Last night, during a volunteer shift at the midweek farmers' market, I struck up a conversation with one of the other volunteers. She works as a dietician for a hospital, and I asked her what made her want to start volunteering with this particular group.
Turns out our stories were very similar: it started with reading a book, and from there, as we both learned new ideas about sustainability and where food comes from, we felt the need to be a part of sharing it with the community...
In my case, it began last year when I read Plenty by Alisa Smith and J.B. Mackinnon. Having grown up on a farm, I understood where food came from--but somewhere in between my childhood and early adulthood, I let that connection fizzle out. And then I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. And after that I started in on Michael Pollan's The Ominvore's Dilemma, and peppered in between were columns by Mark Bittman and plenty of bugs in my ear about local farmers' market.
All that information stuck, and in the course of a year I've transitioned to quite the sustainable diet. I came to realize that it's bigger than me, this whole food revolution--which is why I turned to the Sustainable Food Center to volunteer.
What about you? Do you find that as you learn more about things, you're more inclined to give back to the community in a way that upholds those things?
(Image: Flickr member Photo Mojo, licensed under Creative Commons.
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Once I learned about the treatment of farmed animals, the disgusting and torturous living conditions they are kept in, the sheer amount of chemicals, antibiotics and hormones they are given, the way they are killed, and the ridiculous amount of resources that are put into farming animals for meat, I couldn't justify it to myself to eat meat any longer. Of course I don't expect everyone to become vegetarian like myself, but just cutting down on meat is better for animals, the planet and your body. Meat, the way is it produced today, is not sustainable. Free-range, organic meat is obviously better, but only the lesser of two evils in my opinion.
Once a seed is planted, sometimes you just can't ignore it. I've seen lots of PETA brochures throughout my life, but you can lead someone to water, but you can't make them drink.
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