More Food Rants

I just got back from a meeting at St. John's for people serving food at the community meals on Wednesday and Sunday. We talked about how volunteers can foster healthy eating habits through the meals they serve. This was a great idea, because the majority of the churches serve complete crap. I know it is very hard to serve nutritious meals for a large crowd, but Ash and I were pretty pissed off at the women wearing fancy jewelry and saying they can't afford to buy the healthier products. Ashley did a great job of explaining that Franklinton Gardens is happy to provide discounts on their produce, which is awesome even though it would definitely raise my blood pressure even more to see the gardens mark down their already incredibly reasonable prices for the types of churches that serve the meals. As long as it gets to our neighbors, though.

I wanted to say, "look, just serve food that you would want to eat yourself." It is not a hard concept. As a community, we are incredibly picky about the food that we buy and the meat that we eat, but we only serve at street church what we would make at one of our potlucks. Sometimes that means asking for discounts, but places, especially Blues Creek, have always helped us out. I was also slightly annoyed at how many people claimed that poor people would not eat quality food. There is certainly a problem in Franklinton with the quality of food available, but I don't think food tastes are naturally a socioeconomic class issue. Most people I know, myself included, would rather eat junk food than vegetables. Access to good food and education is the key concern.

I sometimes think that a fairly constant sense of moral indignation is how I compensate myself for no longer eating at McDonalds and living in fairly close proximity to crack houses. I don't know how healthy that is. I also know that my views on community meals changed when I moved to Franklinton and developed actual relationships with the people I eat with.

This image is called "Christ of the Breadlines" by Fritz Eichenberg.