Do Ya' Have the Guts?

by Chris Jess
(published in Guelph Tribune June '06)

The other day, moving through the urban world that has been my life of late, I was invited to help weed one of the city’s community gardens.

Now, the prospect of determining undesirable weeds from vegetable seedlings was at first poetically appealing, but soon had me both spinning with skepticism about our modern food systems and simultaneously ready for a shower and a glass of French Chardonnay. Really, who was I kidding? I’m a city boy turned fine dining chef who’s more inclined to eat and cook with the fruits of those who reap and sow my food than to really engage in the hard work that is farming.

Sure I’ll pass through a few furrows of planted edibles picking out competition, but after a few hours, this farm gesturing, straw hat totting garden hand is itching to sauté up spring ramps, blanch summer beans, and garnish dishes with edible Borage flowers.

The nagging question that remains for me is, however -- with the food system being predicated as it is on a distancing relationship between the eater and the earth how do we reconnect with the processes that bring us nourishment and fuel life, and how do we make that life giving food accessible to all?

In our twenty-first century world, we have become more removed from our food than ever before. Check-out clerks have replaced market vendors, produce managers – the key middle person negotiating where fruit and vegetables are coming from – are getting little support from within the corporate structures to do anything but make a profit for the store, which in turn makes snap peas from China seem more common place than Ontario grown ones. Major food sellers get bigger, offer more, and dazzle customers with more and more amenities and the corporate guided trend seems not to be changing course either.

Note as well that according to a consumer survey by the National Institute of Nutrition (2002), Canadians' top health concerns are heart/circulatory diseases, cancer, nutrition/diet, weight, exercise, and diabetes. Most of these are closely associated with diet and nutrition. Statistical figures on the leading causes of death in Canada confirm that these concerns are not overblown. Cardio Vascular Diseases are the number one killer, followed by cancer.[1]

My response: enjoy your food more.

To avoid sounding hedonistic, and overly idealistic, let me explain. In an article written in the 70’s, researchers found that people who enjoyed their food actually took in more of its energy, more of its nutrients, and had a better overall disposition after eating the meal. The reasons for enjoying the meal in the first place were cited as being about as dynamic as a Da Vinci’s cryptex, but eating, say your favorite Thai meal, the study found, could actually have you taking in 50% more of it’s iron than someone who dislikes Thai food.[2] In the article, researchers found that the body’s second brain, the gut, has an enormous role in deciding how foods are digested and processed. Who knew? Could eating soulless, processed, genetically modified food, manufactured by machines, alone in front of the computer be more wasteful if your body’s second brain is rejecting what little nutrients are actually in the sad little meal itself? The prospects of such a scenario, exponentially wasting limited resources, should seem very disturbing.

Isn’t it strange that we never hear about the linkages between these diseases and the foods we eat? Does having a medical community focused primarily on cures instead of causes not seem a little shortsighted? For the reasons stated above, it should seem obvious that enjoying food is the key. Taking time to prepare, share, and consume good food with friends is vital to living a full, long life and will ensure the same for others as well.

When I think back to my most memorable meals, they were meals prepared by someone else; the ingredients were local and each ingredient had a story about who grew it and how, the meal was free, the company was excellent, and I didn’t have to do the dishes. I was even thanked for coming over. Now, I don’t know about you, but if that’s a way to start a revolution, then sign me up! I’ll make the t-shirts!

This formula for progress is not without its costs, however. Buying local food, for one, will have you justifying your purchases to your neighbours and friends, neighbours and friends who may be far more inclined to purchase Argentinean artichokes from the supermarket instead of Hillsburgh Ontario ones from the farmer’s market. Asking your local butcher where the lamb is from and how it was tended to can lead to many disgruntled looks, but I urge you to persist. Those butchers don’t usually walk out into the store with their meat cleavers in hand, so stand your ground. That brow-furrowing expression makes for a most excellent story for your guests and may actually annoy the butcher to the point that he or she may even make different meat purchasing decisions in the future.

We need to be vigilant in our shopping and in our choosing to support local farmers and promoting sustainable food practices. In fact, I might suggest, cooking up a meal from local goods for people in your community is the key to a whole slew of beneficial outcomes and is a radical act all in its own. Take my discussion with one of the volunteers from the Guelph Union of Tenants and Supporters (G.U.T.S.). When I asked them about why they served up the food that they did in the city’s core, their response was overwhelmingly based on their desire to build community, to challenge others to join that community, and to make known the huge social impact that certain comforts create.

I think Carlo Petrini, the founder of the Slow Food movement, said it best: “Let us become co-producers. In the act of eating, we have already participated in production. By eating organic, we have said 'no' to toxins, and supported the organic farmer. By rejecting GMOs, we vote for the rights of small farmers and people's right to information and health. By eating local, we have taken power and profits away from global agribusiness, and strengthened our local food community. Eaters are therefore also co-producers, both because their relationship with small producers is a critical link in creating a sustainable, just, healthy food system, and also because we are what we eat, and in making food choices, we make choices about who we are.”[3]

Thankfully now, as one of Petrini’s co-producers, I can leave my fellow farmers to work their magic in the fields, I can thank my local food vendors for the choices they make, and I can support sustainable food practices that will have me enjoying my food and energizing my work to have you do the same. Weed the local community garden? Only if I get to cook with the food from that garden, and eat with, and feed that farmer. Now that’s going with your gut!

[1] Look at the Alberta Government’s Agriculture, Food and Rural Development website.
[2] See http://www.bubble.ca/ under the February 20th article entitled, Go with your Gut by Harriet Brown.
[3] Check out Resurgence.org, a wonderful online magazine publishing articles on the endangered environment, renewable energy and ecological economics. This quote comes from a submission from Vandana Shiva on Celebrating Food Economies.