Learning to Eat

Lauren Zahner

Seasons are a novel concept to a young child. I remember the first time I took note of the golden leaves and crisp air of autumn. My mother had taken me to a farm in Washington. Vines crept up the frame of a barn that was open on one side to the air. Earthy smelling hay littered the ground. I asked my mother why the corn was sometimes black, sometimes red and sometimes white—not like the solid yellow kernels she would scrape off the cob for me at the dinner table. I tasted my first pear, a strangely sweet fruit, and loved it. We also had baskets to fill with black berries we picked off the vines. How much sweeter the labor of my own small hands tasted than if my finicky appetite had met that fruit in a carton.

That visit was my introduction to many important things in life. Pears, berry picking, colorful corn, season changes and locally grown organic food – although that last one wasn’t so much in everyone’s consciousness then. Now the media have picked up the scent along with many conscientious consumers and it’s interesting to see what different people have to say about the subject.

Although an essay, “The Pleasures of Eating” includes poetic elements and even poetry at the end. This reflects Wendell Berry’s passion about eating as an agricultural, political and ethical act. One simile makes a strong impression. “The industrial farm is said to have been patterned on the factory production line. In practice, it looks more like a concentration camp.” (Berry.)

In contrast to the poetic flow of the ending lines of this essay, Berry uses a list to number the ways city people can eat responsibly.

“The locally produced food supply is the most secure, the freshest, and the easiest for local consumers to know about and to influence.” (Berry.) Farmers’ markets in almost every town in the county bring the freshest produce to a common area for everyone to enjoy. But if you are fortunate enough to know a farmer personally, you are able to know even more about the food you get from them.

My friend Kristen grew up in the speck of a town called Sanger on the outside of Fresno, with nothing but oranges for neighbors. The clocks must run a little slower out in the country, but I don’t mind living on Kristen time every now and then. Adventures with her are a cross-cultural experience. I “went to town” with her and her ex-boyfriend in a raised truck one time. We ended up watching a movie about football. If stereotypes were dreams, all mine about the Central Valley came true that night. But that’s all irrelevant. What Kristen has to do with “The Pleasures of Eating” is that sometimes she will bring me a grocery bag full of her family’s oranges. She’ll tell you, and I’ll agree, that you won’t find a sweeter orange in any supermarket. Nor will you taste a sweeter juice from any carton than from the hand squeezed rinds of her family’s freshly picked oranges.

“Learn the origins of the food you buy.” (Berry.) I think Berry would say you should do this because then you will take better care of yourself and your community. John Ryan and Alan Thein Durning, authors of the book Stuff: The Secret Lives of Everyday Things, point out the adverse effects of our consumer choices on other countries as well by tracing the origins of a cup of coffee. For each person that drinks two cups of Columbian coffee per day, each year 43 pounds of coffee pulp makes its way to the rivers where it steals oxygen from fish as it decomposes. Not only are the local effects important, but the global effects. (Hockman-Wert.)

“Learn, in self-defense, as much as you can of the economy and technology of industrial food production. What is added to food that is not food, and what do you pay for these additions?” (Berry) A prime example of non-food additives that come at a high price are pesticides. Reports like one in Businessweek on the dangers of pesticides have changed people like my mother’s strawberry buying habits to organic. And with good reason. The amount of pesticides on organic produce is several times less than that of other produce. Pesticide residues can’t be peeled or washed away. “Pesticides have been shown to cross the placenta during pregnancy,” a Businessweek article said. “Few doubt that high doses of pesticides can cause neurological or reproductive damage. With infant reproductive organs still forming and the brain developing through age 12, and with young livers and immune systems less able to rid bodies of contaminants, eating organic is more important for children and pregnant or breast-feeding women.” (“Does it Pay to Buy Organic?” by Carol Marie Cropper, from Businessweek September 6, 2004.) Not eating organic can have a high price to pay. Luckily for those who can’t make it out to a farm or farmers’ market, stores like Trader Joe’s also offer organic food at an affordable price.

“Whenever possible, deal directly with a local farmer, gardener, or orchardist. … By such dealing you eliminate the whole pack of merchants, transporters, processors, packagers and advertisers who thrive at the expense of both producers and consumers.” (Berry.) But that pack has even shrunk to a few transnational corporations like Altria (Philip Morris), ConAgra and General Mills, making the negative impact even greater. Cathleen Hockman-Wert wrote an article for the Christian social justice magazine, Sojourners, exploring the real cost of a long-distance food system in “Check Please!” She writes, “To varying degrees, transnational corporations own or have influence in the entire food production chain—farmland and farm finance, seeds and equipment, fertilizers and pesticides, grain collection and milling, livestock production and slaughtering, and more. This is bad news for farmers.” (Hockman-Wert.) That’s just more evidence to say, buy from local farms like Avila Valley Barn.

May 12 marked this season’s opening at the barn. That first Sunday the delicious smell of sweet cinnamon wafted out into the valley. In the distance hills fell into place, one after another like a shuffled deck of cards. Between them and the deck fell vines growing in lines upon stakes and wires. Little blackbirds fought for a seat on the countless stakes by crowding each other off. Beyond that, an emptied field was guarded by a procession of trees.

Inside the barn, customers could find an Avila Valley Barn brand of anything from salsa to pie to honey to dried fruit. One has to wonder, though, where the dried pineapple comes from. There are not even kitchen facilities on the property as far as I could see. The label on the salsa said “Made especially for Avila Valley Barn,” but nothing else to tell the story of its contents.

Nonetheless, I’ll be sure to visit the barn when October comes around again because some 15 years after my first autumnal visit to a farm, nothing reminds me of fall like fruit filled barns and hay cushioned tractor rides. I remember my first trip Avila Valley Barn, emerging from the cramped maze with bits of straw in my hair and getting off the tractor to eat apples right off the tree. Later on I discovered other childhood favorites, farm animals for petting and ice cream cones for (not) dropping. Even in the warmer seasons I’ll go out of my way for some fresh produce. I’ve filled shopping bags with plums, cucumbers, lettuce, potatoes and—of course—pears.

Works Cited

Berry, Wendell. “The Pleasures of Eating.” What Are People For?

Hockman-Wert, Cathleen. “Check Please!” Sojourners Magazine. May 2006.

Cropper, Carol Marie. “Does it Pay to Buy Organic?” Businessweek. September 6, 2004.