Procuring Nourishment

A trip to the farmer's market this morning, and an afternoon spent in the garden yesterday, left me musing about the procurement of food. The word procure, comes from the Latin term procurare, meanings, "to take care of."  Pro = for + cura = care.  Just how much care do we, en masse, spend in obtaining our food?

Farmer's market shoppers with reusable bags brimming with gorgeous produce aside, I see evidence all around of just how little time, thought, or care goes into to how, why, and when people get something to fill their bellies or quench their thirst.  The good food movement is on the upswing, but most Americans remain out of touch with the source of their nourishment.

Once upon a time humans spent a great deal of time and care feeding themselves.  Now we leave it up to a small handful of very powerful food corporations (which bring us factory made burgers and industrial grade sweeteners) to do it for us.  In the neighborhood in which I work, as I walk to our health center's community garden plot, I find garbage cans and sidewalks littered with fast food wrappers and empty sweetened beverage containers and people guzzling high fructose corn syrup like it's going out of style.  Not to point fingers.  Federal policies and corporate campaigns have led to these easily obtainable, cheap, processed foodstuffs.  Each convenience store and gas station I walk past proudly announces they accept food stamps inside.  Peering down the aisles of these stores, I find little that would qualify as healthy options.  You know this scene.

Ironically, or maybe tragically, only two farmer's markets in the Milwaukee metro area currently accept food stamps.  There does exist the Farmer's Market Nutrition Program for seniors and WIC participants, but the elders I know who signed up for the SFMNP came home with a $25 coupon for the season.  Twenty five dollars won't get people their recommended daily servings of vegetables for an entire season, maybe not even an entire week.  Why is it, I keep asking myself, do we subsidize cheap food on the agricultural level with corn and soybean subsidies?  (see Gov Ag Policies and Obesity.)  Wouldn't the sane thing to do, from a public health perspective, be to make it as easy as possible for all people to get the foods that help to prevent and control obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and such?

Bottomline: The change we so drastically need to make in our food system can't just come from the top down in the shape of smarter food assistance & subsidy policies; it must come from individuals and communities as well.  This is why local groups such as the Victory Garden Initiative, Growing Power, Walnut Way, and even our little Circle Garden project are so important--because it is these initiatives that teach people to be more self sufficient by growing nutritious food...to take more care in finding something to eat.