Here are a few question I often ask groups I speak to that usually leaves an entire room speechless:
In the past 24 hours, can you tell me anything about the food ingredients you have put into your bodies?
Who produced it?
From where?
How did they produce it in a healthy way?
How was that animal cared for?
How were the people who produced it treated?
Was it sprayed with poisons and are any of them residual in the food?
How do those chemicals affect your body’s health short term or long term?
Was the soil and the farm a healthy place or a toxic one?
How far and long has this food traveled?
It reminds me of something our mothers used to say to us as we were putting some strange thing in our mouths as children – “Don’t put it in your mouth if you don’t know where it’s been?
Our industrial food system persists because we do not ask these questions and instead assume that “they” have our best interests and the health of our children in mind. But sadly, I have to say they do not. Our industrial food system is so far flung, so complicated and many layered that few people can trace your food back to its source. Even many of our trusted brands at the supermarket, may never be sure of original source and quality. So here is the reality: If we want to feed our families clean, nutrient dense, and fresh food from people who we can trust… we will have to get to know them. And that is not an easy task. I started Farmers To You to help because my family and I needed answers just like you. After a career in conventional farming, my health was severely compromised due to a lifetime of exposure to toxic agricultural chemicals. I knew that the closer to home I could source my food the better – I could know my farmer and food producer and look them in the eye and ask! knew that the less time it took to get the food from my farmer's place to my kitchen the fresher and more nutritious it would be.
I knew that if my farmer and food producer used natural, regenerative, and truly organic methods to produce the food, then I would be ingesting few if any poisons in my food. This was key if I wanted my body to have the respite it needed to detox and shed all the poisons I had ingested.
In short, if I knew my farmer, my baker, and my producer, I could decide if I trusted them to feed my family. And given my long experience as a farmer, I can tell you I trust all the people we’ve selected to feed you because we ask all these questions and get answers we can live with – but I still want you to be able to make that decision for yourself! Actually, I plead with you to make the effort to know who is feeding you! Don’t just trust me blindly!
Eat locally, eat cleanly, eat simply, and enjoy excellent health. It is really quite simple despite what our complicated opaque industrial food system wants you to know. And support those who you trust to feed you so we can rebuild strong regional food systems to heal us, our farms and our planet.
Thank you!
-Greg
