A Circle Has No Beginning

I am starting a new project at work where I will be working to make our hospital the first public hospital to have all local sustainably grown food in the cafeteria as well as for patient food. Extras from the gardens will also be used to supplement the food bank, which had suffered during the economic downturn. I will also be helping to start a farmers market at the hospital, promote CSA boxes, and talk hospital neighbors into letting www.MyFarm.com plant organic gardens in their yards to provide food to the hospital and community.
I am super excited about this new project. It is the kind of job I applied for but didn’t get. It has the infrastructure and support actually make change! Despite my enthusiasm for this project, as it goes forward I am face with some of the same questions that keep coming up as I begin to choose a career. Where, at what level, and how should these kinds of projects begin? Is it more important to make sure that everybody has food or that the food everybody has is healthy? I could buy 15 packs of ramen or an organic heirloom tomato. The ramen is highly processed, simple carbohydrates and has high levels of sodium. It lacks many nutrients and vitamins. It also is enough food for a meal for about 15 people. The tomato is packed with vitamins and nutrients and complex sugars, but would only feed one person, maybe. Which of these is better? It is like the endless chicken and egg question.
One of the most commonly treated problems in the patients that come to this hospital is diabetes, or rather complication that arise from, cause, and/or accompany diabetes. Type 2 diabetes, or adult onset diabetes occurs when the body either becomes resistant to insulin, which delivers food in the form of glucose from the blood to the cells, or when the body does not produce enough insulin. While there are many factors that contribute to the development of diabetes such as genetics, and age, the Mayo Clinic Website (www.mayoclinic.com) identifies obesity as a major risk factor for developing type 2 diabetes. “Being overweight is a primary risk factor for type 2 diabetes. The more fatty tissue you have, the more resistant your cells become to insulin.” The risks involved with an unhealthy diet are huge, but so to are those related to having no food, even if the food is of poor quality. Ideally high quality food would be available to everybody. I suppose that the natural foods project is reaching for this goal in what I am hoping to make an efficient and effective way.
There are more problems related to the idea of everybody eating fresh locally grown natural foods, mainly compliance. I love vegetables and eat them whenever possible, but I don’t like, and will not eat zucchini no matter how you cook it. It has a gross texture and smell and taste (in my humble opinion). At this hospital we are dealing with a huge immigrant population, as well as populations of people who have grown up eating what we have now determined to be very unhealthy processed foods. With some exceptions, tastes are acquired. They develop over a lifetime. My favorite foods are the ones that my mom gave me growing up (with exception of zucchini). Locally grown food means that the food, or rather the plant, thrives in this region and climate, which is unique. Foods that may be culturally significant for some people may not be available here; and foods that are available may taste like zucchini to some people. Other dilemmas in compliance include preparation time, which is longer that the wait in line at a fast food restaurant.
I recently read a New York Times article that quoted Adam Drewnowski on the bigger problems involved in food security. Drewnowski says “When you suggest that people buy rice, pasta, and beans, you presuppose that they have resources for capital investment for future meals, a kitchen, pots, pans, utensils, gas, electricity, a refrigerator, a home with rent paid, the time to cook...” Food is only part of the problem for people who don’t have any.
Messing with people’s food can go terribly wrong. With all of the cultural, language, and socioeconomic barriers standing in the way of easy communication, there is a large potential for misinterpretation. For example, it can be very confusing whether breastfeeding or baby formula is better for a baby. I have resources at my fingertips that can answer this question for me, but without these resources and with company advertisements telling me how fabulous their product is, it is easy to see how different conclusions can be reached. I fear the same type of effect with the natural foods program. While we want to convey the message of “natural, local, sustainable foods whenever possible” it could be interpreted at “local, organic, sustainable foods or nothing.”

It is my hope that the natural, local, sustainable, foods project is a huge success and emulated by public and private businesses including hospitals all over the country. I trust that my struggle, to determine which is the most important battle to fight first, is at least, enlightened as I work with more experienced public servants and community members.