Tonight I made a pretty dinner plate of pan seared salmon, sweet peas, and a baked potato. I sat down at the dining room table and ate in silence. I didn't use the computer, I didn't read a book, I didn't listen to music. I just sat... and enjoyed the food I was eating.
I agree with the people out there that are saying we've lost our connection with food. The closest I've been involved with my meals is when I helped out in the little garden my family had at my childhood home. There was something very rewarding about being a part of the cultivation process. It was exciting to know that the tomatoes and corn I was eating came right out of my own backyard. These days I'm lucky to keep a bouquet of flowers alive. One goal of mine this year: attempt to grow a little garden.
We also don't sit down and eat together as much as we used to. When I was little, I remember a pretty consistent pattern of dinner at the dinner table, discussing our days, etc. Now, my family is so busy and everyone has such separate lives that our meals are often buffet style. There are also so many distractions around us (television, computer, newspaper, video games, etc.) that I'll realize on some days I visit the house that everyone has come into the kitchen, filled his or her plate, and gone into a separate area of the house to complete an individual task during the meal. I am as responsible for the shift as the rest of my family. But, I think it would be nice if we tried to get back to the basics on family dinner nights.
It is also nice to sit in solitude and eat. When is the last time you ate a meal without anything else to distract you? It's a good question to ask oneself. We've become so accustomed to immediate entertainment and instant gratification that it feels almost unnatural to pause and take a moment to enjoy the simplicity of the present. Another goal of mine this year: more meals eaten alone in silence.
Tonight I looked at the packaging for the salmon and discovered that it came all the way from Norway. I feel guilty. The main reason I'm slowly phasing into the complete vegetarian lifestyle is because of the amount of energy it takes to collect, process, and ship meat products to our local grocery stores. While I haven't given up seafood just yet, the fact that I'm in a land-locked state means access to fish has its limits and I'll often be stuck buying something from far away. Another goal: be aware of the origins of what I eat.
I've also gone vegetarian for, I guess you could say, the animal rights issue. I'm not going to deny that I love the taste of meat. For my entire life until this past summer I was one of those people that said, "I really just don't think I could ever be a vegetarian. Meat just tastes too delicious!" I'm not really sure what made the shift happen, but it just clicked one day in my head that I really did want to do this. I could never kill a cow, a pig, or a chicken myself, and the way animal production has turned into a factory-like system is something I don't really want to be a part of either.
I'll get off my pedestal now. There is no way that I'm going to go around judging peoples' individual eating habits--I just thought I'd share my own thought process on the topic.
If you are interested, however, in looking more into the idea of local food, animal rights or the food industry today, below are some links that I've found very interesting.
Food, Inc. -
30 Days - "Animal Rights" -
Fast Food Nation author, Eric Schlosser -
I've decided to take a break from talking about my house and start talking about another thing I can't ever get off my mind: food.
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