Sunday, September 27, 2009

Iwas gratified to see the recent event celebrating the natural state of food staged by the Manna Project and Help Yourself! at Nancy Forrester's Secret Garden. I was sorry I missed it, for not only do I endorse it but I try to promote the education of what we eat, especially to children, as a main part of a healthier environment and -- for lack of a better phrase -- "going green."

I probably have a greater sense of what this means than most people, for I grew up in South Miami and saw the agrarian economy of my youth turn into housing projects and shopping centers, buildings that are constructed on some of the finest growing soil on the planet. It has resulted in our food having to be transported an average of 1,500 miles to our tables, the point of consumption. The food I used to eat came from a 20-mile radius of where I lived.

The saddest part about what has happened is that we have lost a great deal of control over how our food is grown, including what insecticides are used on fruits and vegetables, the treatment of the laborers in harvesting them and, too, the chemicals, hormones and steroids used in protein production that we now all carry in our bodies.

Clean food? We took it for granted. Now it is something we are trying desperately to get back. But isn't that human nature?

Some might say, "Well, we live in the Florida Keys and we have to bring everything in by truck." To this I would say, "It's a choice." I remember they used to grow melons in Key Largo. There were fresh eggs on Grassy Key and, of course, mango, avocado and pineapple growing among other fruits and vegetables. No time you say? There is a fresh organic food share program that starts up every fall. You can pick up shares or half shares of all things currently being picked in Homestead and elsewhere every Sunday at Help Yourself! at Fleming and Grinnell. For more information go to www.beeheavenfarm.com. They may be sold out for this season, but try. They also sell stuff to nonmembers of the program.

It is just a matter of doing it. I had the wonderful experience last year of having a large garden as an experiment and I can assure you that even in a land-starved city or geographic area like Key West and the Florida Keys, it can be done. I know people who lament the fact that they literally cannot give away mangoes in season, not to mention Key limes. With the fish, fruit and vegetable production that we have available to us, there is no reason for us not to eat at least some healthy, clean food. Unfortunately, as this pertains to the school system, it doesn't fit into the model of federal and state government, where all food served in schools must be portion-packed.

One of my greatest regrets is that even though we meet the calorie count and vitamin requirements with the food we serve to our children, we are still serving it on Styrofoam -- which is, as I have said so many times before, not only unhealthy but unnecessary. Why would we do this instead of using dishes that can be washed and the grey water used to water the fields of the school? We don't even design kitchens in the schools that have facilities for washing dishes.

We have given up. We have turned a blind eye to this aspect of the health of our children and sacrificed the quality of our food to budgetary restraints. I don't fault the local school management as much as I do the state and federal governments.

And all of us for that matter, for putting up with it.