There’s one, basic, huge question that comes into my head whenever I think about food systems and the way our food gets to us: why is it so hard to get something that comes up out of the ground. I know that’s a simple way to ask a pretty complex question, and that there are a lot of complex reasons why we get our food by paying stores to buy it from companies that grow it in far away places and fly and ship and drive it across the whole world before we eat it. A quick way to answer might be “if we were all farmers, we might not have time to make other neat things like books, the Hubble Space Telescope, or, I don’t know, the internet, mr. blogger.” And alright, that’s fair, but it’s still good to think about how food comes straight up out of the dirt. Put in a little water and sunlight and hard work, and there it is! My point is that people gotta garden more. Wait, no, people gotta garden like their very lives are at stake. I’m serious here, people, the economy has been walking with a limp for a good 3 years now, and it ain’t easy to buy good food. And if that isn’t bad enough (it is, by the way) we are looking at an ongoing global food crisis. It’s scary stuff, but always remember that food grows out of the ground! So, Internet, I ask you: do you have access to dirt? Do you have a backyard? A windowbox? Do you live in a town with community gardens? Do your friends? Is there any way at all that you can get your hands on a little dirt? If so (and please comment if the answer is no, I’m interested to hear why) there is no good reason not to use it to grow something good, healthy, and tasty. Feed yourself, if only just a little, feed your neighbors, if only just for one salad a year when your tiny tomato plant finally gives you enough to chop up and put in some store-bought lettuce. Just a little bit will help and just a little bit will make you feel totally excellent, I promise.
Where's all the food at?
It's here! The food's all here.
