What could be more intimate in life than what we put into our mouths, that then goes into our stomachs and enters our blood streams, cells, brains? Yet how little information do we have about it in general? I just watched the movie Food, Inc. It is a very important film, I believe. We should be required to see it I think, but that isn’t going to happen.

My friend Ali visited recently for several days. I wrote about her last week in the blog titled “Purity” because of how purely she considers every bite that goes into her mouth, every product she stocks in her home or allows to be in her environment. I asked her to educate me so she graciously helped me to see how many chemicals are stocked in my refrigerator and food cabinet, under my sinks, in my laundry and medicine cabinets. She and I were advised to go to a restaurant in Asheville because of a great story telling how conscious they had around food. We walked in and within 60 seconds Ali was almost shocked. There were out of season, non-local foods right in the deli section, along with cabinets of foods with genetically modified ingredients and chemicals. When your eyes are opened like hers it doesn’t take but a second to see it. All it took was a few days with Ali and blinders came off of my eyes.

And all it took was a few days without Ali and the blinders came right back on. I had determined to buy only local, organic, grass-fed beef, shop at farmer’s markets, re-double my efforts in my garden, read labels, ban chemicals. It is scary how unconscious one can go, how laziness and habit can drive away good sense and wisdom; and how pervasive and intractable denial is as a condition in the human psyche.

We need to open our eyes to what the food industry is doing to every aspect of our local and global relationships and lives. It’s not that as humans we didn’t mean well when we started out, but now we know – or should know. As Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangaari Mathai said, when you realize you’re on the wrong bus do you just keep riding that bus? No, no matter how comfortable you are, you get off! We have got to get off of this bus.