JLoeats.com

“You can’t save the world J”
“but I can try! besides, wasn’t the world built on people trying to fight for their own agendas anyway? In their own little worlds?
Why can’t I fight for the creation of my own?”

My academic head never gives up.  It’s like a hamster wheel on crack. Run run run fattie! apparently the world is fat too. there’s even a book on it.

How dare they try to knock my spirits when my life is Food.  When food is the very sustenance that keeps us all alive.  The foundation of life that weaves through our social, political, and just rights.  The thing that makes us human.

“Relax, it’s just school, there’s more to life than school, is what you’re doing even practical?”

Gasp!.

It’s Wednesday night,
my head is stirred as usual coming out of my food policies class.  I am brain fried, frustrated, and passionate with a hot head about the realities of people living in this country.
Between defending that I’m a Food Studies Master’s Candidate and trying to explain  to people who look blankly at me when I tell them what I spend my time doing now, and getting all heated up in the on going ethical discussions in class on marketing “healthy and nutritious” foods that are all processed in which define our “western diet”, I am flabbergasted.  Especially now when large companies are trying to jump onto the ‘elitist’ movement bandwagon and making silly clams to sell their ridiculous products.

Is that even food?

and Elitism? Really? Sure the new wave organic / local / sustainability movement is exposing the real costs of foods, but isn’t protecting the free competitive market of our capitalist society inherently elistic too?  Doesn’t it inherently discriminate the underprivileged and misrepresented members of the marginalized part of society?  With this economic environment, isn’t anyone without money now, marginalized?  Who cares for them? Who cares about you?

EVERYONE is struggling now in this country to survive because of the recession, while
people talk about equality, but still feel as though they must ‘protect’ the interests of businesses and competitive free markets in order to keep everyone happy.

Isn’t it time for some TOUGH LOVE? We can’t make everyone happy, there’s no such thing.
Besides, aren’t we tired of Money making all the decisions for us on how we should live our lives and what they think is good for us depending on what they want to sell?

First, Who is doing the talking?! More Money!
and what peeves me the most is that people of power in this country (obviously the ones holding all the resources too) are so far removed from the faces of hunger and malnourishment (psychologically, physically, and emotionally) that it’s easy for them to point fingers and say – hey, you’re claiming all of this in objection to my business model — “prove it.”

Ughh, no two words peeved me more.
Kids are getting fatter, “prove it.”
people are getting sicker, “prove it.”

Millions of dollars are being wasted on studies showing obvious results that kids and people are fatter and sicker than they used to be based on the foods they’ve been eating.

So isn’t life experience enough as proof?
since when did that become invalid?

Perhaps it’s the storyteller in me that romanticizes this idea.  That people’s life stories, through the lens of FOOD should be told, should be heard, and taken to heart.
Since when did people stop caring?

I myself, often feel lost in my own world of food talk, so much so, that I often forget that not all people swim in it like I do, on a day to day basis, and relate everything back to food.

“What do you mean food has nothing to do with it?”
Isn’t the very fabric of our existence dependent on the idea that we must eat to survive?
How can you talk about life without talking about food? How can you talk about people without talking about eating?
Out of sight out of mind? But don’t we all eat twice a day?
Can you even argue that when we can never escape the realities of trying to feed ourselves no matter where you live and what your beliefs are?

“yes but I don’t care”
sure, sometimes I want to just give up and work on eradicating my own hunger first.
Throw my hands in the air in frustration and claim ‘I don’t care anymore’ myself – dependent of the fact that in doing so, it simply proves that i do care enough that it’s upset me to even have to say “whatever, I’ll deal with you later”…

“But we need people like you, to care about others in the world…”
how melancholy of a statement.
Thanks for at least trying to comfort me in the realities of my world.
This is who I am, I will not apologize for caring about things and being passionate enough to speak up about them often. Like the nerd in class who always speaks up, and as a friend, I smile that you appreciate me and are patient enough to hear me out.

What’s in it for you? Well, what’s in it for me is that I feel super good about myself when I feel like I’ve inspired, helped, or fed someone today.  How self indulgently sustainable. hahaha…

I promised myself when I started this program that I wouldn’t turn into another big grad school academic head, all inflated with notions of grandeur and elitism.  I can’t help but keep myself in check, since I feel so strongly about food and people.
Sometimes, I am just so sad from all the food talk in my life, instead of spending time creating joy from the act of eating, that I actually thrive on too.

I guess that’s what happens in this society, one that I have chosen to study,
one where there’s no time like the present to be in a constant search of myself and for balance too.

Because deep down, like anyone else other there, I just want to be loved in return, to sing and dance and enjoy my time too and learn about all the other juicy things in life,
One where my brain just gets to experience the joys of a sudden chemical imbalance of hormonal pleasure, of food, of good company,
and bask in a culture where i can <span style=”font-style:italic;”>just be me</span>, and not have to spend my time dissecting, alienating, and picking apart the system of food that represents and plays out all of the social inequities out of cultural context.  But alas, that would just be too easy no?

Yes, Thank God Page spent an hour talking to me while I scarfed down two slices of 2 bros’ 1 dollar pizza after class :)  For this I am grateful to have wonderful colleagues who are all going through the same thing, who I can draw from for inspiration in this emerging cultural food movement.  I guess in a couple of years, and hopefully within the next decade even, the retrospective look back will be more clear.  So all I can do is live off of the high, in choosing to take action and take part of this movement to begin with, right here, and right now.

Keep on trekking through…stay strong, be you.

I refuse to give up on the confidence and hope that I have fought to find in the last couple of weeks, and I believe because I care, because I want to love.
…and that is stronger than any push back, systematic structure built on empty cash out there. and cash is only power by the numbers no?…So what happens when there’s a shift in where that cash is in the world like now?

Viva la revolution!

Here, in my world, I constantly barter with love, with food, and with people.
Pull me out of this food world even for one night…
If only…

Keep on fighting the good fight girl,
because having the academic alacrity to sort through the Food Systems in this country,
is learning to sustain myself from a life of fighting for others who have no voice.
I choose,
because when I eat something completely satisfying,
I take pride in the ownership of having the right,
having the will, and having the means to feed my soul.
and I believe everyone should be entitled to that which not only keeps me alive,
but makes me feel like I am Living.

Paix*
xoxo
-Jlo