Day 1: Because It Matters

Because It Matters

by Rev. MargaretAnne Overstreet

I’ve been teaching classes and workshops about food, and the global implications of our daily food choices, for several years. Over the course of those teaching opportunities, I’ve discovered a pair of questions that really gets a lively discussion started.

The first question is: What are your values?

In other words, what are the ideals by which you live your life, by which you decide right or wrong, by which you choose to go left or right? This question evokes a variety of responses: compassion, equality, kindness, justice, respect for others, joy, connection, doing unto others as you would have them do unto you.

The second question is: What are your food values?

In other words, what are the criteria by which you make your food choices, three times a day, every day? Again the responses are varied, but are almost always very different than the answers to the first question: price, convenience,  speed, taste, health.

As people of faith, we try to live by a moral compass, espousing those values that our faith teaches us are the foundation of a life that reflects our belief system. When we make choices with great awareness, those choices reflect our values. When we make choices with less awareness, sometimes even unconsciously, our choices are less likely to reflect our values.

Like so many of us, much of my life has been spent eating unconsciously, making food choices with little or no awareness of the way my food choices affect my body, my brothers and sisters around the corner and around the world, or the planet. The road to more conscious eating, and to bringing my food values more in line with the values of my faith, has not been quick or easy.

So, why do I do it?

Because it matters.

There are seven billion people on earth and they all need to eat. These food choices are all connected and they have cumulative effects on the environment, the farmer, the farmworker, food policy, and much more.

Wendell Berry wrote, “Eaters, that is, must understand that eating takes place inescapably in the world, that it is inescapably an agricultural act, and how we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how the world is used.”

I care about how the world is used. I care about those who grow and transport food. I care about those who do not have access to enough food or to healthy food choices. Those are my food values. And eating with ever-increasing awareness of the implications of my food choices helps me live out those values.