Every child quickly gets the connecting pattern in this old nursery rhyme. A similar one goes something like “the foot bone’s connected to the ankle bone, the ankle bone’s connected to the leg bone,” etc. This morning, as I thought about the connections that brought me to this blog, I went through several of those childhood rhymes. Simple things, really, one thing connected to another. Just as in life--one simple event triggers a chain of events, sometimes leading to unimagined places and endeavors. Never would anyone have guessed that in retirement I would be growing my own food and raising my own chickens—for eggs and for meat. But a simple event connected to another event, and then to others—and here I am.
A little more than a year ago, Harvey and I went on a two-week trip to Nova Scotia—a fabulous place where the Broussard forebears were part of a thriving farming and fishing community. As always, before we left home, I made lists of things to pack and do. One thing that skipped my attention, however, was a loaf of just-purchased whole wheat bread sitting on my pantry counter. Under usual circumstances, I would have put the bread in the freezer or fridge to keep it from molding while we were gone.
This hardly seems worth writing about, but what I discovered when I returned really shocked me (the first event in the chain). As I went about unpacking, I found the loaf of whole wheat bread I had left on the counter. Fully expecting it to be green with mold, I picked it up and started toward the trash bin, examining it as I went. I was shocked to find no mold on the bread! It had spent the last two weeks in the dark, in a warm place, and no mold grew on the bread! What kind of preservatives were going around disguised as bread? It was then that I decided I would not buy bread any more. I would make my own. I wanted bread that would mold!
This event piqued my curiosity about the quality of food available to me through our Big Food supply chain. Every recall spurred me to find out more about our food industry and the dark secrets that have been hidden from most of us: the unsanitary conditions of feed lots, the concentration of antibiotics and hormones in animal products, the dangerous working conditions of the packing industry, the lack of nutrition provided by the processed food industry, the lack of government control over the food industry, the squeeze placed on farmers by Monsanto and other multinationals…and on and on and on. It is a frightening path to embark upon, and not everyone wants to follow it, but if you do begin to learn about where your food comes from and the deals that are brokered in getting it to your table, you are sure to end up as I did—looking for local farmers who sell real food.
There are many other connections related to this search for local, fresh, nutritious food, primarily connections that impact the health of individuals and our health-care system. But those will be the topics of other posts. For now, I thought you might want to watch a short video that relates to my initiating event—bread that wouldn’t mold.
Bread That Won't Mold
