EcoHearth: Come Home to the Earth

In the last few years, words like organic, fair trade, sustainable, local and even biodynamic have been plastered all over what we read—as part of food advertisements, on the boxes of what we eat and, sometimes, even on the actual food we eat. The purpose? To win green consumers with the assurance that what they buy is healthy for their children, family, self and the environment. But is it?

In this marketing onslaught, what does the word “organic” really mean? When Kellogg’s prints it, can we trust the product to be from a beautiful farm where children find ladybugs, drink from a clear-running stream, and daydream under the wide wisdom of old trees? Probably not.

Can we imagine visiting the farm and talking with the farmer about his love of the land? Of his respect for both people and frogs downstream? Can we really even imagine a farmer behind the rice that turns into snap, crackle and pop? Again, very unlikely.

Seeing Organic Rice Krispies baffled me. I’m torn between appreciating how the market has taken a turn (hopefully) toward a more ecologically and socially responsible system, and worrying that “organic” on the Kellogg’s box allows consumers to take a much too simplistic view such viability. And seeing the word next to the little elves only promotes an illusion of such a change in our food system; it does not indicate responsible, respectful and intelligent use of the land, animals and people that will change our food system into one that can endure.

What would be a truly sustainable food system? What does sustainable mean and entail for the present and future, and even the past? Investigating what we eat and how we think about it can give us an understanding far beyond the net total calories or grams of protein or fiber we consume. Food is not only a basic unit of life, but it is the ritual and substance that can connect all human beings with life in the world. We all eat. And in the US, most of us eat food that someone else produced.

By understanding that eating is not only a self-serving action, I get to have a positive effect on the world’s eco and social system, right there on my dinner plate. Saving the oaks, understanding the implications of biofuels, working in the organic garden, thinking about what foods we purchase, prepare and eat—these are all human interactions with the one continuous system that is the Earth. EcoHearth is meant to be a community garden of ideas, a place for folks to discuss, explore, understand and decide our parts in the deliciously complex worlds of food and agriculture and nature.

[This piece was written by Lulu McClellan and provided courtesy of the Society for Agriculture and Food Ecology (SAFE). – Ed.]

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