Kspitz’s Weblog

This past Saturday, I attended a public forum/discussion pertaining to “Green Eating.” It was held at the main branch of the public library. The flyer stated that we would be discussing ideas on how to be more environmentally conscious in our eating habits.  When I signed up on Thursday I was the only name on the list, so I wasn’t sure if the event would actually happen, but I decided that even a small group of people concerned about this issues would be better than none, so on Saturday I donned my heavy scarf and headed for the Dickenson room in the basement of the main library.

The room was packed! Extra chairs were brought in and one set of conference tables taken down to accomodate the approximately 50 people who all seemed especially eager to talk about food!  There was also a nice selection of healthful snacks set up on the counter along one of the side walls. By the time the little crowd was settled, it was 11:25.  The flyer had stated that the forum was to run from 11:00 to 12:00.

LESSON #1 – start on time or as CLOSE to it as possible. If people are late, that’s their own fault.

The first speaker seemed to be quite nervous, perhaps she did not anticipate such a large audience. She paced back and forth as she presented statistics and information about her chosen subject – global warming and methane gas. Now, I know that global warming is a huge issue right now, but I came to talk about FOOD, especially LOCAL FOOD.  Global warming could be a subject for an entirely separate forum.

A few questions and discussion followed…by now it is 12:15. 

The second speaker was an M.D. who specialized in nutrition.  She seemed much more relaxed and had some interesting things to say, but she also had another appointment coming up soon and had to leave, so after a quick 10 minutes, she sat down.

Lesson #2 – allocate your speakers’ time and save the questions and discussion for the end of the session.

Speaker #3 was a doctor of Chinese medicine – something I am quite interested in, but…what about FOOD?  This woman started off by stating that speaker #1 had her population statistics wrong and that China actually has about 60% more people than the official census leads us to believe…ok… She then rattled off her credentials and stated that she had spent the last 20 years traveling the world and living in China  - was she trying to convince us that what she was about to say was important?  I’ll decide that for myself, thank you…

She started off by telling the group that homogenized milk was basically killing us.  This, for the most part, I already knew, but I could see the shocked look on the faces of some of the attendees. She touted the benefits of vegetarianism – as did the 2 previous speakers – even though she is not a vegetarian due to health reasons and has to “choke” down meat in order to avoid developing anemia.

I have no doubts that this woman is highly intelligent, knows her field well, and could give all of us some excellent health advice…but what about LOCAL FOOD?   The most annoying thing about this speaker was that she kept asking questions that seemed designed to expose our wasteful American ways. Questions like, how many of you turned your heat up this morning? How many of you drive your car to work when you could actually walk? How many of you knew you could run your diesel engine on peanut oil ?  

OK, we know we are wasteful and we want to improve….we came to learn HOW!   HOW?

By this time it was 12:30 – 30 minutes past the scheduled ending time of the forum and the last speaker had not yet been given the floor. I knew THAT speaker, the owner of a local organic farm,  would talk about LOCAL FOOD, but I had to leave in order to work on another pressing project at home.    

Now, I don’t want to be overly critical. I applaud the efforts made by organizers of this fourm. It was very  obvious, by the number in attendance, that people want to talk about this issue, they want to know more about how they can reduce their carbon footprints and support LOCAL FOOD systems. But it is my fear that many of the people who attended this particular forum left feeling more confused than when they arrived.

Lesson #3 – have an AGENDA and stick to it!  (as closely as possible, anyway)

Lesson #4 – you cannot talk about more than one big issue in any one forum…global warming, Chinese medicine, nutrition, and organic farming – whew!  Each one of these could have had its own forum!

so…I went home and worked on my project – a grant application for our Community Garden at Potawatomi Greenhouse.  I cannot personally do anything about China’s exploding population, I cannot personally stop the CAFO from emitting more methane into our atmosphere, and, at this point in my life, I do not wish to travel the world and study the medicines of other cultures. But I CAN grow my own organic vegetables and work to teach others in my neighborhood how to do the same. 

I sincerely hope that we continue to hold public forums on this subject and many others…but perhaps we could take a lesson from our gardens - you have to organize your space and pull the weeds if you want to maximize your yields.

 -Gail