Number 2 Corn Walking

Something I did not anticipate when I began a course on the anthropology of food was just how much aversion it would create towards my own diet. After reading Michael Polland’s book The Omnivore’s Dillema I was forced to consider what my eating habits were doing not only to myself but to my environment and the collective consciousness of my peers. This might sound a bit extravagant until you begin to really examine our societies disconnect from food; where it comes from, how it is produced, and how much of what we are putting into our bodies really belongs. Although I have a bit of an advantage over others growing up in a place as bountiful as western Washington I will readily admit giving in to the “ease” of heavily processed foods and non-foods alike, and although it is not something that I am proud of I know that I am not solely complicit in this crime against nature. As a society we have moved away from our food the very thing that we need to survive, and whether out of a preference for the simplicity that accompanies ignorance regarding how that Chicken McNugget came to be or out of sheer laziness that makes popping a microwave dinner seemingly the greatest thing that has ever happened to us, many of us have neither the desire nor the tenacity to discover where our food is coming from. That is why when a book as influential as Polland’s comes along, giving us one more reason to remove the wool from our eyes, it is natural for our appetites to be turned against much of what we now hold dear. I for one can no longer go back to the good old days of ignorance and am having to rethink the way I do food. Although I would like to scrap everything and start fresh I am more interested in a new diet that can be easily adapted by everyone from corporate lawyers to soccer moms. I am not looking for anything radical just yet, but I want to begin the process of reinventing my diet immedietely. To me the best way to do this is to work from both ends increasing the amount of local natural foods while at the same time eliminating trash from the other end of my diet. So long Pop-Tarts hello seasonal asparagus, if you catch my drift. The end goal of this would be a diet much like Joel Salatin’s comprised of things that I have either grown or raised myself. At the very minimum I want to reach a point where I can look at my plate and identify where everything came from and how it was raised. A seemingly simple idea that has grown increasingly alien in our society.