balance in my life that made me too tired, irritated, or rushed to make a more thoughtful and careful decision. (sorry for such a horribly long sentence).