Monday, June 28, 2010

You Gotta Start Somewhere

I've become an advocate for healthy, environmentally and socially sustainable food for a diverse range of reasons. However, most of these reasons are connected to one underlying fact. Food connects all people and many important social issues. I firmly believe that we can address some of our most pressing societal injustices by focusing on food. Food is directly related to poverty, health, the environment, equal rights, cultural diversity and a whole host of other important social issues. So, it's a pretty big topic and there are a lot of interesting initiatives that a person can become involved with.

So, where do you start? By joining/starting a community or backyard garden? By joining/organizing a community kitchen? Joining an organization and actively advocating for Canada's first national food policy? Becoming a vegetarian or simply reducing your consumption of meat? It can start to get overwhelming when a person gets too caught up in all the possibilities and feels that there are too many to choose from. And what do you do then? Or, how can you prevent yourself from feeling that way in the first place?

It's simple, really. You just have to get started. Choose an initiative or project that sounds interesting, give it a little bit of thought (but not too much) and dive in wholeheartedly. Once you've become immersed within it for a period of time, then you can evaluate if it's the right initiative for you and whether or not you have the time or energy to devote to multiple food projects.

But before you can do any of that, before you'll figure out the perfect plan of action for food systems reform, you just need to start somewhere. So, keep the analyzing to a minimum (for now), become involved with a food initiative you feel passionate about and just go for it! And that's how I believe we can best capture the excitement of the blossoming sustainable food movement!


5 comments:

Overcoming Addiction said...

Community gardens rock!

Anonymous said...

Eat to live, don't live to eat.

Anonymous said...

Way to go Shannon! I've been on a jouney to improve my health hollistically. I've had much better success with this than I ever had with the alopathic approach to health. I grow some of my food, shop the farmer's market and eat organic whenever possible. I've found that this is a journey without a destination - constant tweaking, updating, etc. Looking forward to learning new ideas from you and your friends. Can't wait to try the breakfast borrito.

Shanon Zachidniak said...

Thanks Howard! I look forward to your input and ideas as well!

Anonymous said...

Are you a cook? 'Cause it seems to me that you have a lot of different recipes. Mmmm. Yummy, delicious food! Your ideas are terrific. If I wasn't a book worm, I might start trying much more new foods like you are!