Green Changemakers Blog, April 4, 2009
Office Depot Director of Environmental Strategy Recognized with ‘Responsible Purchaser of the Year’ Award
If your food could talk, what would it say ?
From some yummy pasta to that juicy tomato, every item on your plate has a story to tell. While most of us see food for the first time on the grocery store shelves, its path can be traced back through the (often many) sets of hands that process it, finally back to farmers and seeds. The seeds themselves contain their own history, and the soil and water they need to grow also preserve a record of any chemicals or pollutants that may have been introduced.
In today's culture, the story of food has grown into an epic, with vast armies of processers, packagers, and people to cart waste away. The whole show appears so well-choreographed that it seems like it could go on forever...but it can't. When we speak of "sustainable" foods, we mean foods that are grown in a way that maintains the earth's ability to keep on growing, rather than farming like there's no tomorrow. This is a whole new way of looking at food, with the earth as a character instead of just a backdrop. This is Catering to the Earth.