There's Something About Terry

That's the million-dollar question. Jumping on the organic bandwagon will probably mean higher profits for Wal-Mart, so they gladly carry products with the organic seal. But it's important to remember that Wal-Mart has very little concern for public health, the well-being of small farmers, or the economy of local communities.

Like you, I get mixed responses, which are usually influenced by age, class, education, and knowledge about these issues. The key to getting these messages across has been determining what might resonate with my audience and speaking in a language that is accessible to them.

One lie that most people need to unlearn is that we need to cook most of our food. While I would not consider myself a "raw foodist," I certainly include lots of uncooked plant-based foods in my diet (especially during the summer and early fall). Living and raw foods have enormously higher nutrient values than foods that have been cooked. It's not about being extreme either way, but most of us could stand to have a few more crunchy veggies in our diet.

I am a huge fan. Since 1984, they have expanded to more than 1,200 across the U.S. Not only do CSAs offer increased access to grub in urban communities, but they also provide an opportunity for members to get to know the people growing their food. And they create a space to build community with neighbors around grub. For information about CSAs, visit Local Harvest and the Robyn Van En Center for CSA Resources.

I get most of my food at farmers' markets in Oakland and Berkeley, Calif. It's important for me to establish relationships with the people I purchase my food from, and I want them to know that I appreciate them and all of their hard work.

Soul food is so complex and varied, depending on the region of the South that you're in, and it's hard to reduce it to a few staple products (although many people mistakenly do). There are certain staples that come to mind when I think of "soul food," like collard greens, black-eyed peas, yams, and okra, of course. But these foods are very specific to my memory of growing up in Memphis, Tenn. Someone living in coastal Carolina or Louisiana would probably come up with a different list. I would suggest Jessica B. Harris' Welcome Table for a broad overview of Southern foodways.

I think it's very important to connect work being done to improve the food system domestically with the global food-justice movement. My friend and coauthor Anna Lappé wrote a book -- Hope's Edge -- with her mother Francis Moore Lappé that brilliantly illuminates trailblazers engaged in social, environmental, and economic transformations around the globe.

I visited the South Central Farm and stood in solidarity with supporters right before they were evicted. It saddens me that the city would not be in full support of a beautiful oasis in the midst of a concrete jungle that fed over 350 poor Latino and African-American families since 1992. I see this less as a setback for the movement, however, and more as a wake-up call. We have to continue to create strong community-driven locally owned solutions to food injustice and know that market concerns are more important to corporations and governmental institutions than true community development. I am confident that something new and even more beautiful will emerge out of this tragedy, though.

The first thing I would suggest is doing a "community food audit." Anna and I developed the audit to help people determine what local resources are available for acquiring grub. After filling in the resources, we encourage people to share it with friends and loved ones. Spread the grub.

Because I strive to primarily eat what is in season, I create ingredient-driven recipes that are determined by what is available at local community gardens or farmers' markets in the Bay Area. The farmers' markets are starting to be bountiful, so I'm having a ball.

Since fast-food corporations control so much wealth and have the ability to influence so many people's minds through advertising, I think that it is important to keep one eye on them and hold them accountable. But I think most of our energy should go into educating people about why they should embrace grub. I would argue that being reactive is not as effective as creating a vision for the type of food system that we want to see and then working to build it. As Che Guevara said, "A revolutionary is motivated by love." So we have to build this just and sustainable food system based upon our love of the earth, animals, and each other. The fast-food corporations will soon be extinct like the dinosaurs that they are.

Sadly, most commercially produced canned goods come packed with high levels of fat, sugar, and salt. In fact, when people ask me to suggest strategies for reducing hypertension, one of the first things I recommend is cutting out commercially canned food products. But even if companies producing health-supportive grub decided to can it, health and safety codes require that canned foods be subjected to extreme heat (up to 250 degrees F) in order to make the food "safe." This heat obliterates the enzymes and delicate vitamins and nutrients that we need for boosting our immune systems, repairing our bodies, and fighting disease.

Honestly, I have not thought about this much. I think that some folks at The Food Project in Massachusetts might be able to answer your question better than I could. They started off growing vegetables on a farm outside of Boston and then later created urban farms and youth programs in the Roxbury/North Dorchester area of Boston. They now bridge these communities allowing youth working in their rural/suburban projects to work with youth working in their urban projects and vice versa. What a way to help young people discover their interdependence with each other as well as everything else.

Check out an article entitled "The 'Food Justice' Movement: Trying To Break the Food Chains" written by Mark Winston Griffith.

EAT GRUB!