Written by Regina Gee of Wellspring Coaching
re·la·tion·ship | noun | the way in which two or more concepts, objects, or people are connected, or the state of being connected
Changing Paradigms
The shapes of our concepts, how we think about things, impacts our lives tremendously. This can be seen from family to mental illness to careers, and in our food & surrounding systems. In the West, the most common attitude towards food is that of a consumer: a person or thing that eats or uses something. This conceptualization of food as a thing to eat helps us justify not knowing where our food comes from or how it grows. The West is an extremely disembodied culture, and the way we relate to our food is evidence.
“A lot of us are wishing for a way back home.” Barbara Kingsolver
Participating in the western diet means neglecting the fact that we are part of a food web and treating our food as something to be used has made us sick, fat, disconnected and lonely. My understanding of health rests on the word ‘hal’ and the fact that this root word holds health, wholeness, holiness, soundness, and safety all in one. In order to live well, we need a paradigm shift around our food & food pattern; we need to shift the concept from consumption and exhaustion to sustenance and nourishment.
“What would happen if we were to start thinking about food as less of a thing and more of a relationship?” Michael Pollan
Part of A Food Web
Long Food Chains
Our Puritan roots have taught us to treat things like eating as a base function, a thing that connect us / identifies us as members of the animal kingdom, making eating something to avoid in discussion. However, as humans we are part of creation, and as such participate in the wide array of ecological relationships in a food web. We are part of this world, not distinct from it.
When we participate in the western diet, we are participating in a long food chain – what we eat is physically and chemically distant from where it was grown and it has been refined/processed into a new product. In other words, the industrialized food system is a long food chain, one that breaks the connection between soils, foods, and people. Michael Pollan writes, “By breaking the links among local soils, local foods, and local peoples, the industrial food system disrupted the circular flow of nutrients through the food chain.” This disruption breaks the cycle and the balance or homeostasis developed in ecological relationships created over thousands of years. Some of the effects of this disruption we are able to see, but many go beyond our comprehension. In a long food chain, our food and the process of its creation disappear into a string of commodities, contributing to our attitude of consumption.
“In lengthening the food chain so that we could feed great cities from distant soils, we were breaking the ‘rules of nature’ at least twice: by robbing nutrients from the soils the foods had been grown in then squandering those nutrients by processing the foods.” Michael Pollan
Foodsheds & Short Food Chains
An alternative to the industrialized long chain is participating in what Jack Kloppenburg calls a foodshed: the fact that we are standing in a particular place with a particular food system. A watershed is an area or region drained by a body of water; it is an area of land connected by the same system of water. Similarly, a foodshed is an area of land (filled with life) connected by a shared food web, which is a collection of food chains, which is a series of organism’s dependent on each other to live.
When we participate in a foodshed, we recognize the power and precision of place. We recognize that we are standing in a particular place with particular living relations, in a particular environment. The earth is not the same the whole world over, and there is an alternative to trying to make it so. There is stability and sustainability in diversity, in recognizing the power of the local and not prioritizing the global.
Participating in a short food chain is recognizing that we are involved in a series of ecological relationships, specific to our place. From the microbes in the soil, to the plants, to the produce, to the farmers, to our families and friends at the dinner table; we are situated in food web. Shopping at farmers markets or joining a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) is joining a short food chain, restoring the rules of nature: keeping nutrients in their cycle and eating fresh nutrient rich foods. (Read more about the values of seasonal eating here.)
In my article “Walking Towards Nourishment” I wrote:
“The word nourish derives from the Latin word ‘nutrire’ which means ‘feed, cherish.’ The word cherish means to protect and care for lovingly. Approaching our food, how we eat, and why from a place of cherishing is radically different from consuming. I am interested in a world of loving care extended to the food we eat and how it is grown and harvested. A world of lovingly protecting what we care about. A world of nourishment that considers how our practices impact other animals, plants, and environments. I believe being well is directly related to cherishing; in other words, I know that loving, caring, and protecting what matters in ourselves and our world is how we become well and whole humans.”
Cherishing our food and our foodshed is a radically different paradigm than consumption. And it has so many answers for how to heal ourselves and our world.
Food for Health
“It is a food chain… the health of the soil is linked to the health of the plants and animals we eat to the health of the food culture in which we eat them to the health of the eater, in body as well as mind.” Michael Pollan
Defining and understanding health is a central question in so many of our lives and careers; on my path, I am understanding health through concepts like ‘hal’ and the places where I can connect wellbeing to wholeness & belonging. Our health is not bordered by our body, and disconnection is driving our malaise. Much like how our human relationships and environments impact our health, our personal health is inextricably connected to the health of the entire food web. Michael Pollan even defines health as being in ecological relationships. The Lakota people refer to a concept of “all our relations. This idea holds all of the people, all of the creatures and living things, as well as the mountains, the rocks, the ocean, the sky. It creates a world view that recognizes and values the wholeness of it all. You can cherish your world and food when you recognize that we are all connected in nuanced and complex ways. Aligning how we eat with this value is how we can be healthy: body, mind, community, soul, planet.
Food As Relationship
A relationship is the state of being connected. Johann Hari identifies a disconnection from nature as being one of nine causes of depression – and reconnection can mean more than hiking or being in nature. The western diet profoundly separates us from our food systems – making it so we also lack connection with the land, leaving so many of us depressed, heartsick, and undernourished. Seeing food as a relationship as opposed to a thing offers us a way to health. It helps us cultivate reconnection, helping us find a way home to nourishment and belonging. We can find our way back to connection through participating in short food chains, recognizing our foodsheds, and cultivating our ecological relationships. Health comes with embodiment and connection to all of our relations; we need harmony in our relationships to thrive.
“The whole problem of health in soil, plant, animal, and man is one great subject.” Albert Howard
