Food— how it is grown, consumed, and managed—is fundamental to health, sustainability, and a good life.
A call for readers to rethink their relationship with food and return to local, sustainable sources.
In my chronicles about food, I present a view that food, yes, whatever you ingest as food, knowingly or unknowingly, is one of the most powerful mediums influencing your:
- Health
- Vulnerability to disease
- Strength
- Connections
- And the future generations that come after you
Think about this.
After your very first breath, sucking for food is one of the first skills you innately have long before you know what you’re sucking on. That’s how deeply embedded food is in our being. Let me stretch this even further. If you are a God-believing, Bible-reading Christian, the creation story is profound. After His creation, man is placed in a garden, a complete ecosystem filled with every tree, fruit, vegetable, grain, legume, root tuber, and stem tuber he would ever need. Each kind of plant species was also created with its seed, or natural propagating means to reproduce after its kind, and man’s role. ; to work the garden for his nourishment and well-being. In her book, Sitopia; how food can save the world Carolyne Steel notes that, today, as a result of the ever-changing world, technological advancements, and rural-urban migration, we miss asking the philosophical question;
What Is Good Living? For which the answer is simple: Good feeding. She further stresses that the need to feed and be fed affects everything else we associate with a good life, including;
- How food is grown
- Who grows/ manufactures the food
- How it’s saved
- How it’s transported and delivered
- How food waste is managed
Agreeably, the people who understood this early on didn’t just sit on the knowledge; they organized and have since evolved into food and seed provider monopolies on a global scale, to the extent that they have launched several laboratory-produced foods that mimic the taste of what they sell as modern feeding.
Their mission?
- To shape how you relate to this food
- To influence your taste and preferences
- To make you dependent on them, not your local village small-holder farm for food
- And ultimately, to control your health and medicine culture, and the cycle continues
Stick with me as I unpack all this one chronicle at a time. I am hoping and praying that, ultimately, you take a sit back to ask the big questions, which in turn will facilitate our return to the land for good food and good living.
My name is Sarah Nakame. I’m a local food systems practitioner and lifelong enthusiast, sharing from my childhood memories, relationships, and personal adventures with food both local and global.
