Pantry Epiphany

The concept is a simple one.  You are what you eat.  So if that is true, most Americans would be processed, fast food, GMO mutations who lack any true sense of where our food really comes from.   While our minds may know better, our bodies suffer the harsh reality. 

As a teacher of young children for more than fifteen years, I have seen the alarming array of processed foods that our youth (and society at large) consume on a daily basis.  The bright orange Cheetos stained fingers that often smudge papers after the breakfast hour, used to shock me.  The intoxicating smell of French fries, as the ‘lucky’ kid’s mom drops off a bag of McDonalds for lunch, unnerves me. And the abundance of lollypops and candy bars that have to be devoured before reentering the classroom because they served as someone’s recess snack, concern me as I think about the relationship my students are forming with food.  As my students and I have grown gardens together over the years, I am amazed at how little they know about where real food comes from.

My journey toward healthy eating was reignited in my early twenties as I began a yoga practice. (I say reignited because my mom will argue, she started me off on the right foot by hand grinding all of my baby food, but like all the other kids raised in a fast food nation, somewhere I went astray).  My friend, and soon to become boyfriend (then eventually to become husband) was beginning to take yoga classes at the time.  After some research, he suggested vegetarianism.  At first I resisted, but the more I read the more I knew my conscience would win out. 

At first, our vegetarian lifestyle was what limited our fast food intake.  There are few appetizing choices for vegetarians in most fast food establishments.  Over time, the more I cooked and tried new recipes, the more I realized that the fresher my ingredients were, the better the dish would be.  This encouraged me to seek out the freshest produce, a journey that led me to visit the local farmer’s market religiously. (I literally go every Sunday; better attendance than some can claim at church). Eventually this sojourn landed me to my own backyard.  Certainly the ultimate way to get the freshest vegetables was to grow them myself.  This pipe dream pushed my husband and I to build ten raised beds in our tiny backyard. When our desire to grow more exceeded the capabilities of our small back lot, we redesigned our front yard into attractive and functional vegetable plots as well.

Through travel, my husband and I had the opportunity to experience farms in Tuscany and experience the slow food culture of Europe. We became ‘flexitarian’ for a time, when the meat offered at farms was so fresh and we had a personal relationship with the farmer, we had less objections.  While we have found a trusted fish monger in our home town, we’ve yet to feel the confidence in pork that we found in Italy.  While our horizons were broadened by our travels, my husband and I brought home many expectations in terms of the quality of our food.

While the quality of our produce had increased tenfold due to home grown or farmer’s market purchased wares, I started looking at my other ingredients with a skeptical eye.  How much sugar was in my breakfast cereal and what about preservatives? I can’t even pronounce half of them let alone tell you what they are.  I like to know where my vegetables come from, so why not my grains, my milk, and so forth.  I dabbled in growing my own grains and realized that on less than a quarter of an acre, growing my own grain and milling it was not going to be something I could manage along with a full time teaching job.  But making my own breakfast cereal so that I could control the ingredients and eliminate the preservatives, I could give that a go.  As with many of the other processes we have reclaimed, there was a learning curve.  But once a working recipe and routine is established it becomes a manageable part of our lifestyle.

So that is where this title “Pantry Epiphany” came from. It is the gradual realization that the more control I could reclaim over my nourishment, the healthier and happier I would become.  Each new crop I grow, or processed product in the pantry I replace with something homemade, or quality local food I discover helps me grow as well.  We have been taught, “You can only buy that in a store. You can’t make that.  You don’t have the time, the skill, the knowledge.”  Each time I disprove one of these falsehoods, I feel empowered. 

As a professional educator, it seems natural to share these triumphs with others who wish to learn how to take back their plate and in turn take back their fate.  In the same spirit that I strive to create an inclusive classroom, this blog is not just for vegetarians or real food enthusiasts. I hope to have readers who are looking for just one manageable change they can make toward a less processed diet, as well as others who are already rocking out this lifestyle and can teach me a thing or two.  Any classroom teacher will tell you that their students teach them something everyday.  I hope the same will be true of our interactions here.  I want this to be a safe place, where we can learn and grow together.  I don’t claim to know it all, I just want to write about my journey and I invite you to come along for the ride.