What will our food look like in fifty years?

(the most delicious meal, vegetarian chili, we had on our trip from Kathy’s Kountry Kitchen between Sleeping Giant Provincial Park and Thunder Bay)

We’re listening to the CBC’s  Main Ingredient while we drive through the Saskatchewan prairies. I have never really listened to the CBC before but this time I can’t help but get involved in the debate (what will our food look like in 50 years). Earlier in Manitoba, Matt saw a yellow plane flying in circles low to the ground. Sure enough it was spraying pesticides on a field of crops. It freaks me out how little control we have over what we are putting in our bodies and how oblivious everyone seems to be to the issues. It’s not just food either. It’s what we absorb in to our skin the air we breathe and the preventative medicines were forced to take. People don’t like to think that there are patterns and connections here but more and more, frighteningly so, it is quite clear.

My friend Erin has a berry farm in Buckhorn, Ontario. They grow the best strawberries I’ve ever tasted in my life among tons of other produce. Whenever Erin and I talk we always end up talking business because it’s fascinating and fun and important and the farm is her life. We are always discussing the impact of capitalism, in big and small ways, and what the world will be like if we don’t acknowledge how fast our resources are running out and how important farmers are.

Basically we talk about everything stemming from this…

As we drive through these provinces, I’m beginning to realize how unique their farm is, and how southern Ontario is really very different than the rest of Canada.

So as we pass through Saskatchewan’s lakes and fields of wheat, listening to various professors and scientists around the world describing genetically modified food and chemically engineered food that will taste like meat as a solution to our problems, I’m becoming increasingly agitated. If sociology taught me anything, these band-aid solutions don’t and will not solve the problem.

So what do we do? I feel helpless. I’m going to a new city where I don’t know of any farmers or farmers markets. I don’t even know what’s available anywhere near my city. Should we become vegetarians? Can we afford to buy good, unaltered, safe food?

I don’t know….

We could check out CSA’s in our area. They are community shared/based agricultural programs that you can be a part of. Basically, from what I understand, you pay up front for a whole summer or half of a summer and every week you pick up a box of delicious, local, produce, but it’s different for every farm. Places like Circle Organic in Ontario will even email you recipes so you know of wonderful meals to cook with the amazing produce you just picked up! Check out the video Matt made about the farm here called How To Build Community.

As long as we’re open minded and making conscious decisions in the right direction, I think we’re off to a good start. Maybe Erin will hook me up with more info.

To learn more about the issues continue your education by watching the documentary Food Inc. It will probably blow your mind.

If you visit their website they seem to have ways you can get involved and much more insight than I provided. Read their ten simple things you can do if you feel lost like me.

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