The
seasonal bounty of locally grown fruits and vegetables is upon us, and not a
moment too soon. All winter, my children have been clamoring for the little
boxes of blueberries and raspberries, the peaches and the plums, the cherry
tomatoes, all piled up at the grocery store like pirate treasure, and for
months now, I have been saying, No, not now - we have to wait.
Because, of course, those lovely,
tempting fruits - and many of their vegetable neighbors in the produce aisle -
are grown hundreds or even thousands of miles away, in Florida, Mexico, Chile,
New Zealand -- even China, among other places. And the energy that it takes to
transport them from these faraway lands to our store shelves is a big
contributor to the greenhouse gases that are changing Earth’s climate. In fact,
the production, processing, packaging and distribution of the food we eat does
more environmental damage than human activity except power generation. From the
fertilizers and pesticides used to grow crops, to the giant feedlots spewing
methane (a potent greenhouse gas), to the trucks and airplanes that move food
around the globe, it seems that our entire food system is one giant
environmental disaster. And the environment isn’t the only casualty - the
industrial food system also has horrific consequences for own own health and
for local communities, in America and abroad.
As
a stay-at-home, suburban mother, I spend most of my waking hours planning,
shopping for, cooking and cleaning up after meals. Feeding our families is a
parent’s most basic job. But I think most of us would agree that we have
another job that is equally important, and that is to do our best to ensure
that the world our children inherit from us is at least as healthy, peaceful
and fair as the one we grew up in - hopefully a lot more so. And it turns out
that what we feed our families can make a big difference to whether or not we
do that job well.
A
friend recently calculated that from birth to college age, a child will consume
roughly 20,000 meals. The person who decides what will comprise each of those
meals controls a lot of power - economic and otherwise - that can change the
world if used wisely.
Thanks
to the growing sustainable foods movement, feeding a family responsibly is
getting easier all the time. All over the country and the world, innovators are
finding ingenious ways to bring fresh, local, healthy food to our tables. But
there a still a great many challenges, especially involving availability and
cost -- just a few days ago I tried without success to find organic hamburger
buns at my well-stocked Bay Area supermarket. 20,000 Meals is intended to help
families meet those challenges
Eating
is the most basic of human activities. By changing the way we eat we can turn a
fundamentally destructive system into one that helps heal and protect the
planet we will leave our children.
We can save the planet - one bite at a time.