Nice reflection on a vital (literally) issue, Nez. I read Fast Food Nation a few years ago, it's a good one.

I respect all food disciplines, from vegetarian to macrobiotic. Personally I view all organisms as both eaters and food, as part of a sacred cycle; as I see it my body will one day feed other beings just as other beings today feed my temporarily grateful body; and I view all living beings as sentient, so eating greens to me is also eating carcass; which isn't a problem as I dig carcass. Regardless, what's clear is that the way animals and plants are treated in the food industry is indeed an atrocity, in many ways.

The good news is that community gardens (esp. in urban renewal projects), food co-ops, small-scale local farming are on the rise, as are local wild-caught fish and humane organic meat. It turns out that, given a choice and some information, a good many people actually care about what they and their children eat. Access, economics, and education are of course the major hurdles; but I'm hopeful. These days I get my produce at a farm five minutes from my cottage, and it's cheaper than the grocery store. Jamie Oliver is a singular food celebrity who is doing some good work around the issue, reforming school cafeterias and focusing on children. It's all about the Slow Food, baby.

thanks bro. and that is good news.

great links, thanks for these.

I read Fast Food Nation a few years ago, it's a good one.

oh, and that's how long it takes between "you've got to read this book" and me reading it, it seems.

I enjoyed this post, but I do have a very great number of comments to make about it, particularly the large gap that exists for most of us between what we are thinking we ought to be doing about these decisions related to eating, teaching our children what to eat and creating a more responsible system of eating that is not only more conscious but more beneficial to our health and more beneficial to the planet. In most places, the simple act of producing some or all of our own food soon becomes the basic issue. In cities that is more of a challenge. In places where there is a very short growing season, the same. But even so, it seems to me that in 21st Century America {U.S.} very few people would be willing to accept this challenge for reasons as diverse as lack of knowledge to avoidance of hard or even moderate labor. If one is familiar with "The Long Emergency", even if many of Kunstler's conclusions are debated, we have to admit that the importance of small farming and home gardening will have to be revived if the US is to survive the coming lack of cheap energy. But I just do not see that happening.
I do hear quite a bit of talk where I am, in a place where we only have Spring and Summer, no Fall and Winter, and yes, we can grow all the time, yet almost no one out of a population of 10,000, all with access to at least a 1/4 acre of land, does any growing other than a few fruit trees, which grow themselves. So I do think the discussion should move on now and get past the thinking and talking phase and the leap to planting and harvesting, wherever possible, whenever possible, on whatever scale, should begin.
Sooner, rather than later, in a new energy crisis right around the corner, we will be forced to do this. Better to start now and work out the kinks so we are comfortable with the activity by the time the shipping problems begin.
And for those who live where this life is not very practical I suggest you get ready to spend a great deal more on food or get ready to move closer to it.
Thoughts are pretty wonderful, but I have never bought into the concept that they are things. They are certainly not edible things I can assure you of that.
I choose to grow my food rather than engage in long philosophical meditations about the process. In fact, I find the process leads to mindless awe and mindful awareness at the same time. Plus, the dining is excellent.
Buen Provecho!

Hey, Nez:

The first thing that popped into my mind, just now, is the signs on the interstate that tell you what purveyors of wonderful food are near the next exit, and right behind that sign is the big billboard for Truck Stop USA that says "Easy in, Easy out"--more revealing by far than they would have you think.

I was traveling from Longmont, CO to Omaha, NE for a family reunion some years back and my brother and I were yakking about whatever when all of a sudden there was just this unbelievable smell of shit! We came around a bend in I-80 and there were feed lots on the north side of the interstate that stretched for miles. I must have seen several hundred thousand head of beef. It was depressing. I eat beef. But maybe if I had a picture of that feedlot (I think it was Con-agra's) on my fridge I would give it all up.

well RC, i do imagine many capable of thinking and talking and planting at the same time. one doesnt have to preclude the other. aside from that, if people are not planting as much as they ought to, then discussion is needed. unless you are going to drag people out into the field and animate their frames yourself! although i do grow food as well as talk about growing food. right now i have a parking lot instead of garden space, alas.

RC, while I do sympathize with your point about material action versus thinking and processing actions (the best way I can conceptualize describing it at the moment), I fail to see why asking people to re-evaluate their LCDs before acting (to borrow the term for a moment with careful handling) is a fruitless pursuit. (Other than the literal reason.) And it's easy for people who get that something must be done to say, "Look, you can do it; here are the tools, here is the steeple, open the door..."

The reason why much isn't done is the underlying assumptions predicating action tells people that they're doing all they can do. And thought in some instances precedes action, even if it is the most basic building block of thought imaginable: live. Sometimes action results without heavy thinking, but instinctively, all our actions point to that basic block of humanity. Evaluating the how and why of living helps because it translates to action over time.

Perhaps the most poignant point I've grasped from this post is the idea of shortcuts becoming instinctive to human life. The energy crisis would force us to think about ways to support ourselves instead of turning to our seemingly-endlessly supplied resources. Want water? Turn on the tap -- no thought about where that water comes from or how much has been added to it. Want to know about what's outside your home? Turn on the news -- never mind the possible slants of information. Feeling tired or lonely? Go to the social gathering areas -- online or offline -- and you'll find others who thought of the same thing and want some human interaction. Dependence on luxuries that rest atop of others' bodies has become instinctive action. Action without thought. When people think of all the dead people and animals beneath their computer keys, lining their car seats, chilling and heating their homes, it because a suffering overload. And it overloads for the reason that people don't do the action of thinking enough. Efficiency isn't going to come with a simple solution -- efficiency as we know it has paid a living cost to the earth and its inhabitants for a long, long time. So taking the time for reconceptualizing? Trivial within each epoch of manipulation and corrupted instinct.

(Sorry for the long comment; freethinking.)

hurrah for freethinking.

Nez-I'm happy that you have escaped the last place, but sorry you lost your garden. I hope you have managed to save your chiles. The need to grow things will overwhelm people eventually I imagine but I could be wrong. Perhaps soon a completely new source of energy will be developed {oil refining and nuclear have not really been around that long, and PV is also new} and everyone can escape the energy crisis and move right on to the climate crisis. There's always something!
I grow food and do occasionally talk about it too, but I really would prefer to avoid the talking and just do the growing. While we are on the topic, let's remember that most of the world is still agrarian, that the US was still agrarian well into the 20th century and that our challenge now is to recognize that if we return in some degree to that way of life we ought to address the problems and challenges it presents. No one who works with the earth and the seasons can claim that it is a perfect circumstance as nature is seldom predictable or reliable.
The work is difficult and the economics of the enterprise are also a problem.
However, in a place like an island off of an island in between a sea and an ocean, and where very little agriculture is done {I live in that place}I compete against produce shipped from far {70 miles by truck and boat} or extremely far {4500 miles} of poor quality by the time it reaches us and of great expense due to the multiple shipping and sales exchanges it undergoes to get here. In fact, we here are already undergoing The Long Emergency. Thus, my produce wins on quality and price in this market. Others do not enter the game here for a very simple pair of reasons. They don't know how to grow and/or they don't wish to do the work.
The local produce consumers begged me to please start my production again {we are a tourism based economy and have a great number of gourmet restaurants, local restaurants, and just lunch places, but no fast food, no national chains, nothing like that at all, believe it or not} so they could get produce and herbs of high quality at all times.
Sometimes here, the upper atmosphere boils with the Saharan Dust storms or the volcano from Montserrat is erupting, while the seas toss with local storms and this can last for a week or ten days. No planes fly, no boats sail. No food comes. We run out of basics like rice, sugar, produce, meat. The bank runs out of money. Yes, I mean that. So growing food here is a necessity. But next to no one can be convinced to do it.

i'm very happy, too. and yes, i did bring a few chiles with me! four different kinds. well, four different kinds of pepper. three are chiles of some type. one is bell.

i think i see, now. so your admonishment regarding talking about farming/growing vs doing it was actually a bit of pride in your particular engagement with the topic. understandable. and you do bring up some good points. however, i think you'd agree that for us to "address the problems and challenges" that way of life "presents," as you say, we'd begin with dialogue! with talking about it.

i do appreciate your viewpoint, you sharing your experience on this, of course.

I apologize because I think I came at this from a very U.S.-centered standpoint that considers itself far "evolved" from agrarian concerns. I see your point.

and of course i speak to those in the USA with most of my writing. it's not that i am excluding by means intended or otherwise. i try to think in terms of an entire earth. but i grew up in the USA, i live here now, and these are the problems i see closest. so most of my discussion is aimed at the state the USA is in, and probalby very often to US citizens. i can't speak for outside events or situations, i'd be talking of things i do not encounter. but commenters are always good for that! good for bringing other views and other situations to the fore. very useful for that and i value it.

Very long days at work lately, sometimes not enough time to read much less comment. Your post on fast food took me back to the time I was responsible for two small children, they are grown women now, I rarely bought fast food for the girls it would have been so much more convenient for a working mother.
By the time I picked up the girls from daycare and/or school bringing a paper bag already full of hot food would have taken another task off the growing list of tasks pertaining to the care of children.
Being a mature woman allowed me to look at the big picture philosophically, the value of a home cooked meal just for them was more important in theory, but let me just say sometimes exhaustion had me on the brink of just frigging driving over to Burger King.
I didn't do it of course, but work and responsibility at times lets the tiniest lesson about responsibility slip through your fingers. Raising a child is the hardest task I ever did because it required constant vigilance, sleep deprivation and exhaustion sucked all the life out of the best laid plans.
On the other hand raising children was the very best thing I ever did , bar none. And if I had just one wish I would travel back in time to a summer's day when they were all just little kids because I would already know just how great they turned out.
Thanks for jogging that memory.

i understand, leesee. i am right now in the midst of caring for a one year old while her mother works outside of the house. and it is an exhausting task to keep her safe, fed, happy and dry. i try to get my work done from four am to about nine. but after her mother comes home? i am done. exhausted, as you say. i pass out early.

if i were to imagine one more kid at the same time, it would blow out my imagination gasket. and i am still tempted to walk in, at times, to a fast food joint. even when i'm not exhausted. walking by can bring on that urge. but that makes sense...they cook up the smells at a separate, secluded factory type outfit with men in labcoats called "flavorists," and they work very hard to make that garbage smell tasty. i can't say i blame those who give in. but i sure feel like if they read up on it a bit more, it would sour that smell in their nose and mind.

i definitely dont blame tired moms (or padres, if they be the main caregiver) for giving in to an easy meal. i hope they choose something other than fast food. there are quick meals cooked by others that are at least real food, and made by human hands, and mostly what they seem to be. so i would just hope they use another type of restaurant on those days. part of why the Fast Food empire is so gross is that those tired moms/dads are just the target market that these people strive to take advantage of. they least they could do is do so with healthy food or safe practices, etc.

i feel good about those girls (women) you raised! they are lucky.

A friend of mine who is raising her children in a veeery rarified atmosphere told me the school the kids attend has a course in the early grades called "Lunch." The students (six to eight-year-olds) study gardening, grow their own food, and then learn how to prepare it before they eat their "projects." Cool, huh?

now that's exactly what i am talking about when i write about the connection between people and their food. i was discussing this recently about my youngest hija, who has been watering the garden and tending the garden (from my hip, or her mother's hip) since she was little. she has seen the process of growing and watering and tending, perhaps not yet understood, but seen us rooting out insects, weeding, giving good energy to them, talking to them, pulling leaves and cutting buds off of them to bring in and cook. isn't it clear how differently a person raiseed this way will see the earth and animals and food and themselves, as opposed to someone who thinks it pretty much comes in boxes of various colors from whonknowswhere? before long she will have her own plants and learn to take care of them and harvest them, as opposed to now, when she is trying to eat mulch and making terrible faces.

sounds like a special atmosphere for sure. and a thoughtful one. i have always wished that so many of the benefits of private schools and alternative school programs could be had by all children. there are some really advanced curricula out there, i've witnessed them. even for a short time as an enrolled student myself, back in the day.

Nez, I thought this was a great post and equally great comments by the wonderful readers. But, your thought that I am all proud of the fact that I am growing food is contrary to my real feelings. I certainly wish the others would get going and put me out of business! Ornamental plants are so much easier than food and I am not young anymore.
I've been growing food since I was younger than your daughter. I was taught by my grandmother as soon as I could walk. My grandmother did not speak English so there was never any talking involved, just doing. I think grandma could speak about 50 words of English, and the ones I remember her speaking were all about plants and food. I don't remember discussing walking all that much either, I just remember walking.
I love to see very young children in the garden, and they all seem to love it too.

Yeah, I think growing up in touch with the Earth is crucial, even just watching gardening, seeing how the plants relate to weather, learning that seasonal rhythm. As Grace Lee Boggs recently said, "If you grow up thinking that pressing a button is supposed to give you what you need, you're in a hell of a mess as a human being."

I do understand the (cynically pre-meditated) appeal of fast food to tired parents and salt-sugar-grease-seduced children. I don't blame parents for occasionally yielding to this appeal, or for not having the time to grow their own vegetable garden. This is why I think community gardens and community kitchens are so important; food activists must strategize to make proposed alternatives just as (or at least almost as) convenient and accessible to parents as the fast food joints. We must outsmart them. Picking up a meal at the local food co-op should become just as cheap and easy as McDonalds, though of course it takes a lot of organizing and just raw work to get to that point; but it's good work.

In traditional Chinese households, where multiple generations live together, grandparents play a crucial role in raising kids, playing with them, passing on culture and wisdom, and of course cooking. When I was growing up, my grandmother would be busy seemingly every day with high-volume cooking for our whole extended family (aunts, uncles, cousins), which helped a lot because all of our mothers and fathers worked. The beautiful thing is that this arrangement benefits all three generations. And so, one initiative that I've been trying to talk up for years among my activist friends is the idea of developing local programs that bring communities of retired folks more deeply into community-based childcare, including community gardens and kitchens. I guess the frequent isolation and alienation of so many elderly folks in our society makes no sense to me; especially when there's such great need in so many of our communities; and it can begin with things as simple and fundamental as tending a garden or cooking a dinner.

Okay I'm done rambling. :-)

RC, I love many of the things you are saying. The only part I find offensive is the muchly adorned "shut up" that you keep handing me. I'm being kind and resisting replying in kind. Stop reading if my "talking" about a topic does not interest you. I won't stop writing. And continued admonishments from anyone in here about me writing too much on any topic will result in my aggravation which will, inevitably, result in some type of action that will silence one of us, tho I doubt it will be the blog owner.

"Talking about this" leads to statements like Kai's, which inspire me and introduce me to a notion I hadn't thought of previously. And who knows where I, or any reader, could take that or any other part of discussion here? I am not sure that "stop talking and plant things" will result in a similar positive result, or could hope to contain the potential I see in thoughtful discussion of the topic. I have the same desire you claim to. But if I thought not talking about anything was better than talking/thinking further on it, you wouldn't be in this blog, and wouldn't have a place to say "stop writing about that." So don't be self-defeating!

And RC, "we could talk about" in the beginning of many of my paragraphs of this post is, of course, a rhetorical device. You do get that? I hope that phrase is not what spurred your resistance to conversation in this post. It is a lingual tool, an introduction to ideas within a paragraph.

Kai, that's fantastic. Love the memory, and the idea is a great one.

The ideas and direction I am obviously interested in, Nez. I just wanted to get across that after all the discussions about whatever it is we end up tossing around, we actually move on to doing something. Or even undoing something. I find your thoughts very inspiring that's why I look in here. I also like the ideas that the commenters express, and ideas like Kai's would be great to see in practice.
I don't mean to say Shut Up to anyone here. I just mean to say, there is something we could be doing after we talk about ideas. I hope you don't shut up anytime soon.

i think i've been very generous and calm in reacting to someone shutting down my flow from the haughty get-go. but i will get angry very quickly if someone tries to tell me what i just experienced, glossing over condescending shit like "I don't remember discussing walking all that much either, I just remember walking." and now you want to claim you are just trying to remind me that action is a critical component to thinking.

listen. i don't mind if you are proud of doing what you feel others are only talking about. i don'tn even mind a little disdain, what the fuck. i'm into attitude. but don't try to rewrite history or play mindgames with me. i have no temper for that. its one thing to be reasonable in your summation of your supposed intent, but you mislead in your last comment. and i resent that i have to take the time to slow down and restate what is obvious to someone who just reads the thread above. you first reaction to my post is some lengthy theoretical ponderance about "kunstler's conclusions" and this and that and sum it up by saying you look down on philosophical ramblings and you are but a Do-er??? okay, very funny! you spend days on a long thread typing out how useless it is to talk about it. you can't have it both ways. i know. and a Do-er doesn't stick around to insist by talking that talking is pointless. s/he leaves, and lets his/her action convey the message. that is why s/he is a Do-er, not a Talker.

fine. you wanted to remind me that action is a critical component to thinking, you say. but who is hounding theoretical scientists and reminding them they must be, instead, practical scientists? your work is not done.

we are talking here, we are all talking and thinking. who is to come in suddenly and tell us that we ought not do what it is we do here? you tempt me to go back to the dumpster post where i disregarded certain release form concern and wonder if you've got a bone to pick over that variance in philosophy, because this is some strange behavior out of all the time we've been interacting. don't you think? it doesn't quite add up. i say there's a piece missing.

regardless, i am not here to prod people into the street and make them DO. the onus is on each person to live the life that they feel honestly represents their spirit and personal story. it is assumed in my blog that if you feel what we are discussing is worth action, you will find a way, in your own way, to work that into your life! i am not a moral cop, or handholder. i am here talking, thinking. this what i do here. i normally enjoy our interaction, but i'll say it again, if you don't care for it, go. if you do enjoy the blog as you say, then please find a way to remind us that action is a crucial component to thought without sounding like you are denigrating what it is i do here, which is basically thinking out loud.

jeez. if i were growing food all day, i couldn't blog.

I wasn't working outside today and had the time to do some commenting. I accept your criticisms about the way I have expressed myself. Going back to that first comment way up there I did tip my hand by noting I had a lot to say about this and I did say more than I even expected! But also, way up there, I am stating that I think we should look at growing food as a solution, and that we should actually grow food.
I don't think we should waste any more time on this idea that I want you not to write, not to discuss, or that I have any interest in controlling your opinions or directions. But I did want to say that we, all of us, should act, not only discuss. You can say I'm wrong. That's OK with me. I'll still be visiting the blog and expressing my opinion. I never suggested that I or you or anyone grow food all day. But I don't blog precisely because sometimes I have no free time for months. I am growing things and also pursuing other activities and can't keep up writing then.
I meant no insult in any of my comments to you or the other readers.
Perhaps some of my frustration from years here where I live, waiting for someone who has said they would start producing vegetables {there have been at least a dozen persons that were doing something any day now over the last 8 years}and never followed through has made me sound strident.
I was almost fatally injured in an accident, hit in the back and then run over by a pickup truck, in August of 1999. I have spent a long time getting back to the point where I could take on the challenge of growing vegetables again. After that experience, most other problems seem minor, and criticism doesn't bother me either. It took me three years to learn to walk right. My therapist yelled at me for years: you are not walking right again, now look walk like this!
I usually assume that the criticism is valid and I accept it and try to adapt. This goes for everything, not just walking. So I guess I have had to discuss walking in my later years. I have to go now, it's late here out in the Atlantic. I have to get up early, do things and so on. Paz.
PS. I just took care of my granddaughter for a week, she is a little younger than your daughter. I think you must be an adept of some kind to be able to work the blog, do the art and graphics, do outside site work, and at the same time mind the nena. So accept my apologies and my admiration for a job well done.

1. i am exhausted, and do not have the time i want, in fact. it's currently something i'm figuring out how to "work." she is a handful, though i love her dearly. she won't share me right n ow. i'm getting up at four thirty or so, and have to really use the next five hours well. that's now my workday. i've been in denial about this. but after that, it's all her, no art. no blog, really either, except for little things i can squeeze in.

2. well, we all get strident over certain issues. i can understand that. i dont mind you saying what you have to, but i'll say what i have to, as well. so we're cool.

3. i agree, overall, of course. i dont want to lose the issue, either. growing food. it's important. we should be doing it!

it's all good. glad we could get through it.

And then there's me, who, regardless of not being a fast food eater for years now (stopped tasting good to me once I started being able to afford real food on a regular basis) and being a) crabby about how workers in fast food restaurants get paid/treated, both by employers and customers, b) angry about how shitty food seems to always be the most marketed to and most accessible for people without a lot of money, and c) in favor of having more connection to my food, whether it's vegetable or animal ---- I am also someone who will never garden. It's not something I want to do, for several reasons. I would, however, love to either be part of a community where I do things other people don't want to do in exchange, or pay people who actually do the growing good money. I'm okay with people not wanting to do whatever...what I get most crabby about is "I don't want to do it, but I think you should want to, or be given no other options but to do it, for five bucks an hour, tops."

And Homer Simpson sayeth unto the Lord:

Ummmmm, Donuts!