Waste Not, Want Not

I have been thinking lately about our relationship with food.  I’ve been reflecting on the ways we grow it, agribusiness vs. family farm vs. backyard; the ways we prepare it, industrialization vs. homemade vs. restaurants; and the way we consume it, eating from a paper bag vs. a family table vs. a table among strangers.  I’ve been considering the implications of our food practices, not in carbon footprint and calories, but in our personal relationship with the food.  Perhaps the question is, do we even have a relationship with food? I think the answer is yes, but as with all relationships, it is complicated and can always be better.  I’m writing The Sacred Meal not as a lecture on what you should be doing, but to reflect on our food practices.  Perhaps you are ready to look a little closer at the gift that sustains us all, food.

What do you know about the foods you eat?  If you are a label reader, you know the ingredients and nutritional value, if you buy from a farmer, you know the way it was grown, but is that all we should know?  The cycle that created the food we eat today started, in the very least, a year prior.  It began with growing a plant to harvest seeds, or an animal’s pregnancy.  If we start in the field where next year’s seed crop is grown and end with the finished food on your plate, how much energy, time, and waste was part of it’s journey?  For today, I want to focus on food waste.

The last few years some local farms have been growing pumpkins for Halloween.  I watched the fields leaf over in Kelly green, and soon large orange flowers poked out to invite pollination.  While the pumpkins were green they were well camouflaged, but soon the leaves yellowed, the round spheres turned orange, and the harvesters came to take them out of the field.  The thing is, they left more than they took, hundreds of pumpkins smashed and turned back into the ground, wasted.  Yes, the left behind pumpkins fertilized the next crop, but I knew that the buyers only wanted the ‘pretty’ ones of a certain size.  What’s more, I am sure that almost every one of those harvested pumpkins are in a landfill now.  I try really hard to think of pumpkins as something other than a food crop, but I’ve been growing pumpkins for years, and even that lowly field pumpkin is eatable.  I can assure you this practice happens with other crops too.  Even on small local farms that produce for CSAs and farm markets, the smaller produce is tossed on compost piles or turned right back into the soil they where they grew.  In fact I can personally testify that yellowed, wilted greens that came out of a CSA box and never made it to the pan, is part of the compost I now spread on my own gardens. I think about the waste. A lot.

Joseph Campbell talked about sacrifice in the series Mythos II.  Although he admitted he had a problem with sacrifice, as do I, he explains that those who practice sacrifice see it as a way of feeding the fires of life.  He says that it is a reflection of the practice of taking food into our bodies, feeding our internal fire of digestion to sustain life.  It has long bothered me that we waste so much of the food we produce, but now I have another way to look at it.  When I am preparing the ultra-fresh food I have purchased from a local farm, I think about the wasted seed that was not harvested, the wasted baby plants that germinated too abundantly, the misshapen vegetables that were left behind, the bits and scraps that stuck behind on bowls and spoons, the last bites that no one wants, but is too small a portion to put into the refrigerator for leftovers.  All sacrifice to the fire of life.  As I turn my awareness to all the food that is not consumed, I am grateful for this sacrifice that allows me to feed my internal fire.  The food was not wasted, it was given back to cycle.

Of course, I am not a proponent for waste.  We should do as much as we can to avoid it.  Buying from a local grower, making sure to buy and cook only as much as you need, freezing and canning extras, or re-purposing items such as turning extra fruit into smoothies, ice pops, or sauces all help reduce waste.  But when waste can’t be helped, be aware, be thankful for the abundance, and compost to feed the next generation of food crops.

I am hoping through my reflections you will want to become more deeply connected with your food, not just what is wasted, but what, when, and how you feed your internal fire. I am hoping you will join me on a journey that will enrich your relationship with food and your life. I am asking you to refocus your attention to allow yourself to see the sacred in the simple act of gathering, preparing, and eating food.  In future reflections, I will be discussing obtaining food, recipes, food allergies, and more.  I hope you will come sit at my table again for another Sacred Meal.