food system

I have forever been an idealist. I think it’s what kept me going, made me resilient, in my childhood. After every beating, I would sit in a corner or in my closet and tell myself how much better things would be when I grew up. How I would be a better parent to my children. How I would be kinder, better, smarter. My idealism gave me hope, and my hope worked.

But my hope and idealism led to disillusionment later in my life. I had always thought that, since people are inherently good (and I still believe most people are), given the right circumstances–equality, education, hope–cultures, societies, and governments could be good.

I remember when I started to realize we were on our own, that there wasn’t a society or government that was going to be concerned about everyone’s well being. It was when we had Paul LePage as governor here in Maine. He had made heavy cuts to social services. And there was a little girl who was being abused by her parents. And her teachers reported it to the Maine Department of Health and Human Services over and over. But social services was backlogged. The little girl died. She was 10 years old, and I couldn’t stop crying for her or for the state of the world.

We are on our own. And we have to take care of each other.

One of my biggest realizations of this truth came from my understanding of the food system. The American food system is literally poisoning us. So we started growing our own food. Initially, I think we did it for our two children. We wanted them to eat better, but I realized recently, that it was for us as well. My little brother is dying, and I have learned that our health care system is failing in a way I could not have imagined. I have to take care of my body with exercise and good food because I have to do everything I can keep myself out of the health care system that exists for people in my income bracket. The doctors are burned out. The nurses are exhausted. It’s very difficult to get help if you need it.

Ron and I resist these systems as much as we can by growing food, canning food, freezing food, raising chickens, staying up late to process the beans because I had to work that day but the beans will go bad, Ron getting up early to water by hand so as to not waste water but keep the plants going. It’s all our act of resistance. It’s us realizing we are so much on our own that we cannot even trust the food at the grocery store.

We are on our own. And we have to take care of each other.

Why is our health care system broken? Why is our food system broken? I work in education. Let me tell you that our education system is definitely broken. Why is this?

I believe–no, I know–it comes down to the fact that there is an oligarchy in our country, and they are squeezing every last bit from us because we are nothing to them. They will poison us with fake food and then deny our health insurance claims when we are sick. And they know climate change is going to make things so much worse. And they know, there are so many of us and that, when resources get scarce, we might, might, might, start looking at the people hoarding the resources.

So they make us fight each other. They make sure we do not see our common ground. They want to make sure we hate each other. They want to take away love for each other. Our kindness. They do this by keeping us outraged and scared. It works so well.

I know you are tired. I am so, so tired.

We are in for challenging times, I think, especially if you do not agree with the party in power. Especially if you are able to see the truth, can see past the circus to what is really going on.

Look away if you need to. Look if you need to. Rest if you need to. Resistance comes in many forms.

It comes in the form of love, of taking care of each other, of remembering that we all have more in common that we do not. It comes in the form of growing food, raising chickens, supporting a small farm, buying gifts from local makers, reading books instead of social media posts, coming together for a concert in a barn, repairing that sweater instead of buying a new one, keeping your old phone, writing a poem, or buying jam from a local farm stand. If we can build a strong local economy, we won’t need theirs so much.

I know you are tired, but find your strength to love, to be open, to reach out to your neighbors, to give them some eggs, to celebrate together with music, to find community, even if it’s small. Some of these things are hard for the introverted, like myself, but I can see that we are on our own and that all we have are each other.

But, really, that’s a lot.

I know you are tired. Keep growing and making and loving those around you. We just have to pay enough attention to keep ourselves aware. I mean, keep that bird flu on your radar. Or don’t. I’ll keep it on mine and keep you posted.

History is full of hard times and resilient people. There are more of us than there are of them. Don’t let them divide us. Forgive those with good hearts who were led by lies because they were struggling. When we struggle, it’s easy to be taken advantage of.

I know you are tired. Please know I love you, all of you, and if I can help with advice on a sick chicken or the best ways to eat seasonally, let me know.

Sending light on this tough day. Let it not be as tough as I think it might be. That’s my prayer.

photo credit: Dyu-Ha, Unsplash

Warning: This post includes a brief discussion of processing chickens for food.

This morning, we began processing our last batch of meat chickens for the year. We normally do one batch for our family and one batch for our dogs, but we did three batches this year because our Pyrenees, Bairre, has decided he really only likes to eat chicken for dinner. We can either buy meat from the food system where we know the animals are abused or humanely raise and process the chickens ourselves for our dogs to eat. We choose the latter.

And, when I say “we” process these chickens, I mean mostly Ron. I am just the assistant. Ron humanely culls, cleans most of the feathers, and then cleans the insides. It is my job to then get the chicken looking like one from the grocery store, so, when cooked with vegetables from our garden, our family just sees a beautiful chicken dinner as the end result.

I get the final feathers and hairs, clean the chicken super thoroughly, and process the internal organs for the dogs. We try to avoid waste. After all, a life was given for that food. Waste seems sacrilegious.

Even with my assistant job, I get so worn. I am up and down our stairs a lot, as we keep the chickens in the basement, and I spent a lot of hours leaned over our deep sink. It feels worth it though when I think about the alternative. The “humanely raised” is really important to me, but food safety is becoming more and more an issue.

Recently, it feels more and more important that we choose to live this way.. I have known for a long time that our American food system is in some trouble, but the recent listeria and E. coli outbreaks remind me of how important it is to build our own food system–at least as much as we can. The FDA and the USDA both regulate our food systems here in the United States, but they apparently do not communicate well and are also quite backed up and overworked. On top of these issues, apparently, some states, specifically I read about Texas, have simply quit complying with some required testing from the USDA. This was related to the bird flu, but who knows what else states or companies will decide to not comply with. It’s already quit a bit. Self regulation is not a great plan, at least if experience has taught us anything.

We also have a lot of inexperience and arrogance heading into our government, and in my other life working as an academic administrator who worked with federal agencies to secure grants, inexperience and arrogance are not a great combination when it comes to dealing with the giant bureaucracy that is government.

Yeah, I have some worries. I think we had better start working hard to get our food from a more local system.

I know it’s not possible for everyone who reads this to start raising meat chickens, but it seems important to start trying to remove ourselves from a broken food system in whatever ways we can. Maybe we get chickens for eggs and compost their poop to fertilize our organic vegetable garden. Maybe we connect with local farmers and join a CSA. Maybe we support any local markets that keep their supply chains local. I don’t know how common those are in other states, but we have a lot of them here in Maine. Maybe we work harder to create low-ingredient homes, cutting down on or eliminating processed foods (more on that later).

Pay attention. Wash your food well. Organic carrots were a recent culprit for E. coli. Cook your meats thoroughly. Make sure they reach the proper temps.

I wish I had more answers, but I do think we are on our own more than I feel comfortable with. I’ll always share what I learn to help us get through it all, and I hope you will as well.

photo credit: Anna Jakutajc-Wojtalik, Unsplash

Tag: food system

I know you’re tired, but…