Food Flotilla: GMO Banana Boats June 23, 2010

Hotep everybody!

It’s great to be here with Vegans of Color!

So, as you may soon learn about me, I’m pretty obsessed with the African diaspora.  If I can find any way to merge my love for diaspora with my love of food…I’m on it.  I sort of think I’ve eaten the most plantains of all vegans everywhere.  I have eaten so many plantains (and their hot cousin, the banana) in my vegan life, that I feel like Bubba on the bus next to Forrest when I get to talking about them.  Fried plantain, sweet plantain, green plantain, baby plantain, baby bananas, banana smoothies, bananas with peanut butter, bananas with soy yogurt…bananas with a rash.

Yep, that last one, bananas with a rash, was the least tasty and fun.  Not to go into the gory, weeklong details, but this damn rash felt like my body was an overpopulated red ant hill.  At first, I loaded up on cortisone, oatmeal rubs, shea butters and neem oil, but nothing changed.  I was still on fire and was definitely dealing with some embarrassing business.  After much anguish, it occurred to me to change my diet.  First went the orange juice. Nothing changed.  Then I added kombucha. Some relief ensued but nothing dramatic.  And then the moment of truth came.  After a long day of work, with very little to eat, I turned towards a banana before strolling over to a friends house.  Five minutes between the last bite of banana and my foot hitting his door, I was jumping out of my clothes like I had been promised legendary sex.  After much writhing, scratching, crying and calling on the heavens for mercy, I was covered in lotion and panting in the bathroom; cursing bananas and their deceptive good looks.  With more thought over the origins of my latest outbreak, it occurred to me that my mainstream mega grocery store purchased bananas were the source of my extreme pain. People: even my eyelids burned.

Now I know, and I’m sure you can gather, that my body is so interesting that we can and should talk about it all day.  However, I won’t push it.  What I am looking to speak to, however, is the danger of genetically modified foods. I am absolutely certain that what I have developed sensitivity to the monocrops that are often sold at large grocery chains that are not organic, nor are they sustainable for our ecosystems or for their consumers.

The insustainability of GMO food-products should be of particular concern to us as vegans of color knowing that are communities are systematically under-resourced with fresh produce.  The produce that is available (and perceptibly suitable for consumption) is often not organic, and therefore subjected to pesticide (at an overstated “best”) or a genetically modified food product at its worst.  When Haitian farmer’s are refusing Monsanto’s GMO seeds in the wake of an infinitely far-reaching disaster, we should be thinking deeply about the speculative effects of modified foods upon our individual bodies, and by extension, upon our communities.  What will happen to our reproductive systems?  What will happen to our fetuses in utero? What will happen to our immune systems?   Our babies?  Our adolescents? And our elderly community members? Our natural ability to heal ourselves with food?

To conclude on a productive note, I won’t delude myself with the idea that we will all go out any by organic at my behest (because I am still tippin on pesticides and food-products when my budget is pressed).  I will say though that those of us with the resources in knowledge, time, and/or money should be furthering urban farms, farmers markets, affordable locally grown organic foods and growing food ourselves.  If these aren’t appealing, ramping up our talking points and putting our skills towards increased (awareness off) WIC and LINK access at Whole Foods, Trader Joes, Yes Organic, etc can make a tremendous difference.  Ultimately, we can do an immeasurable amount of good if we put our energy behind making sure we engender more pathways towards harm-reduction than by letting the “organic” debate go on under the guise of a conversation about vitamins and price. If we don’t, how many of our most physically vulnerable community members gain the value of living more holistically when what is perceptibly whole breaks them down?

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It’s Not All Bad News in Mississippi June 7, 2010

Mississippi has been marred with label of having the most obese children in the nation. Over forty-four percent of Mississippi children between the ages of 10 and 17 are obese or overweight.  Mississippi also has one of the highest percentages of African-American people out of all fifty states. Therefore it would be safe to assume that many of these children being affected by overweight and obesity are African-American or children of color. In a state surrounded by farmland it is hard to imagine that food-deserts would exist and yet they do. Food deserts are not unique to big cities and “urban” areas, they exist in every corner of our country even where the farmland is abundant and the soil is rich.

But it’s not all bad news. I continue to read article after article about community efforts to increase the amount of healthy, fresh fruits, vegetables, legumes and grains available to these food deserts. Community and Urban Gardens are leading the way.  The video below is of one of these gardens. This garden touches my heart especially because the children are given the opportunity to take part in the process of growing and cultivating their own crops. It not only gives them a sense of pride but a higher propensity to eat fresh fruits and vegetables for life.

I tried to insert the video but unfortunately I keep on doing something wrong so here’s the link on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/user/PBSNewsHour#p/u/10/_g-X8GNBYCM