Do you have the balls to really change the food system?

Rebecca Thistlewaite's article for Grist is right on. The way she sets the stage for true change in the food system really breaks down the many ways food drives our unconscious lifestyle choices. We want things to be easy because we are tired, we don't feel good, or we are in a hurry. We are used to instantaneous gratification of desire. And so when all this "green living" stuff became trendy, of course the public reaction was to try to fit it in to our already-burgeoning schedules by simplifying it -- unfortunately, as Thistlewaite points out, changing the food system is fundamentally NOT going to be easy, and the shallow morality of buying organic at Costco just won't do. Her suggestions:



1) Educate yourself (and not just through movies)
2) Chill out (no pain no gain)
3) Get your hands dirty (see the source of food)
4) Help your local farmer do their job (meet your neighbors)
5) Really put your money where your mouth is. (if you have $$ to invest, think about it)

As Thistlewaite concludes, "We can't be casual about the food system we want to see." Which makes me think: We can't be casual about the world we want to see. It's too easy to settle. We settle for less than we deserve, for a system that doesn't work for us or for politicians who don't serve us. We settle into routines that make us slow and attitudes that make us sick. We settle for the status quo; we allow our neighbors to be treated as we would never want to be. We trust history to slog on, instead of learning from the past -- the slow progress of history is what we should most fear. Sometimes I think we need a power surge so we can reset the breaker on America. I sort of thought that's what would happen when Obama became President. Maybe it has.