Resting Easy ~Joel Salatin

“Food security is not in the supermarket. It's not in the government. It's not at the emergency services division. True food security is the historical normalcy of packing it in during the abundant times, building that in-house larder, and resting easy knowing that our little ones are not dependent on next week's farmers' market or the electronic cashiers at the supermarket.”

~ Joel Salatin

More at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Salatin

Artwork from Kristine Kainer  https://www.kristinekainer.com/

We Understood ~ Mohammed Faris

“Not long ago, local farms and markets were the only source of food in one's life. We understood where our food came from, the ground in which it grew, and its link to our Creator. Today, however, with the globalisation of the food industry and the ever-increasing urbanisation of humanity, we've lost this link to the earth and forgotten our dependence on the Creator to provide food for us.”

~ Mohammed Faris

More at  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ProductiveMuslim

Artwork is a mural worked on by several artists. More at:

https://www.langleyadvancetimes.com/entertainment/collection-of-32-murals-to-be-unveiled-at-b-c-farm-museum-in-fort-langley-this-summer/

Our true Nature ~ Alice Reinheimer

"We take in the energy of the food we eat and it colors the energy we put out to the world. The world is increasingly full of empty food, food that was grown for maximum profit rather than as a source of nourishment. Empty food robs us of our vital energy and keeps us from fulfilling our intention. We’ve all felt dull and lifeless after a bout of eating crap food, unable to move or think clearly. This is our energy being robbed. This is our life force ebbing.

Many of us realize that we are not just our physical form, not just the thoughts in our minds, not just the biochemical reactions in our brains. We are not our ideas, or memories, or even our connection with others. We realize that we are indeed empty of Self. The paradox is that this ultimate view of our true nature rests on the relative truth that we are indeed made of substance and energy, based and rooted in the Earth and in our community. When we eat we are connecting our true nature to the sublime.

So why is it that we so often forget that eating is a sacred act? Why do we mindlessly stuff ourselves with food we know is not good for us?..........

When we have an intention to wake up and see things as they really are, we can eat to support our intention. We can feel how food nourishes us both in body and in spirit. We can feel how we are indeed part of the Earth and humanity and the greater energies. We can see how food grown in a way that nourishes and support the Earth is beneficial to more than just the land it was grown on. Its influence spreads out in transformational ripples. Every meal we can come back to our intention and reaffirm our connection to the Earth. If we forget or fall off, that’s not a problem, we simply come back and start again."

~ Alice Reinheimer

More at http://soilandhealth.org/blog-post/eating-as-a-sacred-act/

Artwork from  Michael Woloschinow
 http://thesoutherngallery.co.uk/artist-profile/michael-woloschinow

Ultimately Subversive~ Carol Deppe

" There is nothing we can do that is ultimately subversive - there is no act of gardening that is so profound a rebellion, there is no act of eating that is so potent a blow for food quality and food system sanity - as to take back the corn crop in our own backyards, and grow, breed, eat, and save seed of corn based upon an entirely different set of values.” 

~ Carol Deppe

More at http://www.caroldeppe.com/

Artwork from Clare Leighton

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clare_Leighton

An Act of Culture ~ Michael Pollan

“The shared meal elevates eating from a mechanical process of fueling the body to a ritual of family and community, from the mere animal biology to an act of culture.”  ~ Michael Pollan

More at  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Pollan

Artwork from Emmy Lou Packard   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmy_Lou_Packard

Not to Eat it ~ Helen Nearing

"When you are faced with food that has been sterilized, fumigated, hydrogenated, hydrolyzed, homogenized, colored, bleached, puffed, exploded, defatted, degermed, texturized, or if you don’t know what has been done to it, the safest rule is not to eat it.......The preparation of food has become a form of mass production where it was once an individual craft. Hundreds of homesteaders we know are raising their food and saying, “Don’t buy it; grow it. Use what you have instead of buying what you don’t need.” But the ads blare out: Buy our easy foods. Here it is: all cleaned and cut up, sanitized, colored, flavored, fortified, dehydrated, treated to last: “breakfast foods, milled, grilled, baked-up, dried-up, puffed-up, roughed-up, packed in cardboard, kept for months, and sold at the pistol point of publicity campaigns.”

~ Helen Nearing

More at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Nearing

Artwork by Mike Jaroszko http://www.pbase.com/sarrana/mike_jaroszkos_art_gallery&page=all

Two Steps from the Dirt ~ Kristin Kimball

"Maybe most important, farm food itself is totally different from what most people now think of as food: none of those colorful boxed and bagged products, precut, parboiled, ready to eat, and engineered to appeal to our basest desires. We were selling the opposite: naked, unprocessed food, two steps from the dirt.” 

~ Kristin Kimball

More at (in fact so much more, Kristin and Mark's blog is outstanding)
http://www.kristinkimball.com/blog/

Artwork from Stephen Alcorn http://www.alcorngallery.com/

Another Way of Life ~ Claudio Oliver

"We called ourselves 'urban farmers' not because it sounded trendy, but because that was the best way we found to express our loyalty to the God of creation. We have no loyalty to the false god called 'market' and its mediator 'money'. Through gardening and composting, we create a new relationship with animals and plants: we are affirming another way of life, where the  rhythms and balance of creation can express the freedom the Creator has promised us."

~ Claudio Oliver

More at http://www.plough.com/en/ebooks/qr/plough-quarterly-no-4

Artwork from Peter Nevins http://www.peternevins.com/

Agrarian Art ~ Gene Logsdon

"As a working definition of art, I lean toward Tolstoy's: "Art is a human activity having for it's purpose the transmission to other of the highest and best feelings to which mankind has risen." It seems to me that, regarding agrarian art, the farther it moves away from the natural world, especially when the main goal is money profits, the more difficult it becomes for it to reflect "the highest and best feelings" of humanity. The same is true of, of course, of agriculture itself. The farther it tries to remove itself from nature in search of money, the more it moves away from the highest and healthiest kinds of food.” 

~ Gene Logsdon

More at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Logsdon

Artwork from Jan Ritchie http://www.artweeks.org/galleries/2014/jan-ritchie-woa