The Power and Beauty of Shared Food

Food is a right, a responsibility, a gift, a life, a mystery, a puzzle of unequal distribution of resources which must be solved right now. When I think of food, all these diverse images come to mind:

Food is . . .

• a healthy pregnant mother.
• a treasured baby at its mother’s breast
• the sun blessing a newly sprouting field of wheat.
• a cookie at Grandma’s house.
• biting into a fresh peach and juice running down your chin.
• poring over seed catalogues during a January blizzard.
• planting a garden with a bunch of children.
• setting out tiny seedlings and imagining the glorious, productive plants they will become.
•  fuzzy baby chicks, ducks and geese.
• gathering newly laid eggs.
• eating the first apple off the tree.
• digging up a carrot, wiping the dirt on your pant leg and eating it right in the garden.
• putting more berries in your mouth than in your basket.
• rain after a long dry spell.
• Thanksgiving dinner with four generations of family present.
• a potluck picnic with the neighbors.
• hoeing a bean field in 100 degree weather.
• feeding the soil so it feeds me in return.

I want people everywhere to be able to grow, gather, hunt, fish, harvest, enjoy and share food the way I am blessed to do. The only way I know how to do this is to share resources locally so that by using less and sharing resources, other families will have more.