Fooding Part-way Down Memory Lane and All-the-way Back.

We, the CSA chatter-people, were doing just that the other day—talking about food (as we always do) and (this time) what we remember about it growing up, you know how it has or hasn’t changed for each of us. Because we were in our office space, we circled back to favorite meals we had as kids after we touched base about dietary staples growing up. If we’d had this conversation offline over a jovial cup of coffee at a local brew house, we would have just allowed the conversation to happen itself back to childhood memories rather than circle back, but at the end of the day, we are grown-up professionals now.

Truth: some of my favorite things to eat as a kid were the processed, prepared and preserved meat and cheese meals laden with preservatives and additives that now make me sick to my stomach. Microwavable chili. Abnormally large cans of beef stew. Hot dogs. Frozen, like delivery, pizza. Bread pockets of scalding meat and molten cheese. Vacuum-packed plastic trays of seemingly always unequal amounts of meat, crackers, and cheese. Crispy cookie cereal. Anything non-perishable, sugary, and cheap. (Blue) box (blues) macaroni and cheese was always a treat at home, and mozzarella sticks were the holy (edible) grail at horse shows and events from the food vendor.

I only realized the cliché-ness of my experience when I was getting tattooed recently, and the artist asked after hearing I’m vegan, “so did you watch all the necessary documentaries?” I laughed and said yes. She was right. However, and there is always a however, I’m glad I did—cliché or not. I only started questioning my own food when I switched my dogs to holistic food after learning kibbles and bits more about the dog food industry’s misleading labeling. Some defining personal food moments were cliché no doubt, yet the assumed societal commonality of my experience didn’t dilute my later comprehension and enactment of change. Thankfully.

In our collective experience and pooled memories, it seems the changes in our moral eating and eating morale, began after the questions did. Where does the food we eat come from? Where does the chicken in my chicken Caesar salad come from when I’m at [insert chain or independent restaurant here]? What was the factory or farm like? Were this chicken’s friends nice? And, what about the dairy products in the bright orange cheese powder for mac n’ cheese—were the cows involved treated well and free of hormones, antibiotics, and GMOs? As kids, this is what was missing—doing the food meta. Food was food was food was food. Some things like tomatoes came from a garden or nearby farmer’s field, and the rest of it, the boxed stuff, only came from the store. We didn’t ask questions about the who, what, where, when, and why that were involved. We didn’t understand the relationships between sourcing and silverware or money and its monopolization of our food choices at home, school, work, and play.

Despite the apparently generic packaging of my vegan-branded food transformation, I’m still happy with it. I would still pick its similar main ingredients comparison out at a store, despite it’s lower retail price and lower budgeted advertising. That is, I would still pick it out if said store were local and organic like a CSA share.

We’re in alignment about a few things in the CSA office. While administrivia may not rock our socks off, working to provide and improve access to some of the best organic veggies in our locality does, and is awesome, worthy work. We’re in agreeance about it, we’ve aired it out, and we’ve even circled back to it plenty of times. We come by our work through varied disciplines, but we love it. We are always happy to talk about (and eat) good food.

Thanks to Google Images for all pictures.