Why Food?

Growing up, I was told that everyone has a passion; everyone has special skills and interests that make them unique; if I was lucky, my passion would be my work and I would never feel like I was working! In my experience, all of this is true; And that is exciting! The tricky part is “finding” one’s passion. The challenging part is that it seems like very few people have found their passion, much less persisted to make it their life’s work.

In talking to a lot of my peers and many older adults, I’ve found that I’m an extremely lucky individual to have found something I’m truly passionate about. And I’m even luckier to have found this passion so young and be on a track to make that passion my life’s work. A quick note on finding one’s passion before I continue on my journey to food: I don’t think the majority of people have/take the time to find their passion. I think there is a way for all people to do what they love and love what they do – and be emotionally and financially successful. Unfortunately, a lot of things get in the way: monetary responsibilities, family responsibilities, lack of encouragement and support, physical limitations, geographic limitations, etc. It would be a glorious beyond glorious world if everyone was passionate about her/his life’s work and felt like she/he fit perfectly into the societal matrix where their skills and interests were being utilized to their fullest potentials. But, alas! There is a lot of work to do before we live in that world.

With all that being said, I acknowledge that I am one of the fortunate and privileged few who had all the time and resources to find my passion, and endless support from family and friends to pursue that passion to its fullest. Another general note: there are a lot of things to be passionate about as a young progressive (and privileged) woman. To name a few: feminism and ending all ways of sexism and objectification, ending racism and classism in our communities and on national and global scales, rectifying cyclical poverty, finding alternative energy solutions, preserving natural ecosystems, solving enormous obesity and waste epidemics…an endless list of urgent and just causes requiring great passion, skill, and education. As a progressive person, or an activist, it is easy to be aware of these causes, but it is very difficult to make waves in any of them if one is involved in all of them. At this point in my life, I am choosing to dive deep into one sector (food: food justice, food sovereignty, nutrition and health, food communities) while remaining aware of other causes and helping where I can.

Why do I choose food? When I was growing up, health was always a priority in my home. Buzzwords like, “organic” or “natural” or “sustainable” were hardly existent in Eagle, Idaho but that didn’t stop my mom from providing a well-balanced meal on the table nearly every night. There was always a portion of meat or fish, a portion of vegetables, and a portion of starches or carbs – usually rice or noodles of some kind. Special meals like spaghetti, tacos, or casseroles made an appearance about once a week and were always supplemented with a salad or steamed vegetables. Junk food was rarely available in the Kraft household, save a bag of chips or “special” cereal. Needless to say, since birth, my palate has developed to love healthy food and awesome cooking, and reject highly processed food. When I was young, my family even had a small garden in the backyard. I remember eating scallions and carrots right out of the ground – there is nothing better! We grew tomatoes, peas, summer squash, lettuce, and strawberries. Unlike a lot of children growing up in the United States, I had a strong sense that food came from the dirt – and tasted a lot better when it did – and that growing food took time, work, and knowledge.

In addition to growing up in a house full of good food, exercise was also a priority. My brother and I played soccer and Little League, and swam as children. In middle school, I was the physical education student of the year – running and jumping and playing at the top of my class. In high school, my brother stuck with baseball and football, and I played basketball and ran track. We were both impressive athletes, backed by turkey avocado pita sandwiches and freshly chopped carrots in our lunch bags – thanks Mom! So this is the framework I grew up in, which played a large role in shaping my interest in human and environmental health.

I can’t quite remember why, but I started to focus a lot of my high school research projects on climate change and environmentally friendly energy solutions. In doing research, I realized the dire state our earthly environment is in and the many ways we contribute to this situation as humans. As I looked toward college, I knew I wanted to study the environment. I jumped head first into the environmental studies program at Pacific Lutheran University and had my 4-year class schedule mapped out for this major within the first semester. I took an introductory environmental studies class where I learned an overwhelming amount of horrific facts about my carbon footprint. We discussed wasteful agricultural and industrial practices, recycling systems, water use, forest and wetland values, and alternative energy options. Talk about overwhelming! My eyes felt opened to a hidden world and a fire was lit in me to share all this information with everyone I knew and change the way I interact with my environment.

At the end of my first semester, I had signed on for a second major in economics because I was good at it, I loved it (a true rarity), and it sounded extremely practical next to my seemingly “idealistic” environmental studies major. At PLU, the environmental studies department is extremely interdisciplinary – meaning that issues of the environment are assessed and discussed from every possible perspective and discipline (not only from science perspectives as it is in some programs). This allowed me to pull a lot of economics theory and language into my environmental science classes, and vise versa. Without going into too much detail (and before this starts to sound like a shameless plug for PLU – which it may well be!) the combination of my majors put me in a position to take some really interesting classes and eventually find an intersection with food. The conventional and industrial food systems of our modern world contribute gross amounts of harmful chemicals and carbon to our environment (land, air, and water). Additionally, these food systems work within an economic system that is not beneficial to local economies and is not sustainable in the long-term. For example, farm subsidies that encourage degrading environmental practices and promote the most unhealthy foods by keeping prices shockingly low cannot continue in perpetuity if we want to live in a world where native crops can thrive and obesity does not inflict one-third of American children.

By the end of my third semester, I had watched the food-related movies, King Corn, Food Inc., and Modern Meat. Much to my family’s surprise and despair, I chose to be a vegetarian – unsure of my philosophical thoughts and feelings about eating other animals. I had decided that food was one of the most important things to pay attention to in every day life – as all of us eat it three times a day, or more. Food is the substance that makes up every part of our body; it is the substance that connects our bodies with the earth we walk on and live off of. I was realizing that food corporations and humans were not paying attention to this very necessary aspect of life – and were definitely not making it an accessible, healthy, or nourishing aspect of life!

These feelings were only bolstered when I had the opportunity to study in Italy with a PLU class for the month of January in 2011. It was an environmental economics class that traveled to almost every region of the country and considered many aspects of Italian culture through the lenses of environmental sustainability and economic vitality. We studied common property forestry in the Alps, fishing rights in Venice, feats of construction and empire in Rome, ancient trading routes in Pompeii and Naples, mafia economics and agro-tourism in Sicily, and wine and food culture in Piedmont. In our last week, we visited the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Bra, Piedmont. I fell in love with the school and the programs offered there. Without delving into another shameless plug for educational institutions, I will simply tell you that I was particularly interested in their Masters programs in Food Culture. The university is rooted in the values of the Slow Food Movement (check it out at http://www.slowfood.com/), which promotes good (healthy and diverse diets), clean (organic and sustainable grown), and fair (ethically sound) food for all communities of the earth.

The purpose of Slow Food, among other things, is to promote local and seasonal cuisine that is thoughtfully centered on community, health, and local identity. Through learning about this university and the Slow Food Movement, I began to understand the importance of food not only in our bodily health, but also in our local communities and micro-climates. Italy is a unique place to study food (for obvious reasons, but also…) because niche communities still exist – or are at least less globalized than most of the “Western world.” In the scope of European history, Italy just recently became a single country, joining very eclectic and close-knit city-states. The local identity of these city-states is outstandingly present compared to other parts of Europe – and food is a large part of these local identities. Local, native species are fostered and preferred, and are prepared with immense care. [As a disclaimer, I do not claim to be an Italian scholar in any sense and realize the globalization of many parts of Italy is very real – fast food chains, big box stores, and a general loss of “old world charm” – but in my experience, Italy seems to be one of the better examples of regional and local allegiance and loyalty, especially in regards to food.]

I began to wonder if this precedent for local and thoughtful food was possible for places like the United States. Small-scale organic farms can feed the world, with the condition that a higher priority is placed on good, clean, and fair food that promotes community health and is prepared and eaten with intention and great care. For the sake of the reader’s attention span, I will wrap things up here, but want to expand on my meaning of community-centered food in another blog post. In essence, I have found that my interest in food is fed by my skills in economics (problem-solving and practical thinking) and environmental studies (approaching issues with an interdisciplinary lens and an eye for sustainable practices). Through my own life experience, I believe food is one of those urgent and just causes that I can commit my life’s work to in a passionate and effective way. I want to find a way to make the Slow Food philosophy possible in every community and foster the development of local identity wherever I end up.