Local Food or "Artificial, Plastified, Genetically Modified"

Growing your own garden annually, and freezing or canning your produce for use throughout the year is healthy in more ways than one.

I have been on a fact finding trip across the mid-Atlantic states and into the interior plateau (Kentucky and Tennessee) over the past few weeks. The reason behind the trip was to enhance my knowledge of sustainable living in the area. Over the next week the blog will reflect on what I learned, but for now, let me start with an article I found in one of the newspapers I am just now reading. My boyfriend saves his newspapers when I am gone and I go thru them catching up on local and regional news. On June 11, last Monday, the editorial page provided me with the first reflection on the trip.

The author of the piece, Kami Pothokuchi, teaches Urban Planning at Wayne State, and it seems that she is on the same track I am - we need to change how we manage our food and food dollars. We are out of balance.

"One problem with the farm bill has been its historical lack of balance. Only 39% of all U.S. farmers and ranchers received crop subsidies in 2005, very few of which were fruit and vegetable farmers. Also left out are African-American, Hispanic and Native American farmers whose mistreatment by federal programs over the years has prevented them from obtaining financial credit and conservation assistance. This has led to the loss of 97% of black-owned farms.

These extraordinary imbalances have consequences for eaters as well. Between 1985 and 2000, the real price of fruits and vegetables increased by 40%, while soft drinks and other sugary and high-fat foods declined in cost by as much as 20%."

Somehow people still don't seem to "get it," that our food is being manipulated in ways that are harming our health and our economy. The fruit and vegetable farm market in the US and Canada have taken multiple hits because of their lack of subsidies which make it hard for them to compete within the global market. Imported fruits and vegetables travel even farther to reach our tables. All this travel of our food interferes with its taste (there is no comparison of fresh fruit and the traveled varieties) and our energy consumption. Food production also burns about one-sixth (17%) of our fossil fuels, and that is not counting the amount of petroleum products used in fertilizers.

Worst of all the food that is receiving most of the subsidies (you'll have to take a class to understand our plight in the subsidies question) are the foods that we don't need more of - they provide calories, but empty calories, and nutrition is absent. They are the foods that are most used in food processing - wheat, corn, soy and, of course, sugar. I am not against any of these products, but the way we use them, and abuse them to "feed" that overweight populace that is America.

If we focused on how we eat, and favored more local foods over processed foods, many of our health issues would evaporate along with our waistlines.

Across America and Canada schools are making the choice to eat local, to buy their produce from CSA's (Community Supported Agriculture), to not have their food transported the average of 1500 miles to reach their tummies. Even food service corporations are joining in the belief for a healthy America.

Some of the schools and corporations that are beginning the switch are:

• University of Northern Iowa
• University of Pennsylvania
  
• University of Wisconsin
• Hendrix College
  
• University of California system
• Drake University
• University of Toronto
• Washington State University
• University of Kentucky
• University of Connecticut
• University of Montana
• Oberlin College
• Berea College
• University of Vermont
• University of Minnesota
• University of Massachusetts Amherst
• Columbia University
• Cornell University
• University of Nebraska
• Denison University
• University of Virginia
• University of Kansas
• University of Illinois Extension
• University of Illinois
  
• University of Maine
  
• Sodexho
• Aramark, BAMCO, Sodexho
  

Interestingly, Michigan has not done so well in this area, though we have no reason to be so slow, especially since we are often in the top states for our overweight population.

• University of Michigan
• Michigan State University

We have plenty of problems in Michigan these days, but one way to create a healthy attitude and can do spirit is to eat right. Universities can lead the way, educating our students and faculty into the light.