People I admire enormously - people like Will, Jennifer and Stasi - think and write a lot about food. Not the way I think about food - "hmmmm, these cheetos leave less bothersome orange finger residue than the last bag I consumed" - no. They think about what you are putting into our bodies and what the hell that says about us.
I bring this up in relation to two voices I have come to depend on for insight outside the mainstream bubble:
- Geez's Winter issue is on food - The Future of Food in an Urbanized World - in their Editor's Note, they write:
For to eat is to partake in the most basic mystery – that of life itself. A seed sprouts, a calf is born, a blossom turns to berry, the elements turn to food and we eat. This spark of life is pure wonder, and without it we die. Even if food is processed, packaged and relegated to the cheap bin near the express check-out, it still owes its existence to the mystery of life.
The danger is that somewhere between field, factory, Wall Street and table the mystery goes rancid. The danger is that we lose our taste for ritual and just start consuming shrink-wrapped pop culture.
To drive some rather complicated facts home, they include this image:
- I have watched the media machine start for Michael Polan's new book, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto. Having consumed his earlier works, I am hungry for this new book (ok, I'll stop with the food sly references). I heard Polan on the radio driving into work today - he says we should eat only foods that our great-grandmothers would have recognized. He started out saying just grandmother but realized she wouldn't necessarily predate fat-free sour cream, breakfast bars and butter-flavor crystals. While we're at it, he suggested we avoid products that have five or more ingredients, especially if you've never heard of or can't pronounce them.
These musings - and the ongoing one from others - occasionally move me to consider changing my eating & shopping habits.
But there is something more there for me. Hebrew & Christian Scriptures are stuffed (sorry) with food imagery - stories of eating, rule about eating, recipes, metaphor upon metaphor that draws on foodstuff. I think my eating is often screwed up, but my spiritual diet is often even more screwed up. Farr too much of the spirit and mystery in my life is snuffed out, is processed, packaged and relegated to the cheap bin near the express check-out.
Sorry - I am driving to get some more cheetoes.
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