This article comes from our friend Kolin Quick.
Photo courtesy of Maui Nui Venison
I have a local grocery store that is my happy place. The staff is friendly, the selection focuses on delicious local products, and the customers are kind. I often wander the aisles starry-eyed, looking at the produce like the final moments of Gary Paulsen’s The Hatchet. I’m gobsmacked by the literal fruits of a community of food growers. However, my bountiful bliss is often interrupted by the receipt handed to me by a cheery Emily or Jake upon checkout. The costs for good quality food can be hard to swallow. But maybe good food and doing the right thing by mother nature isn’t supposed to be cheap.
Food systems can feel complex and alien. Only 1.5% of Americans are currently farmers, a number that is steadily decreasing while political bipartisanship between the rural and urban divide is increasing. Most Americans don’t know a farmer or rancher. However, if you ate a meal today, you participated in a food system–one that you consciously or unconsciously support– whether from drive-through, a tofu burger, or grass fed bison. Each purchase and each bite is a vote on how we want to live, and more importantly- a move towards the world we want to live in.
Dave of Windward Westward told me he wanted to do a wild foods box after a text about where he can find an expert on seasonal wild mushrooms. I was not only excited about the idea but also quick to pepper him with a list of questions. The most poignant one: “Do you know how hard that is going to be?” Sourcing wild foods is one of the most challenging things on the planet thanks to regulations and limited supply. Somehow he pulled it off, with a lot of phone calls, sourcing, and elbow grease. So- I put my money where my heart is (right above my stomach) and I signed up for a box.
If you believe in cleaner waters. If you believe that the buffalo should still roam. If you believe wild places and wild animals deserve not only to be valued, but flourish, then use your food budget to support the people who care enough to help steward them to the next generation.
