Organic Food is for Snobs

 

Yak Cheese and Yak Drink - Bhutan

Lately I've been reading a lot of articles and op-eds written by some folks who are actually and incredulously saying that organic vegetable and the slow food movement are the domain of the "politically correct" or rich snobs.  They mock Michelle Obama's organic garden as a political ploy. They call Chez Panisse owner, Alice Waters, a crackpot and accuse her of wasting money and time in the schools teaching children how to garden and call it "socialist" to make the children help prepare the fresh food they have grown and will eat family style with their peers for lunch.  

One man wrote, unbelievably, that the East Coast storms prove that the slow food movement, which for the non-initiated means eating only foods that are in season and locally grown as to get the most nutrition, flavor, and to avoid the calories/environmental impact of shipping strawberries from Chile in January, will starve a nation.  What? Our ancestors got along just fine as short as 50 years ago eating only what they could produce from their gardens or at least a local farmer's garden.  During the winter months, they ate what could grow in the cold temperatures and they spent some time in the summer and fall "putting up" what they'd need otherwise.  And 30 years ago after the invention of Spam and Jello, this same man was probably the one writing op-eds about how eating organic foods is for hippies.  So, first it was ridiculous and hippy-like and now it's only for rich snobs?  Help me, I'm confused.

Around this same time, I was going through negatives to scan for my photo website.  I noticed that even during my adventure trips, I take shots of food. And I marveled at the versions of farmer's markets I had photographed.  Only these aren't just one day a week events which also sell tamales and cut flowers.  This is how they eat.  This is how the average person in Bhutan or Tibet or Egypt shops and eats - locally grown food that is bought and prepared fresh. 

Market in Bhutan. Chiles and more chiles, the national food!

I've learned from growing just a little bit of my own food, that it makes you happy.  The doing makes you happy, the taste makes you happy, the satisfaction of knowing where you food was grown, how it was picked, and that it was prepared with nutrition intact simply makes you happy.  I mean look at this sweet girl from the market in Bhutan...

 

 Happy Bhutanese Market Girl

I know shopping at farmer's markets and preparing fresh food isn't always possible.  I know the world is busy and everything is more complicated than 50 years ago or maybe in Bhutan. I get it.  But, to mock the people who are striving to get EVERYONE  access to fresh, non-pesticide laden, reasonably priced food or to encourage the growing of our own seems, well, small. Small minded, small visioned, just small.  To not desire that inner city kids get to taste a freshly picked apple that could lead them to not ever want to settle for something that was picked four months earlier is just downright cruel.  SOME organic food IS expensive, but not all of it and not at every store.  You know which one I'm talking about (Yes, Whole Paycheck, I mean you).  And there are fixes for that, too, once you start working on a political and socio-economic scale.  

  

Various barks used for cooking - Bhutan  

So, while the gentleman who wrote the op-ed piece munches on his twinkies during the storm, I know that if the same storm hits out here, he need not worry about me:  I've been taking the fruits of the season:  citrus and pears and I have been canning.  If the big one hits (and my glass jars don't break), I can feast on blood orange marmalade and pear/ginger preserves.  I'll just need to find a spoon.