Back to the garden

Penny and I went to see the film, Fresh, Friday night at the Gillloz Theatre.

The screening was hosted by the Well-Fed Neighbor Alliance, whose original goal was to plant 1,000 vegetable gardens in Springfield. One of the speakers said more than 3,000 gardens have been planted locally.

According to Fresh, American agriculture is increasingly controlled by big business, which is producing huge quantities of food in ways that wrecking the environment and endangering consumers.

Industrially produced food from corporate farms and feed lots is loaded with antibiotics and pesticides, which are harmful to our bodies. Moreover, this food is of minimal value nutritionally.

Maybe "an apple a day" is no longer good advice--unless it's a locally grown apple.

Fresh also explores solutions to our food crisis. Solutions include planting backyard and community gardens and raising our own fruits and vegetables; and shopping at farmers' markets and grocery stores that carry food produced or grown locally on small family farms and ranches.

Buying our food from small farmers and ranchers, who are our neighbors, means that we get delicious, nutritious food. It's free of pesticides and antibiotics. And it was produced in ways that preserved the earth.

Buying locally also keeps money here and promotes a healthy job-producing economy.

Surely, "fresh and healthy" was what God had in mind when He commanded those first humans to "tend and till" the garden. In eating the produce from our own gardens and in buying food from local farmers and ranchers, we take take another step in our return to Eden, life as God created it to be.