Analyzing what we eat

I like to eat, don’t you? I mean we have to do it every day, right? The alter­na­tive is pretty grim. But how much thought do we give to what we eat?

I’ve been think­ing a lot about food lately, and what kinds of food we have access to here in Delaware; how vital the food we eat is for our bod­ies to func­tion prop­erly and how lucky we are to have great resources for fresh, locally-grown, nutri­tious foods through our Farmer’s Mar­kets, Com­mu­nity Mar­kets and our gro­cery stores.

Con­sider what you ingest each day — what’s in it? Can you pro­nounce the ingre­di­ents? Where did it come from? Did it orig­i­nate as a plant or in a plant? These are the ques­tions we need to grap­ple with as con­sumers and as eaters. How do we make healthy choices when our stores are sat­u­rated with so many con­ve­nience foods?

All this has been float­ing around in my brain recently thanks to the series of speak­ers Ohio Wes­leyan is bring­ing to cam­pus this fall as part of the 2012 Sagan National Col­lo­quium (that’s a fancy word for aca­d­e­mic sem­i­nars — I like it, though; it’s fun to say). The topic this year is “Bite!: Exam­in­ing the Mutu­ally Trans­for­ma­tive Rela­tion­ship Between peo­ple and Food.” The speak­ers that have been here and will con­tinue to come are so inter­est­ing — espe­cially if you like to eat.

Vegan chef Bryant Terry had lots to say about his activism with help­ing cre­ate access to fresh local foods for all, espe­cially those in inner cities. He inspired me to con­tinue to go that extra mile when it comes to uti­liz­ing our local resources and prepar­ing fresh, plant-based meals. I wax and wan with my vegan diet but his insights moti­vated me. Even if you aren’t vegan, his thoughts and com­ments on food are applic­a­ble to any­one who eats.

I really enjoyed see­ing nationally-known farmer, author and lec­turer Joel Salatin who has been called “the High Priest of the Pas­ture.” In his talk last week on cam­pus, he was ener­getic, edu­ca­tional and hilar­i­ous. I am two chap­ters into his book Folks, This Ain’t Nor­mal (Cen­ter Street, 2011) and am struck by his can­dor, his intel­li­gence and his care and con­cern for humans and nature and how we can (and used to) live together in a sym­bi­otic relationship.

To learn more about future speak­ers at OWU, visit snc.owu.edu.

Tues­day Trip­pier lives in Delaware, is a writer and mother of four with a spe­cial inter­est in green living.

Posted by Tuesday Trippier on Oct 8 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.