Proof that God Loves Me

So, you all know that I've been looking for a good way to get organic, local produce and haven't had much luck. Last Thursday morning, I walked out of my apartment complex to find my car and go to work, and saw a delivery van parked on the street. It said "Farm Fresh to You" on the side, with a web address Guess who just signed up for direct-to-your-door organic fruit and vegetable delivery?

Why Care About Food?

I've been thinking a lot about why I've come to care so much about what I eat. Actually, that's not entirely true. I've been trying to talk myself out of caring so much, especially when I've been so frustrated in my attempts to actually make anything work. Why can't I just walk away? Why can't I shelve it for later? Why do I feel compelled to keep trying? Why? Why? Why?

In the end, it's all about the people.

It's about my people: myself, Dave, BeBop, and the people we invite into our home. I want them all to life full, healthy lives, and I've come to believe that consuming pesticides and an overabundance of soy and corn and other processed goodies doesn't help that much.

But it's also about the people "out there," people I'll never know but whose lives my eating habits effect.

I want to choose simple, healthy foods for the migrant workers who pick fruit in the hot sun not too far from my house, the ones who don't get water or food or rest breaks, who make too little to feed their own families, the ones who die of heatstroke or pesticide poisoning and whose stories get stuffed under the table.

I want to eat sustainably-raised meat for all the workers in the meatpacking plants, the ones who don't have health insurance to cover their injuries, who see horrible things every day, who live in fear of incurring some terrible injury on the job and therefore losing their job.

I want to eat food for which wholesalers paid a fair price, for the farmers and families and villages and small countries that depend on exports for their basic sustenance but have seen poverty grow in the last few years as prices have fallen.

For the family farmers, driven off their land by falling prices and big conglomerates,

For those effected by pollution from the Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) that can't control their waste,

For all of the people duped by marketing, advertising, and taste into eating things that aren't good for them,

For all the ones who have done the best they could only to find that our food production and transportation system let them down in some way, I want to eat responsibly.*

People matter and therefore, I'm convinced, our food matters.


*There's a whole worldview behind this, of how we got here and why we were put here and who we are now that we're here that I won't go into. It's sufficient to say that, while I don't think that myself or any other single person can change all of this, or even any of it, I do believe that we all have to make our choices and that these choices matter even if we can't see directly the difference that they make.

Food and Simplicity

I desire to eat natural food because it is the simplest food there is. Without chemicals, without additives, without corn and soy that is processed beyond recognition, what we have left is simple, natural food.

There's something to be said for simplicity, across a lot of different categories. Food, time, relationships, truth, possessions, even the routes we take to and from work and school. They can all be simplified.

I've realized recently that my desire for natural, sustainably grown food goes along with my desire for simplicity in other aspects of life. Just as I have purged my bookshelves, I want to purge my body and my cupboards. Just as I want to learn how to exercise my whole body as it was meant to be exercised, I want to feed it what it was meant to be fed. Just as I want to purchase high-quality items that I want and need, I want to buy food that not only tastes good, but is good, too.

These relationships aren't always clear. I'm not entirely sure how my desires to eat quality food are akin to my other desires for simplicity, except that they feel the same inside. They come from the same place, that intuitive land-across-the-sea that I know makes sense even if I don't know how or why.

At the end, I think all of these desires spring from the desire for truth. I want to live an honest life. If I'm not going to read the books on my shelves, wear the clothes in my closet, or use the pretty new towels, I want to be honest about that and not own them. If I don't have enough time to nurture my heart, I want to be honest about admitting that I'm doing too much and need to eliminate some things. If I am eating things that are hurting my body or other people or our planet, I want to figure out how to get rid of them in my diet. I want to live my honesty, not just speak it, think about it, or even share it with others.

There's a conflict here between needs and desires. I believe that when to pursue our desires, be they for possessions, more space in our lives, or pastries, is usually a matter of discernment. Desires aren't about truth in the same way that needs are (except to acknowledge that we truly desire). Desires are messier, harder to hold, more difficult to see our way clear of. And I think we'll all find different answers regarding different desires and all these answers, if discerned with God and with wisdom, and represent the simplicity of a truthful life.

On the other hand, desire can be at odds with simplicity. In fact, every time I violate the simple truth, it's because my desires overrode it. If I have more clothes than I need, it's because I wanted them. If I take on too much and become too busy, it's because I don't want to say no. If I eat something that's unhealthy, it's because I wanted it more than I wanted health and truth and life.

Sometimes, figuring out which side my desires are on is hard work. I desire truthfulness, but I desire it in such a way that my life is not rigid and rule-based, but flexible and free. I desire to sometimes give in to my desires, because everything my heart wants is not bad. And so when a desire pops up, it can be hard to know whether to accept it, either as truthful in and of itself or because I need to let go, or to stand firm against it because it is undermining my truthful simplicity.

I wish my life resonated truth and simplicity. I wish I never gave in to a desire that was a lie, or thought I discerned only to discover that I was hoodwinked, but that's not the case. The truth is, walking this intentional, honest path is hard, whether we're thinking about time, possessions, money, food, or any one of a number of things. But it's still a path, and I'm eager to see where it leads.

Food is Hard!

I haven't posted anything here because my search for the food I want has been almost entirely frustrated. For all that I've tried, there doesn't seem to be a way to get fresh, organic, sustainably-grown fruit and vegetables without A) Quitting my job (so I can go pick them somewhere) B) Paying through the teeth (at one of the gourmet groceries I ranted about in my last post) or C) Turning the baby's room into a garden (not gonna happen).

I suppose I could write about what I'd like to eat in theory, but the point of this blog was to write about it in practice. So I'm a little stuck. Maybe more later, when I figure out what I want, or maybe my baby blog is going on hiatus. Bah.

Meh on the Veggies and Bah on the Trendy Grocery Store

No news on the veggies yet, so I thought I'd try Sprouts Market for our produce this week.

If you know me very well at all, you can probably guess that I'm not getting into organic, local, healthy food because it's trendy, yuppie, cool, or any other reason like that. In fact, I resisted for quite a while on those very grounds--"It's just something that's popular right now, but it doesn't really matter what I eat. Fruit is fruit."

So you can imagine my surprise when Sprouts, which bills themselves as a Farmer's Market in their very name, turned out to be just another overpriced trendy grocery store with little, as far as I could tell, to make it stand out.

Sure, they offered organic produce . . . in quantities so small I could hardly find them, selection so poor that to get enough, I'd have had to buy almost everything, and prices so high it'd be cheaper for me to drive to the closest farm! They also had organic food products, but they were most were the kind that seem indistinguishable from the usual except that the ingredients were organic before they were processed with additives. What a bummer!

Don't get me started on their lunch meat. Just don't. It's sufficient to say that I will never, ever pay that much for that little of a product that isn't any better than what I can get at the grocery store.

You know, I would have been less frustrated if they'd called themselves a specialty food store rather than a farmer's market, because they had great selection for those with allergies, food sensitivities, and more. As one who cannot consume much cow's milk, I was impressed by the many choices of sweet, iced confections they had that I could actually eat. In fact, they had multiple options for every product (6 kinds of agave nectar, anyone?), which would be nice, admittedly, if I had some specific preferences. 

The two upsides were the bulk bins which, while not the most impressive I've seen, were good just because they were there (they usually aren't, around here) and the supplements section, where I found things I'd never heard of before! But beyond that, I won't go back.

Thus continues The Search for the Elusive Happy Produce.

The Veggies are in Danger!

Our time with the CSA may be coming to an abrupt halt, and after we'd just gotten used to the rearranged thinking, too! The guy who headed up the farmer's market and CSA program at the farm lost his job due to some sort of conflict with his manager, and they're not sure they can keep up the program anymore. What a bummer!!

But never fear . . . our forays into vegetables have just begun. Whether they come up with a plan or it requires some devious finagling on our part, I think we're hooked. There's something kind of fun about making plants into food and trying to figure out what we like. Now, if only we could find some good quality veggies . . .

Making Vegetables Into Food

So, after much moaning about the amount of cooking to be done, Dave and I got down to it on Saturday morning. Well, I got down to it and Dave helped me in amongst doing his own chores, but you get the picture.

What followed can only be described as a chopping, frying, sauteing, rinsing, washing, baking frenzy that produced one good-sized fridge container of green beans steamed with garlic, a 9x13 pan of eggplant parmesan, one frozen freezer bag of homemade pasta or pizza sauce, and several spears of grilled squash and asian eggplant, in addition to the usuals (a weeks worth of oatmeal and hard-boiled eggs for Dave). Even if it had tasted terrible, I would have felt like I did something momentous with my Saturday!

Sense of accomplishment aside, I liked all the vegetables. The green beans are fabulous, especially when sprinkled with feta (but then again, it's hard to make green beans NOT fabulous--they're one of the 5 vegetables I would happily eat before this experiement), the pizza sauce will be great (as long as it thaws well), the grilled squash was surprisingly sweet and nutty and the eggplant parmesan met Dave's challenge ("TRY to make regular eggplant into something I want to eat"), though it could use some modifications in health area. Next time, we'll cut down on the frying and use about half the cheese). The baby liked the EP, too--right after I ate it for lunch, Dave felt her move for the first time! Altogether, not a bad way to jump into veggie land. Much better than those poor cooked greens that still languish in the freezer. Too bad we don't compost!

After all of the preparing, cooking, and washing was done, I must say that I have a much deeper respect for the way life often was before modern times. Someone had to stay home and make all of those nice, fresh vegetables into food that people would actually eat. I can only imagine what it was like for people not only making dinner for one night, but putting up food for the winter, too. No wonder it was considered a full-time job! I'd be fascinated to know: which came first . . . feminism or prepackaged food. While I'm sure it's more complicated than that, you can be sure it's something I'll ruminate on for a while. And, never fear, I'll be sure to update here with any thoughts I have on the subject.