Self-sustaining

Submitted by Michael on Tue, 05/26/2009 - 10:59

I have written previously (perhaps approaching cliche by now; you decide) about having two blogs and wanting to have one — not by jettisoning one by having them merge organically. Here's another post that fits in both places — about sustainable living (no link; you're reading it) and food issues, at fisherblue.com/blog; in fact, I starting writing this at the other one.

As I found myself drawn to writing about sustainability, it was mostly in terms of energy efficiency, global climate change, and the like — this is probably the most common perception for that word. I write about food issues, particularly about food addiction — because of my experience going back to early childhood and continuing, in recovery, to this day.

But what is more sustaining than food? It's right there on the top shelf, along with clothing and shelter.

The junctures of food and sustainability has been plumbed fabulously by Michael Pollan. In "Omnivore's Dilemma," especially, he talks about how most people have lost the connection between food and nature, both in how so many of us think food comes from a store, not a farmer, and how the endless processing of food leads to the same sort of disconnect, that food comes from a lab, not a field.

I am still very much a part of that world, but I'm breaking free. One way is to grow some of my own food. With so many undeveloped and/or atrophied ties to the natural world now (re)awakening, I don't know where it will end. 

I keep thinking I should draw all those ties together, but I'm finding them so varied that they're hard to bundle. I'll work on that.

Speaking at Commonwealth Club

I will be speaking on the topic of food addiction at the Commonwealth Club of California, the oldest public affairs forum in the country, on Feb. 28. I'll be joining a fabulous panel of researchers and clinicians: Nicole Avena of Princeton and the University of Florida, Eric Stice of the Oregon Research Institute, Vera Tarman of Renascent Center of Toronto, abd Elissa Epel and Andrea Garber, both of the University of California at San Francisco. I am very excited to be part of the roster, not to mention to be appearing at such a great institution. Ticket information here; if you come, please stay afterward to say hello.

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