Cohousing-L Mailing List: Relationship to the food you eat

[Rob Sandelin (Exchange) (Robsan]

Jekke Xonee wrote a wonderful description of the feelings of eating local
food. 

 I agree whole heartedly that raising food is a personal and community
goodness.  My difficulity comes from living in a community of people, most
of whom don't care about what they eat or where it comes from. THere is a
small core group of us who seriously garden, and who take great pride in
eating what we grow.  Then there is the majority who would rather get their
lettuce from the local store on the way home because, "its more
convienient". This becomes somewhat of a sore point when our private garden
is overflowing with beans, the small community garden is overflowing with
beans, and someone goes to the store and buys beans, laden with who knows
what chemicals, and seriously stale.  As one person pointed out to me: "Hey,
I didn't move here to be a farmer".  So the community garden stays small,
supported by a small band of garden heads who love working the earth.  Since
"self-suffiency" was not on any group agenda when people joined, its not on
the group agenda at all, and of course you can't make people follow your
agenda that don't want to, the best you can do is to filter new comers.

I did get Sharingwood to join with several other local communities to form a
bulk food buying coop.  The coop buys bulk food together in one large order
then splits it up,  and although not all of it comes from local sources,
much of it does, and it makes organic meals possible, although only a few of
us care about it. 

It is this which drives my energy into a future eco-village project. 

Rob Sandelin
>Sharingwood