Rethinking What We Think (and do)

Today, as I do every Sunday morning, I went to my local farmer's market to buy our local produce for the week, along with fair trade coffee, natural cleaners, organic body lotion and soap and cage-free, free range eggs. Cory has started going with me, too. He commented today about how much he loves going. And I feel the same way.

There is something empowering about making choices you feel good about and about meeting the people who bring you your food each week. There is no middle man, there is just conversation and information and a shared value system being exchanged. Next week, the market is doing away with all plastic. I had always brought reusable bags, but I had watched with dismay as others loaded each and every fruit and veggie type they bought into individual plastic bags. I am so excited about this shift. Another cool thing that happened: last week, I asked the man who sells me my strawberries whether his supplier could consider using something other than styrofoam to package the fruit. He told me that he had asked his supplier before, but with no luck. He must have reiterated it because this week, all of the strawberries were packaged in recycled juice box cartons. I was ecstatic about this and let him know. And every week, we see more of our colleagues and more of our students at the market. Word keeps spreading. And it's great to see the place so busy.

We've made a lot of changes in our household recently. Changes that have forced us to reconsider items we buy, how much trash we are producing each day, what we use to clean and run our home and who else lives with us. Delia and her family of three have been getting on board with us, too, and we've been providing opportunities for them to learn about what we're doing, the reasons why, and inviting them to change along with us. All of this feels better than I expected that it would. This sort of change has been easy for Cory and I because we are so driven by its purpose: to be healthier, to care for the environment (the only one we will ever have in our lifetime) and the people who live on it and to make ethical decisions which do not have negative consequences.

I'm not standing on a soapbox here. I know there are many people doing the same things and who have been doing them for a whole lot longer than we have. And I am not perfect. I just can't keep quiet about something that makes me feel so good.

Something else has been on my mind in the last week: food for the future. This comes as the USDA has just released their new dietary guidelines for Americans. You can find the new and improved food pyramid here. While most of their new guidelines were obvious to all those concerned about their health, and while you cannot particularly trust the USDA's wisdom regarding what you put into your body as they have been known to support and defend agri-business corporations whose sole purpose is profit by whatever means necessary, I have to give them credit for providing a slightly more balanced view, inviting Americans to start questioning what they are putting into their bodies and to get to know where their food comes from. Mark Bittman, an author and food advocate, recently wrote an opinion page in the New York Times entitled A Food Manifesto for the Future. It is a clear, insightful piece that requires us to step beyond our comfort zone and our current thinking about a host of issues which affect us all, and to take positive action.

We live in an age where sustainability matters. In fact, it may matter more right now than it ever has before. Change is essential. And it feels good, too.