Food as Local as Your Body

Reader Contribution by Angela Pomponio
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I am spending 2014 making active changes in order to live in line with my values. I am cutting out most all non locally grown, humanely produced, and fairly traded foods. I am not putting in to me anything that does not make me better. Food will be happiness, fuel, strength, disease fighting and my vote.  What do we do more frequently than eat, more public, more symbolic, and yet so many of us attach so little value to this frequent vote casting. If every one of us just did not buy or consume that calorie of lost principles the world would shift.  I value my principles and think it disingenuous to live my life at odds with them.

What you eat, buy, grow and feed your family has the power to be your vote for what is safe, right and

important. Local food for me encompasses all of that.  Less oil used to transport food to you saves the environment from damage and will help foster less political instability. Organic growing methods again saves oil use, protects the earth from chemical toxicity and your body from filling with synthetic chemicals.  Buying local puts something like $4 for every $1 I spend into the hands of people living, paying taxes and shopping in my town. And I like thumbing my nose at Monsanto and other HUGE corporations bent of profit at the expense of the entire world and our collective future, often funded by my own tax dollars.

After a death of a fairly young family member (whom I mourn more for the loss my loved ones are feeling, as I did not know this person-long story) this week; I am more committed to change in a visceral, hands in the dirt, what am I doing right now in this every day activity to change way(?) than ever. I want to fill my family with health. I want to nurture our land to feed us well and improve with the passing years.  I want to cut medications, chemical, and the eroding effect of living an unprincipled life out of myself. I added to my grocery list, slashed some items, cleaned out the cupboard a bit and will order a few more seeds to grow this year.  As with all change, the idea itself is monumental but living with different habits and goals actually liberating.

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