Chapter 1
Why Food Matters Not that long ago the act of providing food dominated people’s lives. Each community had to produce their own food. When they did well, their families ate well. When they did poorly, they died. Diets were seasonal. In the spring and summer months, the people ate lots of fresh organic fruits and vegetables. During the colder seasons, they ate meats, nuts, beans, roots, and porridge. Cooking dominated village life. There were no markets, no grocery stores. When a family needed food, they grew it, foraged for it, or hunted it. Today we have a whole industry telling us what and where to eat. We think it’s normal to grab a meal at a drive-through and eat it on the go, and when we do shop, we fill our carts with premade products wrapped in glorified packaging proclaiming “All Natural” and “Healthy Choice” when most of the things we are selecting are not even classified as food but as “foodstuffs” that are loaded with sugar and chemicals and hold very little nutritional value. Unhealthy diets and lack of access to nutritious food are two of the driving factors behind what a new report from the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food
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