I have a little worry and cynicism I want to get off of my chest. I beg your pardon if this isn’t your cup o’ tea.

Despite being a real food & small farmer champion, I’m not political otherwise, and I rarely read or watch the news. I’m an admitted cynic who prefers to mind my own matters, reading and watching things that uplift me and give me hope for the future. The news never did that; in fact, when I used to read/watch the news it was one reason my daily mood was so…sour, let us say (there are other words for it, but I won’t write them). Why? Because the “news” is nothing more than a daily scare tactic designed to make us feel frightened, disempowered, and ready to accept whatever is offered by the powers that be. I don’t need to know about who was murdered today, I don’t need to hear about why kids “need” statins (!), and I don’t want to know about politics. Especially not politics! Doesn’t matter who’s in power. Politics is a vile, mud-slinging wrestling pit made to capture the attention of the masses while the real power—the corporations—does its dirty work behind the scenes.

I did mention I was cynical, right?

I figured out that if I stop watching or reading the news, life was much happier day to day. I look for positive “news” where I can find it, and there is a LOT of it out there. I love to read about people helping people, working with animals, building communities, building gardens, honoring the elderly, and so forth.

Real food is usually just such an empowering topic. The more I learn about it, the more I have realized how much power I have over my own health. I love reading about how others use real food, how they grow it, how they promote it. I love that people are supporting small farmers and coming to understand that real food is what they need, and I love that people are interested in food- and plant-based ways of healing.

Of course, I can’t stay completely away from the less-than-feel-good, political aspects of real food. But I can usually “withstand” them better, probably because I feel empowered with the options I have available. Yet every now and then a political food topic gets under my skin and riles me up, and my cynical sides comes out swinging. I read something today that did it. The post was on the wonderful “The Healthy Home Economist” blog, written by a woman in my neck of the woods. I love Sarah’s blog, and I love what she had to say today about the organic label:

“When my husband and I began eating organic produce and meats back in the early 1990′s, the word “organic” was almost a sacred word in the food industry. … The USDA Organic certification has now become nothing more than yet another way to dupe customers into spending more money for something that has next to no additional value. … in the span of a single year, the USDA increased the number of allowable fillers and additives in USDA Organic foods from 8 to nearly 300!! The push for expansion of fillers and additives in USDA Organic food is coming from none other than Big Food. Big Food companies like Kraft, Cargill, Heinz, Kellogg and others are gobbling up small organic food companies by the dozens while at the same time, diluting the very meaning of the “organic” label itself. … Big Food clearly has its sights on dominating the Organic Food industry and if you want to stay healthy, you need to steer clear of foods that are produced by any of the companies on these charts if at all possible.”

I agree with her 100%…but this trend worries me. These companies are doing this because enough people had stopped buying their brands and were buying organics…so big food bought up the organic companies so that they get the money. It is part & parcel with the real milk fight, where all sorts of efforts are underway to kill off all raw milk producers and scare off raw milk consumers out of hyped up “food safety” fears. So what will happen if too many people stop buying premade food and cook from scratch with ingredients they get from local CSAs, co-ops, and small farms? It is already difficult for small farmers to exist at all; will they soon be completely squashed? Will we end up with laws that prohibit CSAs & co-ops, out of fear of “safety” as with raw milk prohibitions? And then ultimately, will we have laws that curtail home gardening, because you can’t possibly know how to grow “safe” food yourself?

Sometimes I worry about all of us who publicly champion real food and local farmers. Sometimes I think that we need to go underground, spread the word by talking to people in our communities, and quietly go about our business of rejecting all mass-produced food. I love that Jamie Oliver’s new show “Food Revolution” is a hit, but all I see is the attention put onto real food. I can practically hear the meeting room doors ominously clicking closed in big food boardrooms across the nation as they start taking this real food movement seriously…and discuss what to do about it. Just like “organic” got big enough to be taken seriously, I now fear real food is about to be, too.

Well, nothing I can do except keep on keepin’ on. I’ll keep growing food and buying food from locals and rejecting everything that comes from big companies…and I suppose if one day I’m not allowed to have a garden, well, you know what that means. “If gardens are outlawed…” Anyone game for the Outlaws Garden Club?

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