Reclaiming Hope for Top-Down Social Change

I am a vocal advocate for social change, giving talks, using my classroom as a venue for opening eyes and hearts, creating and hosting events like the Venice Harvest Xchange, and trying to live consciously.  These acts have been focused on individual, grassroots movements, or bottom-up social change. While I talk about the possibility of and need for policy-level, top-down change, I'd nearly given up hope.  Like many others, I find it hard to trust politicians.  That said, I thought I would share some recent experiences that have given me a renewed sense of hope.

Last year, I had dinner with Eric Mar while I was working at Yale. He has been a very vocal advocate for change--perhaps most famous for his proposal to ban toys in happy meals, and taking lots of heat for his idea.  Still, he continues to fight.  I told him about the Food and Flowers Freedom Act that Los Angeles passed in 2010, and he expressed his displeasure for the fact that LA was ahead of San Francisco in terms of a progressive food policy.  Not long after, a similar proposal passed in SF.

I met several policy makers during the LA neighborhood and city council convergence last year, where I was given the opportunity to speak about ways to "green" LA.  I chose to focus on improving the quality of our food system, my favorite topic as of recent. More specifically, I spoke about changing an antiquated policy that requires gardeners to purchase an agricultural permit in order to grow food in parkways (the little strip between your sidewalk and the street).  These permits to grow food can cost upwards of $400, but growing grass, trees, shrubs, and flowers requires no permits and costs nothing.  That's just silly.  What's even more silly, is that the law is actually being enforced. Ron Finley, a friend and Andre's neighbor, has been made an example, being cited, fined, and threatened to have the garden that feeds himself and his neighbors cut down.  Many of the neighborhood council members agreed that change was necessary, but they weren't exactly sure how to make that possible.  Thankfully, Ron has now stopped receiving citations, and while is garden is safe for the moment, the laws still need revising.

I think of California as being the leader for change in the country--many things good flow out of the west.  Last night, I found hope outside of California.  Thanks to my friend Denise, I got to have dinner with Congressman Tim Ryan, author of Mindful Nation.  It's been a while since I've felt like positive social change could come from the top-down, so long that I'd almost given up hope.  This fellow Midwesterner promotes the infusion of mindfulness practice in schools, the armed forces, and the workplace.  He seems genuinely interested in creating policies that foster consciousness and community cohesion.  What a light.

Plans for the foraging adventure have primarily been focused around interviewing people who are working around the system, advocating for change from the bottom-up, living as change agents.  Thanks to last night, and the reminder of my recent interactions with public officials, I am filled with a renewed sense of energy and hope for top-down change. I am curious about those who are trying to change the system from within, so please leave a comment if you have any recommendations for people I might like to meet.

morel bliss

Nature has no landfills... plants grow with the help of nutrients in the soil, animals eat the plants, and insects and bacteria eat and decompose animal dung and animal remains. The decomposed waste nourishes the soil, and the soil helps the plants grow again. An entirely closed-loop system. In modern-day society, though, waste is abundant. 


For almost 2 years, I have been working to reduce waste, one plate at a time. It all began in a sushi restaurant. Richard and I had just sat down, both starving, as a large group sitting next to us paid their bill and left. Their table was full of untouched and partially picked at sushi rolls, tempura, and pieces. Richard grabbed a piece of roll, which at first made me a little uncomfortable. It looked really delicious, but feeling too shy to grab a piece myself, I asked him to get one for me.  A freegan was born.  


I didn't immediately eliminate trips to the market from my list of weekly activities, but I can count on one hand how many times I have needed to go on a major shopping spree in the past year. Between the backyard garden, the mountains, and grocery store dumpsters, I would say that I eat better than most upper-class Americans, and I know the research!  Liberating food from the tyranny of the dumpsters, and the eventual landfill, isn't just about getting free food. I have a good job, after all. For me, I simply cannot tolerate the idea of good food rotting, contributing to the greenhouse gas effect, given the amount of energy, water, human sweat and sometimes love, that went into the creation and production of that food. 


Tonight I made pasta topped with loads of morels sauteed with caramelized onions, garlic, and kale. A completely foraged meal, less the salt, pepper, and oil (although I could have used butter from the trash, but opted for something lighter). Some would call it waste. I would call it delicious.

Unless you've been living in a cave, completely isolated from the rest of society, you've probably heard something about the negative consequences of our current food system. Countless books, magazine and newspaper articles, documentaries, and scientific reports have been written on topics such as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, the potential problems associated with the use of Monsanto Round-Up ready chemicals and genetically modified seeds, social injustices and mistreatment of farm workers, diet-related diseases, climate change, etc., etc., etc. I could spend months discussing the perils of modern-day agriculture. In fact, I do. I teach two classes this semester related to food--Best Practices in Sustainability, in which I cover food, water, waste energy, transportation, and building, and other course called Cognition and Food, in which I discuss how cognitive factors influence our choices, in many cases outside of conscious awareness, and the consequences of how we nourish (malnourish is a more appropriate word) our bodies. That's not what I want to write about today, though. I'll spare you the gory details and, instead, present a new paradigm of thought.

First, a quick (hi)story. Farming practices have evolved, and how. We shifted away from manual labor towards machine labor as a means of making hard chores easy. After all, work a day in a field and you'll know, farming is hard, back-breaking, work. This shift freed up time for farmers to devote their lives to family, leisure activities, and other jobs (which brought in more income than farming). At the time, this seemed like a good thing--a really good thing, actually. However, like many of the choices that we make (and I use make, lightly), the transition was not fully conscious, meaning, not mindful of the evolutionary process that would result in a system now referred to as factory farming, or large-scale agribusiness, rather than the farming we'd grown to know and love. Thus, when pondering solutions to the problems created by this shift, we might first ask ourselves, where did the farm go and when did the factory begin? You see, we got here because it was easier than Bubba lifting a bail of hay.

We simplify the world by making hard problems into dichotomies… black, white; farm, factory; good, evil. In ranting about Polyface versus Monsanto, we are still speaking the dialect of good versus evil, us versus the enemy. This dialect is one of war, and in a conscious society, should just be considered silly. So breaking free from that paradigm of thought, shifting away from blame and judgment, is what we need to focus on. Now is the time to change the paradigm. In fact, we need a radical paradigm change, one that embraces and accepts our historical successes and failures, and then moves forward. We do not know what the future will look like, but we do know that we are living in a time that doesn’t work anymore. We cannot continue to live in a world where there is radiation-tainted consciousness.

My focus is on food, for several reasons. First and foremost, food is essential for maintaining human life (it's also delicious). Then, the production of food has massive implications for water quality and preservation, air, transportation, energy, and global health. It’s easy to complain about how problematic our current food system has become. What’s not easy is presenting alternatives. That’s the dialogue I want to open up here; so, let's get started.

Los Angeles has made some pretty radical since I moved here in 2007. For example, in 2010, the City Planning Commission voted unanimously to pass the Food and Flowers Freedom Act, which allows backyard gardeners to sell their goods at farmers markets and restaurants. No special certification process is required. Some of the benefits include increased social networks (now you know your farmer/neighbor), local sustainable job creation (unemployment in LA is more than 13%), better storm-water management (more green space to protect from urban runoff), and higher levels of food security (breaking free from a poisonous food system). In addition, research shows that children (and child-like adults) prefer to consume foods that are familiar, so being exposed to food growing in the neighborhood should transfer to food preferences and choices. Want a kid to eat her vegetables, expose her to them, repeatedly.

As an urban forager, much of my diet comes for free (not factoring in time). I hunt exotic mushrooms, edible wild plants, and have even been known to eat off the plate of attractive strangers who leave tasty treats behind. In the last year, I shifted away from veganism and towards freeganism, partly as a form of civil disobedience. Like me, organizations such as Food Forward and Fallen Fruit both take advantage of the bounty that exists around us. These groups practice gleaning, picking fruit from neighborhood trees that would otherwise fall to the ground and rot. In the case of Food Forward, they donate their harvests to local food banks and shelters. In the case of Fallen Fruit, they provide free maps to tress that grow on or spill over onto public property. In both cases, they are providing fresh food to citizens who would otherwise need to purchase it. Create a map of your own neighborhood and share it, better yet, take your neighbors for a walk and host a community feast!

If you can’t find it or glean it, maybe try swapping it. That’s what my friends and I started doing at what we call the Venice Harvest Xchange. We created a food-swapping club where locals can trade their bounty for things they need or want, a system that is largely free of money and totally under the radar of regulation (just sign up to be a member of our club, and a statement acknowledging your understanding that our food has never been inspected by a government official). At these VHX meetings, "vendors" offer jams and other preserved foods, homemade granola, fresh garden fruits and vegetables, local wild mushrooms, pizza from a wood-burning oven that we built out of dirt, and more recently, clothing, massages, tinctures, essential oils, art, jewelry, and so much more! Club members have no need for permits or a prohibitively expensive commercial kitchen… just trust. Now, how's that for an alternative?

Finally (for today), start your own "Victory Garden" in protest of the war waged by agribusiness against clean water, our right to information and transparency, and affordable healthy food. If you don't have a green thumb, there are plenty of organizations out there to help get you started. On the Westside, for example, we have the Westside Permies, a group of permaculturists and volunteers who convert lawns into food gardens once a year, for free (minus garden supplies unless you qualify for a scholarship). There are a number of other professional groups, such as Farmscape, who will build your garden, maintain it, and even pick the vegetables for you if you'd like. How simple is that?

It is our responsibility to engage in a broad social movement that works towards a culture that holds humanity above profit, where social justice is the rule, not the exception. As in this post, in future posts during my 7-month journey across the country, time spent reconnecting with the land, I hope to present alternative models of eating--living really. Rather than fight the system, we could free ourselves from it. When we decide to walk away from the “us versus them,” “good versus evil” dialectic paradigm and towards one that unites us, working side by side, hand in hand, connected to nature and each other instead of separate, only then will we see change.

Forage Voyage

It doesn't quite rhyme... but this is my next project and I'm eager to share it.

The purpose of the Forage Voyage is to collect information for and make substantial progress towards the completion of a book. Recently, a flurry of books (e.g., Omnivore’s Dilemma, Food Fight) and films (e.g., Food Inc., Fresh) have emerged. These works have attempted to link together problems in our modern-day food system with their associated consequences on human life. In some ways, the problems defined by previous works have been narrow in scope, focusing on specific ways that our food system affects health, the climate, or the relationship between politics and agribusiness. However, what we choose to eat has widespread implications, and previous works have failed to demonstrate the interconnected nature of food and the consequences that consumption has on global health. So, I will venture into the wild, foraging meals along the way, to write a book in hopes of making those connections more clear. In the book, I plan to frame our food system in its historical and psychological context. Specifically, I will discuss events that helped shape our modern-day food system, from evolutionary adaptations psychological preferences to public policies that have both worked and failed.

Food is essential for human life, and the progress we have made in designing a food system aimed at reducing hunger and malnutrition has been successful in some key ways, but limited in others. At the same time, modern-day agriculture has adverse impacts on health and the environment. Perhaps the most obvious impact of our food choices is on physical health. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) claims that obesity has been steadily increasing since 1985, when rates were less than 10% in most states. By 1997, most states had obesity rates between 15-19%. As of 2010, obesity rates were greater than 20% in every single state, and in 13 states, were greater than 30%. Only 20% of Americans get enough exercise, however, that figure has not changed since 1986, suggesting that our food environment is the cause of increased obesity. As a result, 4 out of the 6 leading causes of death (heart disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes) in this country are diet-related. This is not an American problem, the consequences of obesity are spreading; diabetes is projected to increase by 75% in China and 135% in India by 2030.

Obesity has been attributed to the consumption of highly processed foods, which are calorically dense and nutritionally poor. According to the USDA guidelines, only 5% of our daily calories should come from fat and sugar. However, the average 10-year old reports consuming 46% of their daily calories from added sugars and fats. Processed foods are more convenient than fresh fruits and vegetables, and appear more affordable at the register. However, the true cost of food is not reflected in its price tag because some crops are subsidized by tax dollars, such as corn, which is used to make unhealthy foods like corn syrup, rather than to fresh vegetables. In fact, in 2007, 74% of our government-sponsored farm subsides were allocated to meat and dairy, which should comprise only 20% of our diet.Whereas, 35% of our diet should be based on fruits and vegetables, but less than 1% of the farm subsides went towards those crops. Hence, a salad costs more than a McDonald’s Big Mac. Moreover, chronic diseases account for 75% of U.S. healthcare costs, another cost that is not reflected in the price tag.

Beyond the health of our bodies, food choices are environmentally costly in other ways. For example, agriculture is responsible for nearly 70% of all water usage. It takes a lot of water to grow and produce the food that we consume, with some foods, such as meat and dairy, being thirstier than others, such as vegetables. The type of agricultural system we have perfected in this country is also polluting water essential for life. In fact, agriculture is responsible for 70% of all water pollution, and 97% of all rivers and streams in this country tested positive for agricultural pesticides, 20% contained 10 or more different pesticide compounds, and 95% of edible fish, mollusks, and freshwater aquatic life test positive. Some individuals are affected by pollution more than others, contributing to social injustices. For example, farm workers exposed to occupational chemicals, often poor minorities, have high rates of prostate cancer.

These statistics are not new, but the analysis will be. As a Psychologist, I have a unique perspective on and understanding of our food choices. If the demand for real food, over food-like (highly processed) products, were to increase, then we could eliminate many of the problems associated with our food system. So, why do individuals choose to consume certain foods over others? This is the story of my book, and has been the aim of my research and the foundation for the classes that I have developed over the past 4 years. My research has been funded by the National Institute of Health (NIH), and I have been privileged to work directly with some of the leading food researchers in the world. In my book, I plan to discuss evolutionary preferences for salt, sugar, and fat; food addiction; how packaging, labels, and facts affect our choices; and, very importantly, how disconnected we have become from our food and the land on which it is grown (topics grounded in the field of Ecopsychology). I will propose a number of solutions, something that the previous works have largely failed to do, which involve reconnecting with the land—putting a new twist on an old ideal. I will draw from research examining how natural experiences impact psychological wellbeing and consciousness. In addition, I will use my experience as a forager and urban gardener to tell the history of food, and to describe how being disconnected from the land on which our food grown results in a devaluation of our bodies (leading to obesity and health issues), a devaluation of each other (leading to social injustices and greed), and a devaluation of this planet (leading to pollution and a loss of biodiversity).

I'm heading out of LA on a diesel powered bus, which I'll live in for 6 months. I'll forage all my meals (hopefully), and trade what I can't find for goodies like red wine. I made my first batch of mugwort beer this week, but I can't go without the red wine... it's healthy, after all. My boyfriend, Andre, will be joining me, filming, collecting, setting up meals and events, and helping me write field guides and contributing to this book in various ways. The Forage Voyage departs at the end of May, and will follow the rain that feeds the mushrooms. This is just the start of many more posts to follow... stay tuned and spread the word. If you're interested in helping, please contact me!

The Consequences of our Food Choices, Part 1

I'm about to fly out to Washington DC where I will give an invited talk at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association. I'm quite thrilled and honored to be presenting at this conference, and I'll be discussing my most recent studies on food choices. I almost didn't post today, but I don't want to start that trend again... so, here's a little something based on the work that I will be discussing.

For the past couple of years, I’ve become increasingly interested in understanding how and why we choose to consume certain foods over others. I believe this research is important because our food choices are both personally and socially relevant to issues such as our physical and psychological health, the environment, social justice, our economy, and our political structure.

Perhaps the most obvious impact of our food choices is on physical health, and this tends to be what most people focus on. In the past 25 years, we’ve seen huge changes in obesity rates. In fact, less than 10% of our population was classified as obese in 1985, and nearly 30% falls within that category now. Nearly 7 out of 10 American adults are classified as either overweight or obese. Everyone likes to pick on Americans, perhaps because we started the trend, but obesity is a global crisis. And obesity in children is even more alarming, because we form many of our food preferences and eating habits during early childhood, and rates in the Americas exceed 30%.

So, what’s going on? Well, it’s a complex issue but I think we are gaining some insights. While it’s certainly the case that we’re not getting enough exercise, that fact hasn’t changed in the past 25 years. Approximately 20% of adults got the recommended amount back in 1985, and that figure hasn’t changed. So if we’re not expending fewer calories, we must be taking more in than our bodies can use. We’re eating more processed foods, which are calorie dense and nutritionally poor. And we’re taking in more sugar and fat than ever before. The average 10-year old is consuming 46% of their daily recommended calories from added sugars and fats, when only 5% is recommended by the USDA.

This lifestyle is reeking havoc on our bodies, with 4 of the top leading causes of death being attributed to our diets, or lack thereof. In fact, obese individuals are 2-3 times more likely to die from cardiovascular disease than their slimmer counterparts, and are at a much greater risk for developing Type 2 diabetes.

Let’s move beyond health, which is something we don’t often do. Our food choices are depleting essential resources necessary for maintaining life and are environmentally costly in a number of ways. For example, agriculture is responsible for nearly 70% of all water usage. It takes a lot of water to grow and produce the food that we consume, with some foods like meat and dairy requiring substantially more than others, such as peas.

And the type of agricultural system that we have perfected in this country is creating a toxic environment. What water isn’t utilized by our crops and livestock is often polluting the water we need for drinking—97% of our waterways contain detectable amounts of agricultural pesticides.

Let’s talk social justice for just a moment. Often the farm workers growing and harvesting our food suffer the most, and many of these workers are poor minorities. Research funded by the National Institute of Health blames occupational chemicals for increases rates of prostate cancer in farm workers.

Food also requires a great deal of energy to produce and transport. I heard Michael Pollen say that it takes 7 liters of oil to produce 1 Big Mac, and we’re certainly using more than our fair share of oil. In fact, we use nearly twice the amount of oil as other developed nations.

We fight wars for black gold so that we can create food-like products that require much more energy than we get out of them. It takes 2200 energy calories to produce 1 calorie of a diet soda. Does this make any sense? Is anyone else asking themselves this question right now? What do we do… stay tuned!

Venice Harvest Xchange, a movement towards food sanity

The VHX is a movement, not merely an event. Last Sunday my friends and I held the first "official meeting" of our new food club, the Venice Harvest Xchange. Modeled after the San Francisco Underground Market, backyard gardeners, urban foragers, and food producers who cannot afford a commercial kitchen license, now have a venue at which to offer their goods. Sunday brought out 12 food producers and over 100 attendees, who tasted, traded for, and purchased whole foods like kale, rainbow chard, salad greens, lemon verbena, hummus, celery and apple cardamon soup, an assortment of dried mushrooms, spinach and feta quiche, raw chocolate raspberry bars, roasted peppers preserved in garlic infused oil, plum butter, chocolate flourless cake, cilantro pesto, cabbage wraps topped with cashew cream, fresh fruit smoothies, and the most delicious and healthy granola that I've ever had the pleasure spooning into my mouth (thank you, Andre!). The hit of the day was the wood-fired pizza, baked in a hand-built earth oven (designed by Andre and built by he, Nicolas, and yours truly), which was loaded with heaps of fresh vegetables, basil, and a hint of mozzarella. What a joy it was to see this event finally come to fruition, after living it out only in my mind for the past 2 years.

Consuming locally produced and sourced food (as opposed to food-like products) should not be a privilege, available only to those who can afford to stroll the farmers markets or the isles of upscale groceries that claim to offer "whole" or "conscious" foods. That said, I don't take my privileged food access lightly, especially here in the United States, where our food is literally killing us. The over-consumption of food is to blame for 3 of the 4 leading causes of death, making our water toxic, and contributing to serious changes in our climate, not to mention reeking havoc on our social and political reputation. Ironically, the problem with our current food system is a direct result of its success. In fact, we have been so successful at industrializing agriculture that we now produce about 3,800 calories per person per day, leaving nearly 70% of all Americans either overweight or obese and costing society billions of dollars in healthcare costs annually. Retired military officials recently claimed that food has become a threat to national security. In a report entitled “Too Fat to Fight,” it is claimed that “being overweight or obese turns out to be the leading medical reason why applicants fail to qualify for military service.” At the same time, many Americans live in “food deserts” and struggle to obtain food. Something has gone terribly wrong, and what can we do to fix it?

Return to VHX. I am not such an optimist, or perhaps such a fool, that I believe the VHX is the ultimate solution to our food crises. It is a start--giving freedom to those who want to speak to the chef, know where their food comes from, and support a local economy that promotes bartering over buying. I do hope that it continues to be educational, fun, community oriented, and most of all open to anyone who wants to participate. Other markets, including the San Francisco market that gave rise to my idea to form VHX, have been shut down for fears of "food safety." Did you know that the FDA inspects less than 1% of all food imports, down from 8% in 1992? Ask me how I made my hummus, now that's food safety.

On Being a Freegan

I don't like labels, but I'll take this one. For the past few months, I've been living off the waste of capitalism. Without a doubt, I eat better than most of wealthy American. I certainly eat better than I used to, even when I restricted myself to shopping only at the local farmers markets and the amazing Co-Opportunity in Santa Monica. These days, my diet consists of blueberries, strawberries, bananas, pears, apples, oranges, fancy salads and packaged greens, tomatoes, potatoes, onions, celery, artichokes, eggs, the occasional melon, and other surprise treats like coconut water, lychees, roasted pistachios, and apricot walnut tarts. Much of the food I haul out of dumpsters parked behind nearby grocery stores is organic and consists primarily of fresh produce, bread, meat, and eggs. lt must be sorted, bits of it composted, and typically comes wrapped in packaging that needs to be recycled. Dumpster diving is less convenient and a little more time consuming than shopping just for what I plan to consume over the course of a week, but the food is free and I can't stand by quietly knowing that so much quality food is going to waste, especially given how much energy it takes to produce what we put onto our plates.

In Los Angeles alone, there are 1.7 million food insecure people living with hunger and malnutrition. At the same time, millions of pounds of food are trashed each day, translating into 3,000 pounds per second! Put simply, the quantity of food waste and packaging that ultimately ends up in a landfill, taking hundreds of years to decompose and producing harmful greenhouse gases, is an atrocity on multiple levels.

My friends have taken to eating the food I bring home from dives. They look forward to their weekly deliveries, and I'm working on setting up a specified delivery point at a friends house where we've stashed a spare refrigerator to store our loot so that I can eliminate the work of delivering (as if it's work to visit with friends). Ultimately, what I'd prefer is to see this food going to people who need it, not that my friends, many of whom are artists and earn very little money, don't fall into that category. But with so many people living with hunger just in my city alone, there should be a better way of distributing what grocery chains deem waste. I know many organizations are working on trying to foster 0-waste food policies, so hopefully my days of freeganism are numbered. In the meantime, I'll happily perch myself on my front stoop devouring a baby spinach salad laced with goat cheese, cranberries, and candied pecans. One woman's waste is another woman's treasure. Yum!