What will you vote for?

Have you heard of this movie - Food, Inc.? I haven't seen the film yet, but hope to do so soon.

Watch the movie’s trailer. If you do nothing else with regard to your food choices, please consider stopping for a moment and thinking about the food you are eating each day. Do you ever wonder where it came from? Meat does not magically appear in the refrigerated shelves of the grocery store in organized cellophane-wrapped packages filled with special gasses to make it look "fresh." Fruits and vegetables might travel fifty miles to your grocery store, or five thousand miles. There's a story behind each piece of produce and each package of meat.

When you give your child (or yourself!) a bowlful of conventionally grown blueberries – do you know that you’re not only giving them one of their five or more servings of fresh produce a day? Those conventionally grown blueberries are also providing our precious little ones with residue from 48 different pesticides. How about residue from 52 different pesticides on that juicy peach that was not organically grown? What about the effects these chemicals have on our environment and eco-system? Have a look the "What's on My Food" website.

A while back, the U.S. government commissioned a committee to study the effects of pesticides in the diets of infants and children. This committee issued a document in which they state that children’s bodies, not surprisingly, process these toxins differently than adults and that they believe more studies should be done specifically on the exposure of children to these toxins.

If you’re an omnivore, do you ever think about the animal that was harvested for your meal? Should it matter how it was raised? If it was given chemicals (hormones, antibiotics, etc.)? If it was fed food that was genetically modified, pesticide-laden, and not what it would normally eat in it’s natural environment? If it never saw sunlight? If it was confined to a small space barely the size of its own body? If it lived it’s life standing knee deep (or higher) in manure sludge? Would any of those things affect your decision about which conveniently packaged piece of meat to purchase?

Perhaps these things wouldn't matter for some people - of course opinions will vary. To me, the significant step is taking a moment to think about these issues and decide what one is comfortable with in regard to food production and acquisition.

An interesting thing to keep in mind is that the money we spend on food is essentially equivalent to a vote for the kind of food we want to keep in demand in our country. You are 'voting' every time you purchase a food item.

I'm working toward voting more frequently for sustainable, local production of earth-conscious, whole, fresh produce and humanely, sustainably raised animal products. I try to vote for fairly traded, worker- and environment-friendly coffee, chocolate, and other imported food items. I hope these votes will support local farmers and stimulate the local economy. I vote to feed my family fewer toxins.

It’s not easy in our society – we have to take extra steps and spend a little extra money to make this kind of a statement and vote for these kinds of foods. The two conventional grocery stores that are about a mile from my house do not carry much in the way of organic produce and there’s not a speck of humanely, sustainably raised meat in either place.

There’s a specialty organic, vegetarian store about a mile away also, but they aren’t open all the convenient hours of a traditional store and we are omnivores, so this shop cannot fulfill all our grocery needs. There’s a farmers’ market almost any day of the week within a few miles’ radius of us, but of course, their hours are also limited and navigating the crowded booths and tents with the Os in tow is sometimes quite tiresome.

So, yes, it can be a bit less convenient to obtain sustainable, whole, real foods, and sometimes I have to pay a bit more than I would for “conventional” foods. And, I’m not perfectly consistent about it yet.

Some days I just cannot find a way to make it to one of the stores that offers more natural and environmentally friendly food choices. I sometimes cringe when I find myself meandering the aisles of one of the more conventional stores. Not necessarily because so many of the offerings that line the aisles are called “food” but are filled with artificial flavors and artificial colorings, preservatives, and in other ways highly processed (but that’s certainly part of it). I know that even just the few dollars I’m spending on a couple things to ‘get me through’ until I can shop in a more sustainability-minded store is sending a message that I wish it did not send.

Hoping to help solve my own conundrum and to promote shopping for sustainable foods, I’ve spent the past one and a half years helping out on a committee that is researching the feasibility of creating a cooperative grocery in my area. Our store will be community owned and focus on supporting our local economy and offering sustainable and practical choices. It will still be a while before our store becomes a reality.

In the mean time, I am trying to shop at farmers’ markets more often, to order more items in bulk through local buyer’s clubs, and to depend less on the conventional stores. When I have extra from our garden, I like to participate in a community home-grown produce exchange group. Recently, I went in on an order for half of a grass-fed, free range, sustainably, and humanely raised cow with two other families and have a freezer full of beef that will last the summer, and perhaps into the fall.

There are options. The more we vote for sustainable crops and humanely, sustainably produced animal products in our food system, the more we will increase the demand and lower the costs of obtaining these items.

It’s all about taking a moment to stop and think about what food means to each of us, possibly altering some perceptions about what convenience really is, and considering what we want to say with our food votes.

More information:
Food, Inc. – the movie
What's on My Food - Pesticide Action Network
The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan
Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser
Pesticides in the Diets of Infants and Children - Committee on Pesticides in the Diets of Infants and Children, Board on Agriculture and Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology, Commission on Life Sciences, National Research Council
The Meatrix movies (I, II, II½)
Store Wars

It has been too long. . .

Too long since I've posted here. And too long that I have had a toxic substance slowly leeching into my body every second of every minute of every hour of every day since my early childhood.

What was to be a short, new post to say hello and express my happiness over the way things are progressing on the amalgam removal process (starting on Monday!), quickly became a page full of babbling about not only my personal issues with mercury, but also about the overall travesty that is still going on in our country with the use of dental amalgams. And that was only the introduction to my proposed new blog entry.

So, I decided to put that one on a back-burner for another few days to let myself "simmah down" a little before returning to write more on my little amalgam rant story. When I can approach the topic again with less fury, I will try to present a somewhat articulate position on the dental amalgam safety debate.

For now - have a look at the FDA's "Questions and Answers on Dental Amalgam" page updated on May 1, 2009.

Even the FDA states:

Dental amalgams contain mercury, which may have neurotoxic effects on the nervous systems of developing children and fetuses. When amalgam fillings are placed in teeth or removed from teeth, they release mercury vapor. Mercury vapor is also released during chewing.

And - did the FDA really pose this question -

(5) What is the current exposure to mercury for patients? For professionals? What would be the reduction in exposure associated with the use of alternative materials?

to be addressed for their "future analysis of benefits and costs" regarding the regulation of the use of dental amalgams?

My answers would be, in this order, TOO MUCH, TOO MUCH, and unless I'm missing something, the reduction would be, uh, I don't know, 100%. . . . I do make at least one assumption in answering that third part of the question - that the "alernative materials" do, in fact, not contain mercury. Of course, as long as there are people with amalgam fillings, they will be continually exposed to the vapors. As long as people with amalgam fillings go to the dentist (and/or are the dentist), dental professionals will also be at risk for exposure.

Alrighty. I've been up too long. It's getting early (it is well-past "late"), I better get some rest before the Os wake up in a few hours. More to come. . .