The following blog discusses the integration of healthy agricultural practices, diet/nutrition, and lifestyle changes. We preface it with saying that we know many of you have a lot of your plate and never ending to-do lists. But, we hope this blog is used as an avenue to simply learn how to "be" instead of "do". Having a never ending to do list is hard when we live in a constant state of what we have to strive toward. Cultivating a practice of “being” and conscious awareness can be as simple as bringing your attention to your breath. We are daily seeking to live a life of conscious awareness, a state of "being awake" and present in the moment. The food experience is often one of the most unconscious, asleep experiences that exist. We robotically go to the grocery store, buy food, cook, and eat without being present to the process and our senses at all. So we wanted to share a few things we’ve learned about becoming more alive to our food experience and how that has helped us heal our bodies and take care of the land at the same time.

Reducing your Carbon FOODprint

Let me preface this by saying EATING REAL, WHOLE FOOD is really the key to health and vitality. Food is medicine. Real foods are meats, fish, vegetables, fruits, nuts, legumes. We are not nutritionists (by any means!!), but we have learned a lot about moving away from processed foods, and towards whole foods, in a way that heals the land and our bodies. Reducing our foodprint has held a lot of ups and downs, trying and failing, and simply trying some more. This makes sense because food is addictive. We found what motivated us to change and started taking baby steps toward it. A few things that motivate us are making sure our own personal consumption/demand is not participating in climate change, an agricultural system that robs the soil of its nutrients and the land of its natural resources. The other thing that motivates us is not eating food that makes us feel sick or that is actually making us sick with high blood pressure, diabetes, or obesity.

Ultimately, we've learned over the years that our bodies are a metaphor for the land. When you eat well, you eat less. When you farm well, you use less natural resources.

So when we consider the information from the previous blog about agriculture’s carbon footprint, we want to ask some questions? First, “where did the meat/veggies travel from, what’s in it, and how was the meat raised, what was its impact on the land?” For example, you may remember the highly publicized lawsuit in 2014 against Kroger for labeling their Simple Truth chickens as humanely raised when in reality it was just repackaged, commercially raised Perdue chicken. In the interest of trying to keep this blog somewhat short, we’ve skipped a few things like defining “commercially raised” or “grass fed beef” or “pasture raised”. If you’d like more information on that email us and we can send you research based articles. If you are on a journey toward physical health, you will want to know what chemicals are in your food and what those chemicals are doing to your body and the land. Many of you know this information already but have trouble getting from point A to point B. Here are some tips to help you get started:

**Joel Salatin raiseslivestock using holistic management methods of animal husbandry on his polyface farm in swoope, VA in the Shenandoah valley. Learn more at polyfacefarms.com**

Participate in a full share meat Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) with another family. We’ve found that full shares are large enough for two if you are willing to just cut back a little. Get creative. Healthy food fosters healthy community life!
Try hunting your own food. What an incredible way to reconnect with the land & better know the cost of meat
Attend a weekly Farmer’s Market, meet farmers, and ask if you can visit their farms. If you have kids this is a really fun thing to do for the whole family.
Make meat a treat! That way, when you do eat it you can more easily afford local restaurants and markets that sell high quality, pasture raised, grass fed meat
Participate in 2 - 3 meatless days per week

Disclaimer: Sometimes we don't know where our meat came from and we live on one income - we know it is EXPENSIVE to find grass fed beef or participate in a meat CSA. One thing to consider is that meat is a valuable source of protein and food is medicine. When we look at our primary motivators of eating food that makes us feel well, then we actually add the expense to the Health and Wellness line item on our budget.

In the fruits/vegetable situation, here are a few tips:

If you have space and time, try an organic garden bed. If you don't know where to start, you can work other local organic gardeners in your area. We recommend organic gardens because chemical fertilizers can wreak havoc on your gut flora as well as rob the soil of vital nutrients (research glyphosate - or email us and we’ll send you the research!).
Try to learn how to eat seasonally and go to local farmer's markets. I'm going to be honest, eating seasonally is hard. Just pick 1-2 vegetables to test out eating seasonally.
Join a vegetable CSA. This may be expensive but again consider adding it to your health budget line item.

The best tip we can give here is to find out what is really motivating you and take baby steps toward that. Is it wanting to reduce climate change by reducing the amount your meat travels? Is it wanting to know what chemicals are in your meat/veggies/fruits? Is it a lifestyle change due to physical health issues? Whatever the reason, taking some of these steps is the start to a highly satisfying, present centered, food experience.

Your Church, Legislative Advocacy, and Community Organizing

While we think that making individual lifestyle adjustments is vital, we also press our church, community leaders, and politicians to create legislative action in regard to environmental issues. We recommend getting involved in your local and state elections and VOTE! Vote for the issues that you care about. Call your state legislators. Call your mayor if they did not sign on to the Climate Mayors commitment. Do not go it alone. That is the fast track to burn out. We are encouraged by the information sharing on facebook and protests that take place regularly, but please do not engage in that at the expense of legislative advocacy in your daily life with other groups of people. We recommend groups that have a relationship with the TN General Assembly.

Also, don't be afraid to ask questions. For example, has your church issued a statement or position on the Paris Agreement? If not, ask why? Find out what your organization or church's position is on environmental issues especially if they are a human services organization. As you can see throughout our website, there is a great connection between environmental degradation and human suffering. If your church remains silent on this or does not have any resources then we encourage you to start something new within your church!

Practice and Be Gracious

We are living in a very polarizing time. Often times, being gracious and gentle is seen as weakness or excusing bad behavior. What we're talking about on an individual level is lovingly reaching across the aisle. Remove this from being a "political issue" into a state of personal awareness that allows you to really experience your food in a fully alive way with others. Learn about your food, taste your food, chew it slowly, share your food and use your food to love others. Find joy in eating food grown by friends, talk about food, livestock production, growing vegetables, in real human circles so it becomes more of an experience rather than a political stance. We all need to eat! So let's do it together in love.

Britt