Friday, March 12, 2010

The Omnivore's Dilemma

If you ever read one book that I recommend, please read this one. It details the journey of 4 meals back to their roots- literaly. We see the conventional meal, in this McD's but it could've been conventional food from the local grocery store- which is what most American's feed their families everyday. We see the organic meal traced to its roots. We see a sustainably farmed meal at its roots and also a foraged meal. WHAT IS MOST POWERFUL & URGENT TO READ IS THE FIRST 300 OR SO PAGES THAT ARE LIKELY TO ALTER YOUR RELATIONSHIP TO THE GROCERY STORE & TO THE FOOD INDUSTRY FOREVER. We see how it came to be that farmers were swindled into the chemical fertilizer addiction, growing government corn, and how a powerful & meaningful movement like organic can sell out to The Man. We see how intelligent and artful the grass farming & beyond organic movements are. The conclusion- what plagues our food system & thus our health, is capitalism, and we cannot expect corporations to care about our nutrition, we can only expect them to care about profits. The best way to feed ourselves for the sake of our nutrition, our environment, our economy & our taste buds, is to support local, sustainable farms. And combining Capitalism: A love story & this book, OUR BEST WAY TO SUPPORT OURSELVES FOR COMMUNITY, EARTH & FUTURE is to support local, sustainable farms, co-operative markets, other co-operative businesses, CSA's, and farmers markets. I'm not the only one to connect this book & movie- Michael Pollan is interviewed by Michael Moore in the film's special features.

Between this book & the movie, and the special features, I have a new outlook on my life, this country, & what can be done to make this a better place to live for my neighbors & the future generations. It has proven again that as science, yoga & buddhism all agree, everything is interrelated. Seeing Jimmy Carter's speech from July 15, 1979 in the special features validated a lot of my beliefs. What's eroding us, our communities & this nation is all the same problem with the same solution- as an Irish proverb says "it is in the shelter of each other that the people live." Namaste

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