[Day 10 of Eating Only Local Food Challenge]
So I’ve become a little discouraged lately.
First of all, for those who don’t know, I’m eating only locally grown and sourced food. I’m located in Nashville, Tenn., so I’m permitted to have anything grown/sourced within a 100 mile radius.
Why am I doing this? Most basically: because there’s a bunch of bad stuff in our food. Even in the vegetables and fruit that we think are “healthy” (at least in the nonorganic variety). The main culprit I’ve been researching and discussing is glyphosate (which is basically RoundUp, the commonly used suburban weed killer). It’s an herbicide/chemical being sprayed all over our crops on a mass scale.
I was resistant to going fully organic because I’m cheap and frugal. I thought maybe I was getting a better deal by paying less for non-organic veggies and fruit. That was wrong.
For one, let me note I realize “organic” can be a touchy subject. Many local farms implement organic practices, they just aren’t certified, as it is a wildly costly, continual process to obtain and maintain. Also, perhaps some of the large scale organic certified farms might not actually be sooo organic. But we won’t get into all of that now. And that’s also confusing and frustrating. *sigh* (but somewhat organic is better than not attempting to be organic at all.)
RoundUp or glyphosate was marketed as being safe for humans as we don’t have the same “pathway” that glyphosate attacks in the plants, fungi and bacteria. Ok, this could get confusing. Glyphosate attacks the shikimic pathway in plants, fungi and bacteria which makes them unable to build proteins to continue to live and grow, so essentially they shrivel up and die. Since humans don’t have the shikimic pathway, it had been said we can’t be affected negatively by glyphosate. However, glyphosate attacks us in a different way. In a myriad of ways. It breaks down our gut lining, it penetrates and disrupts the blood brain barrier, the kidney tubules, vascular barrier systems and a whole host of others. Eventually I will explain more of this (and you can research it as well), but for now we’ll hold off.
Back to my becoming discouraged or losing momentum…
I sometimes become entangled with the thought that this food, nutrition, local food movement, all this glyphosate-sprayed crops, chemical-laden-food talk isn’t all that important. Or I feel silly for thinking about it so much and talking about it, and posting about it on social media. Sometimes, when telling people what I’m doing (eating only local), I see their eyes glaze over. People who know and love me. They tap out of the conversation. It doesn’t feel important, it doesn’t feel pressing and it maybe even sounds conspiracy theorist-like. The evil non-organic vegetables are out to get us! I get it.
I, too, get sick of reading about this stuff and thinking about it more than I’d like to admit. Sometimes I just want to throw my hands up, throw up a white flag and scream “I give up!” And by that I mean, I give up because it feels like too grand of an issue to solve (our food system, that is).
When you’re out there living your life, trying to make money, figure out what the heck you’re doing, just trying to make it out the door to a meeting after spilling your french press coffee all over the floor, well, worrying about where your food came from and what herbicides some unknown person sprayed on it just sounds silly and irrelevant. You don’t have time to consider any of that, you just have time to grab something quickly, grab a bar (or go to the bar) and get moving with your life.
For me, it’s not just about food. It’s about connecting with others, connecting with what it means to be human and to live on earth. Sometimes it feels like we’ve abandoned what it means to be human. We live in such a fast-paced world, we’re always going, going, going, and we don’t always think about what we’re doing, we don’t always think about the food we’re putting in our body or where it came from. We don’t think about all the other unnatural things we put on our body and expose our bodies to. We don’t think about what we’re saying to others sometimes, whether we’re looking at each other in the eye, truly listening and being present or whether we’re looking down at the little rectangular screen in front of us. Life is about connecting, it’s about belonging, community, love and being loved, sharing life together and sharing a common human experience. We’re all in this together.
This local food challenge is about how we interact with the earth, how we interact with others, and understanding our place in all of this. We forget that the earth is a living thing as well. What we do to it and take from it alters its health and vitality and subsequently alters our health and vitality. We are disconnected from our food, the environment it grows in and how far our food it had to travel to get to us (the money and fuel it required).
This is not about losing weight and getting toned, this is about disease prevention. It’s about the epidemic of a multitude of diseases increasing exponentially as we add chemicals to our crops and deplete the nutrient load within them.
I continue to hear of more and more people with a myriad of diseases, cancers and various health issues— multiple sclerosis, breast cancer, depression, ADHD, sleep apnea, hormone issues, alzheimer’s, IBS, heart disease. Many are people I know and love.
Autism rates were about 1 out of 1000 children in 1995 (glyphosate began being sprayed on a mass scale in 1996), then rates skyrocketed in subsequent years. Now autism rates are 1 in about 59 children (some studies say 1 in 43). I’m not suggesting glyphosate is solely responsible, but something is clearly amiss.
I could name many more statistics on various disease increases, but we won’t get into that for now.
But it does seem like everyone has their specific sickness, disease or ailment they have to deal with. I know humans have had diseases and sickness for thousands of years, but incidence has been increasing astronomically.
It’s a broken system.
I think we all have our certain part in building back this connection with our ecosystem and our fellow humans. I’ve chosen to focus on food and nutrition, you might choose to focus on music, teaching or being a lawyer.
This is about our healthcare, the economy, massive increase in diseases, depression, environmental degradation, this is our history, our laws, labor issues, wages. It’s all connected.
(Am I sounding crazy yet?)
There is something wrong with our society and the way we’ve designed our lives if can’t take time to invest in our health, invest in the health of the earth and invest in community.
We have to reverse what we’re doing, we can’t keep moving forward in the direction we have and we can’t remain stagnant. We must to bring it back to our roots (root/growing pun totally intended.)
This broken system of thinking and living was created, imposed and perpetuated by humans. We’ve gotten ourselves into this mess, but that means we have the power to pull ourselves out-- to change what we do and the way we think.
This is a bit of an aside, but think about the amazing things your body does, how it repairs itself (if we allow it to) the amazing things the earth does, how it sustains life and how it sustains ours. Think about the extraordinary process of breathing. That sounds mundane, but it’s phenomenal. If we truly understood all the mechanisms and processes happening within our body every single second of our lives, we would be astounded at ourselves and everyone else we encounter everyday of our life. The human body is an intricately designed system--a system of systems. We are profoundly complex. We are profoundly and inexplicably exquisite.
This is why I cannot get enough of biology, nutritional epidemiology and all the environmental sciences. The more I know, the more I know I don’t know, but the more I want to learn.
I think the more we know and understand our own bodies and the environment we live in, the more likely we are to care for them as best as we possibly can. The more you know, the more connected you are to your body and to this place we live.
We care more about the people who are close to us, those we know well and love. Stick with me here, I have a point.
Not to discount people we don’t know, but it’s true. We feel disconnected to the people who die in other countries and areas we aren’t familiar with. It doesn’t feel as heavy, burdensome or intensely emotional. We may be sad on some level about these strangers, but it’s different when a close family member or friend passes away or if you find out your mom or brother has cancer. We can know that people are suffering in other areas, but it’s not as real unless it’s right in front of us, or if we actually seek out the story and information.
I think that’s what we have to do with our own health and the health of the earth--and the health of our entire human species.
I believe if we realized how connected we are as human beings all across the earth, we would be far more kind to each other. If we realized how similar we actually are, we would connect with those from afar and see ourselves within those we may normally consider our enemy or “other.” If we understood the earth more, understood the environment, went out and nature and to what it had to offer, see how it works to sustain our lives and if we could see how we’ve harmed it in various ways, we would be much more likely to take care of it.
We need to reconnect what it means to be apart of the human race and what it means to be apart of the ecosystem of the earth. As I said, we are all profoundly and exquisitely complex and astounding--every single one of us. Be impressed with yourself and be impressed with others. Get to know those around you--listen. Learn where your food is coming from, the soil it came from and the people who worked hard to make it for you. Know what you’re doing to care for your body. Get to know your environment, get to know this earth and how we can better coexist with this life-giving entity we all live upon.
Too hippie sounding? Maybe. But that’s okay with me :D
Check out one of my videos for more explanation:
Here’s the 25 minute version video. oops.
Here’s the less than 7 minute version.
References:
https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/data.html
http://www.wvdhhr.org/bph/oehp/hsc/dementia/mortality.htm
https://www.ecowatch.com/15-health-problems-linked-to-monsantos-roundup-1882002128.html
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1383574218300887
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/06/the-weedkiller-in-our-food-is-killing-us