Setting a Green Table

Good food for all—good food for a better future.

by Jim Dyer

The Green Table

Looking out from our small farm in far Southwest Colorado, we have an expansive view — from the tops of the San Juan Mountains to the canyon country along the New Mexico border. This is what I like to call our foodshed — the Southern San Juan Mountain Foodshed — the area where we should look first for providing our daily sustenance. An iconic feature of this sweeping landscape is Mesa Verde, one of the favored farming locations of some of the earliest farmers of this region. As a local rancher/meat processor/entrepreneur once pointed out, it is fitting to invoke Mesa Verde, or “green table” in Spanish, when talking about making the food system here as sustainable as we can. The actions involved in setting this “green table” can be thought of as a proactive, thoughtful, and deliberate process — just what we need if we are to be serious about improving our local food system. I’d like to explore this metaphor a bit, hopefully without abusing it.

What’s for Dinner?

Good Food: healthy, local, green, fair, affordable: Sustainable food or sustainably produced food is a fine way to describe what we are working toward, but I find that the admittedly general term “good food” can put a sharper point on what all is included, since it has come to be described as food that is healthy, green, fair, and affordable. Over time “green” has evolved to encompass all these attributes to a good extent. Curiously, “local” is not explicit in this definition, yet we know that local tends to be fresher, whole, and therefore healthier. Local food is usually greener on several accounts including production practices and food miles. Unfairness is harder to ignore in one’s own community whether it’s exploited farm workers, inhumane animal treatment, or prices unfair to the grower. While local food may not be cheaper, it can be, and the aim is to make it affordable to all. For these reasons, I would add “local” explicitly to the list of attributes of “good food.”

Setting the Table

A place for everyone? A critical question in preparing for any dinner is about who is coming. Is this “good food” for everyone in the community? Are we serious about making sure everyone has a chance to partake, or is it just for those who can afford it and those who feel comfortable and welcome. Are those who need assistance in obtaining the food they need welcome at the same table or relegated to a separate less visible table where mediocre food is what they should feel grateful for? Is our community working toward livable wages for growers and consumers alike, so that prices that are fair for both become the norm?

Saying Grace

Looking beyond oneself: Grace is the time to look beyond oneself and thank all that have given of themselves for the meal at hand. Given of their time and labor, or their lives as animals and yes, even plants. As we think in more expansive ways, the more we will begin to address the underlying causes of inequity and unsustainability in our food systems: expectations of cheap food, ignorance of the implications of our food choices, non-livable wages, tolerance of economic and social injustice, and a need to look beyond our own direct interests.

The Kids’ Table

Growing the future: Farm to School, including PreSchool, is a bright light indeed in the local food movement. Getting our children the best food possible and as local as possible, connecting them with the nearby farmers who grow it, and getting them into school gardens will go a long way toward a healthy start on life and food habits that will serve them for a lifetime. We should take full advantage of these programs by insisting on the healthiest, greenest food possible from as close by as we can find it. Gardens must be in every school, integrated into the whole curriculum, and places where children learn and develop healthy relationships with food and the environment around them.

The Kitchen Garden

Fresh at hand: Nothing evokes freshness, wholesomeness, and a healthy measure of independence more than the idea of the kitchen garden. Before we say, “I can’t find it, I can’t afford it, This isn’t very fresh, Someone should grow this for us here”, we might ask ourselves what we can do. Nearly everyone can grow some of their own food, whether a major backyard garden, container tomatoes, or sprouts or greens on the window sill. Others may opt to grow with a neighbor or at a community garden. Next best, and usually in addition to the above, one can help a nearby grower through a CSA subscription, or as a loyal customer paying fair prices. The important thing is to take an active role in the growing of a significant part of your daily diet, understand food better, and become a much, much wiser consumer of the rest of the food you need to buy from elsewhere — for now.

Eat your Peas!

No food wasted: The are lots of reasons to finish the peas on your plate or not take too many in the first place, not the least of which is the specter of food waste, perhaps 40-50% worldwide throughout the food system. All this while millions are hungry, farmers and ranchers go out of business, our soils cry for organic matter. It is hard indeed to grasp this issue and its possible solutions on a global or even national level, but in one’s own community, it should be immensely easier. Unsold produce at the end of the farmers market, unharvested fruit bringing bears into the city, produce not perfect enough for the grocery produce aisle, even peas left on the plate — none of this should be considered waste, and it takes little imagination to figure how it can be repurposed if we decide to do so. So before we import more food, think about that food not yet put to good use in the community.

Looking Forward

Good food for a better future: What about providing for the meals of the future in an uncertain world, what about the future itself? Food is a vital tool, in the hands of everyone who eats, to make choices for a better future in terms of health, local economies, and the environment. All the elements of good food can lead to this better future: healthy, local, green, fair, and affordable. I see an urgency especially in terms of biodiversity losses and climate change. Together, these two issues will likely shape our grandchildren’s world more than anything else, but we can change the trajectories of those trends. How we grow, ship, process, market, and consume food will make a huge difference. Fortunately, many of the most important food system strategies for lessening future climate change and biodiversity loss will also help us adapt our food production systems to those climate changes already locked in so we can have well-provisioned green tables for all in our future.