Food for Thought

I just finished reading an article in the February/March 2007 issue of Mother Earth News, entitled "Why Grow Your Own Food?" The article was written by Harvey Ussery, a 21st century homesteader. I just wanted to share this passage from the article:

Surely there has been no society in human history more estranged from the natural world than ours, and we experience that broken relationship in what we eat and the way we eat it: artificial foods bearing little relation to their origin in soil or in living plants and animals; eaten thoughtlessly, on the run.

Modern eating is above all about forgetting - about what it is we are eating, about its origins in living systems. The alternative is to learn to know our food intimately, to care intensely about its quality and its role in our lives, to share it with gratitude and respect.

Whenever we grow our own food, or seek it from local sources, we reconnect with the natural year, the passing of the seasons, the interdependence of all forms of life in the great web. By participating in the creation of our food, from soil to table, we find our way back to food as a sacred gift.