Why you should care where your food comes from

Happy New Year, everyone! If your cupboard is like mine, you have all kinds of goodies that well-meaning folks gave you for the holidays. Chocolate, nuts, cheese, maybe even fruit. Those treats are waiting for you, threatening to bust your New Year's resolution before you've even gotten underway.

Food is an amazing substance. We bring it as a gift, we use it to celebrate special events, we share it with others to teach them about our culture. We bring it to the sick and we have it in abundance at funerals. Various foods symbolize a vast number of things: religious, spiritual and cultural. Some cultures use food to ward off evil, some see it as edible art. Some people don't have enough, and an increasing number of people have too much.

In the United States, food is regarded with ambivalence by many, if not most, people. The majority of us don't worry about where our next meal is coming from. The abundance and 24 hour availability of cheap food, as well as all the conflicting messages we get from the media, lead us to some interesting attitudes. Eating is something we need to control, even avoid at times. We make some pretty harsh judgments about people based on their food choices coupled with their appearance. Food has become a sneaky adversary. Add these attitudes to the fact that our personal beliefs about food are generally quite rigid, and you can end up with some very twisted thinking.

Some scholars believe that the three main psychological disorders associated with food practices, anorexia and bulimia nervosa and binge-eating disorder (by far the most common) are due in part to our alienation from food. By this they mean that there is so much distance between the food we eat and the source of that food, that there is no longer any spiritual connection.

Food is, at the core, a vital life force. Wisdom traditions (cultures and religions) have developed rituals that use food as a connection to its significance as a vessel that carries this life force. Food as spiritual, as well as physical, sustenance has been a universal concept throughout human history that appears today in every culture and religion. In these traditions, food is a sacred gift from the supreme being, whether that be the God of western religious traditions or Mother Earth. Each tradition tells us that by regarding food mindfully, and bringing a conscious gratitude and awareness of the significance of this gift, we can reintegrate with the life force transported by our food and are nourished in body and soul.

In the act of consuming food with mindfulness and intention, we keep in mind that all of life is interconnected. We think of the chain that begins with the sun, earth, wind and rain; soil, plants and food animals; the people involved in growing, harvesting, preparing, and serving the food, and ends with the people with whom we share it.

We're a long way from the days when we actually knew where our food came from. The food we buy today comes from all over the globe, raised by people about whom we know precious little. On the one hand, it's wonderful to be able to purchase fresh produce any time of the year. On the other, the cost to the environment and, perhaps, to the people who grow and harvest it is very likely unsustainable. Many of the countries from where our food comes have few restrictions on chemicals that may be used in farming. The water used to irrigate the soil is very likely to be polluted with human waste and other toxins. The amount of energy used to refrigerate and transport products from across the world to our local markets is staggering.

So when you eat your next meal, whether it be fast food in your car on the way to work (I sincerely hope not!) or a sit-down family affair, think about the gift, where it came from, and the real cost.

• Fresh Ideas: Starting conversations by sharing personal perspectives on timely and timeless issues. Hazel Bowen lives in Washoe Valley and taught nutrition at UNR from 1996 Ð 2007. She is presently teaching an online nutrition class through UNR Extended Studies Program.