themattscott

This past week Becky and I went to hang out with her best friend, a recent grad of Lee University, and some of the people that her friend has grown close to over her college career. It’s kind of awkward writing this post, as some of them will read it, but it’s on my mind and I have to get it out. This, by the way, is a picture of Cleavland TN (where Lee University is) on a busy Saturday afternoon.

I saw community. A group of friends whose lives seem to center around one thing, meals with each other. Perhaps it was only this weekend that they appeared that way (but I’m told by Becky that it’s been like that every time she’s gone up there), but at every meal they cooked, they gathered together. They all seemed to greatly value the company of the others.

Then they took us to an Amish Farmers market where one of their former teachers happened to be as well. The ensuing conversation, of which I only caught bits and pieces (I was intent on finding the perfect green peppers, which I then forgot to take home from our friend’s apartment), their former teacher said something to the effect of “I cooked a meal the other day, and I knew where every ingredient came from.” The prophet Michael Pollan would be happy, and I personally salivated at the thought of knowing the source for all my food.

That knowledge takes organic farming to another step, it brings us closer to the farmer, in many ways it’s better for the soul. I want that.

Then, they have the audacity to take us to Chattanooga. I fell in love.

I twittered about the Green-Life Grocery the other day, and I would again, highly recommended that anyone in the Chattanooga (henceforth shortened to Chatt) area check them out. Essentially Greenlife is a whole food’s grocery on steroids, not in size, but in heart. Above most products they list the source farm (most of them are local farms, either in Tennessee or Georgia), and that includes the meat. Nothing makes my heart happier then seeing the “Humanely Treated” label above a package of bacon, I’ve read the accounts of what goes on in the normal pig farms and I don’t mind paying more for humanely treated animals (of course, you can certainly argue that the inevitable death is not so humane, something I think every omnivore suffers from. The only response is, if all the omnivores that know about these things stop eating meat, all that’s left are the ones that don’t care.) The other intriguing aspect of Greenlife is that there are absolutely no artificial foods, hydrogenated oils, or any of the other crap that we buy that’s terrible for us and we give no second thought to. You wanna start living holistically? Buy food there. More brilliance from greenlife:

Then, if the combination of both all of these isn’t bad enough, they took us to a brilliant pub, on the way there I noticed that in nearly every shop there was a sign that said “Shop Local,” I was quite pleased with those signs because I knew that motto was being played out in support of local agriculture, a light of salvation from our road to pure industrial food. Anyways, the Pub… I look at the bottom of the menu, only to see that they list where they get everything for their pub. Pizza crusts? This bakery. Cheese? This farm. Beef/Bison? This Farm. Everything you could think of had a source location listed right there.

It’s a weird feeling. I guarantee if you go to any chain restaurant and ask an employee where their food is sourced from they’ll answer with one of the mega distribution centers, not with which farm. Even if they knew that they carried Pilgrim’s Progress (I wonder if the Pilgrims would indeed call our industrial food system progress) chicken, they probably couldn’t tell you which farm those chicks were raised on.  They probably couldn’t tell you which farm Cargill got it’s potatoes from. They probably couldn’t tell you that Monsanto had nothing to do with the food you’re eating now. They probably don’t even care.

In one final clinching moment, I went to the restroom (clear my small bladder before the ride home, you can ask my friend, Andrew Walden, I need to do that on any longer trips), only to see this sign above the urinal:

I call this feeling for this city: Love.

This entry was posted Thursday, July 16th, 2009 at 7:12 am and is filed under community, environment, food. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.