Baby Steps Toward a Solution

A number of weeks ago, a friend of mine, Jen, who had started to put the pieces together about my preoccupations (probably after entirely too many conversations about food), highly recommended that I see the movie Food, Inc.

In fact, I believe she said I needed to see it.

I believed her, and did want to see it right away, but without being able to drive anymore due to my vision impairment, I often feel guilty about asking my husband to drive me here and there even if it is only to the video store! Anyway, last night I had an epiphany: I have Apple TV - I can watch Food, Inc. without going anywhere. Needless to say, that is what I (and very quickly WE) did.

I didn't want to tell my husband, "You NEED to watch this," especially since I have been torturing him with various sound clips from my Eating Animals audiobook all week, so I just planned on watching the film alone. My husband was engrossed in his reading as I began the film, but approximately five minutes into it I heard him say,

"Wait a minute... What?"

His book was closed, placed down on the ottoman and not touched again until after the movie. We were both engrossed (and maybe I should emphasize the "grossed" part of that word) through and through. Everything I had been reading about over the years had been brought to life in film with farmers, families and pictures, moving pictures to support it all. At the completion of watching it all, I was overcome. I almost blogged again last night, but then I realized - I had much more important things to do.

I began first with spreading the word. I am a bit of a Facebook junkie, so I posted a link to the film's site and stated to all of my Facebook friends,

"If you eat in the USA, then you must see this."

I also explored the film's website for myself to see what they had on there - I was thrilled, of course, to find out they have a companion book. I futzed around on the site reading this and that, making a mental reading list for the future and began thinking about HOW I was going eat, HOW I was going to shop for food and if I truly had what it took to pull this all off...

But then I remembered - I am not sure I can afford (physically) not to. Hello rock... hello hard place... I guess I will be right here in the middle digging my way out!

And then, through a series of clicks here and there, surfing the web and getting tangled up in the process, I ended up back at a website I had visited earlier in the week - http://www.localharvest.org/ Of course! I typed in my zip code and clicked and read (on super-zoom, of course :) ) about family farm after family farm, about farmer's markets and about poultry farmers that have seasons (just like nature intended...) and with all of this I began to exhale.

HOPE...
POSSIBILITY...
maybe even some SUSTENANCE?

There were farms under 50 miles from my home, that would sell directly to me, where I could see where things come from because it is not shameful, it is natural.

I was so enthralled by what I found I was up until 2 am doing nothing but reading about farms. I went to sleep making a private commitment, hoping my husband would be on board, or at least supportive of my decision for myself. We will finish the food we have in the house (I do not want to waste, even if I have lost faith in the meats I have awaiting me here), and then we will pick one of our local farms to try out to get some eggs, chicken and, of course, produce. I was excited and I thought I would have a hard time sleeping, but my body knew better as soon as my head hit the pillow.

When I woke this morning, a surprise was waiting for me in my Inbox - two e-mails from another friend of mine, who, after seeing my Facebook Food, Inc outburst, also noticed I started a blog and read that as well. She has also become food-aware as of late and actually sent me .pdfs (I can SEE those!!) of two books she felt were really helpful The Raw Food Diet and The Raw Food Bible. Of course I have not had time to read them both yet, but after a quick scroll and stop here and there within each of the books I am already having some more paradigm shifts! Is my very delicious soy milk possibly working against me? What an intriguing possibility... these books are definite MUST-READS for me!

There is still so much to learn. There is probably even more I need to "un-know." My thoughts and ideas about food have been based, far too long, in blind, unquestioning trust in food distributors. I have a picture of a farm in my head - maybe the one I saw in Charlotte's Web as a child - and I have grown up believing that all of my food comes from a place that looks just like that. I know that is not true anymore, but, based on the baby steps I took last night and this morning, I think that can be true again. I simply have to agree to do something completely un-American: I must sacrifice convenience!