Edibility in the Video Game Era

         Survival of the fittest, the full onslaught of virtual living, information overload, and night travel through a land without electricity, to a place where I can access the internet, all define the flavor of our contemporary relationship to who we are and what we eat. Presently in Costa Rica, it is easy to see the way in which human beings have decided to live as a natural outgrowth of our propensity for abstraction, disconnect and self absorption. Sounding misanthropic? Perhaps a tad, but it is increasingly obvious as to why the problems that plague us individuals concerned with food quality and sustainability exist. For most of our written history (coinciding with the advent of large centralized agricultural systems) human beings have spent the majority of their time clearing land for, growing, harvesting, storing, selling, moving, and trading food. Our relatively recent advance into the mechanized age has freed an enormous portion of the populace to enter into the industrialized workforce but at what cost? The Since we obviously can not go back (as much as some would like to think we can, to those I say, Farm, and see how you like it), the dialogue of what to be done must seek a constructive blend between our amazing capacity to innovate and transform, and to appreciate what we eat.
           To begin to appreciate what we put into our bodies demands that we begin to appreciate ourselves, and where we come from. Food itself is a substance that can be broadly or narrowly defined, and can easily become something that is narrowly defined as consumable. To skirt the entrapment of instant gratification, commodification and objectification, I have found it enlightening to think of food in terms of process, i.e. a temporally sensitive manifestation of much deeper workings. The subtle interplay between geological and evolutionary forces and the stuff on the evening plate is rarely thought of, at least in public, and therein lies the problem. Not that we need to engage in mind bending abstractions as part of our daily meals, but that a bit of reflection on the origins of our being can provide genuine connectivity between who we are, what we make ourselves out of and just what exactly it is we care about when we care about food.
           Food is politics, food is money, food is essence. A life giving substance that we, unless obtaining a status akin a corpse or an extreme spiritualist (take your pick), cannot do without. However, food is so much more than any overt simplification. What we eat has not only implications on energy use, ecological and climatic relationships, but also the metaphysical. Food is culture, it is spirit condensed and it is a way of life. If all of this sounds like hogwash, just take a moment to think about dinnertime conversation, a morning in the garden or, if you’re a slightly more scientific in your approach, the steady movement of energy and lives that make our lifestyle possible. As we heal our relationship with ourselves, and start listening deeply to the needs of our stomach and soul, we may come to the realization that what we eat not only shapes our physical well being and experiential reality, but the very nature of the world we live in.
            The shaping of our world, on the global and on the local scale is the central issue in determining what we eat: the role that we play in our own well being, and that of our global community (not being limited to human life). Each of us has a responsibility to ourselves to live in a healthy way (which is highly individualistic and almost never straightforward. Unfortunately for many of us living in the ‘western’ world, this seemingly simple dictate becomes very complicated by the vast array of choices presented to the average ‘consumer,’ as well as the severe apparent disconnect between grocery stores, university food services, etc… and the physical environment. I say apparent because it is impossible to have an actual disconnect between what we eat and the impact it has on our selves and the planet, however, there exists a very real lack of consciousness about the impacts of our choices: we and the planet suffer whether we are aware of it or not, it is up to us to become aware of our impacts and own them, acknowledging the full price of our actions.
           At present the international agreements pushed for by multinational conglomerates and simplistically minded governments have placed an enormous bias on the inexpensive, on the portable and on the constantly available. It is up to us as individuals to put forth different value systems, whether publicly or personally, in congress or on campus, and to strive for their realization at scales that may have lasting impact. As we lobby for changes in subsidies, for ecologically sound and organically based agriculture we can begin to get at the root of the problems in our food system, our perceived disconnect from the natural world. This perceived disconnect in the process of nurturing ourselves and the planet can also be solved by changing the way we view our connectivity to the food system as a whole. Rather than as an endpoint ‘consumer’ we can think of ourselves as participants in the process. In this view the human being is woven into a web of continuous exchange, each individual is simultaneously the center and periphery of an endless network of the global ecosystem and its accompanying human infrastructure.
           Regardless if we spend our lives in front of the computer, or nursing a hankering for space travel, it is still necessary to eat. Life in the college setting also demands nutrition, and the concern over the manner of that nutrition has given rise to countless groups, many of which are featured on this blog and elsewhere. Campus gardens abound, as do small scale movements and even within administrative movements to change the nature of the food we eat. Changing national food policy cannot be done without changing global food policy, and that process demands fairness in dealings with previously exploited economies, and a curtailing of predatory ¨free trade´´ policies and irresponsible laissez faire capitalism. Prices need to reflect reality for our economic systems to work, and prices reflect values. Every time we take the time to support a local farm, or push for ecologically sound practices in agriculture or talk to an administrator about composting and growing more food regionally we are taking steps in the right direction. From Connecticut dairy farms to mango orchards in Central America the message is the same, but the practice is different, we need to spread the awareness of quality food, and grow the movement towards equitable exchange and global awareness. As the fossil fuel age comes to its slow grinding close, we must reform the network according to our genuine needs, be it through or own gardens, agroforestry projects or integrated biological crop systems, we must maintain the awareness that causes us to care for the land around us, wherever we are, and whatever we are doing. In short, to be humble and appreciate this life made possible, by food.