Dance with your Dinner....Joel Salatin....again!

"I have to go pick up dinner. I just love Qua111y Foods! I can pop in and I don't have to cook!"
Says a friend to Hubby and I as we were grabbing a Java at the local supermarket in between sessions of, you got it, Joel Salatin, LIVE in Courtenay!
The man himself spoke to a bunch of us here yesterday. What a personality, aura, intelligence, mind and speaker.
Our first session with Joel was pretty cool - about 45 people sitting around some tables for an open discussion with Joel. We all introduced ourselves talked a bit about our interests. Many said food security. When he asked about food security Blackwater came up. Scary stuff. What about the new bill (510) going thru in the states where the FDA can go on any farm and shut it down if they are not farming using science based methods. Many say this is an anti organic farming law. Joel said any law that Monsanto is for he is automatically against. He saves a lot of time reading legislation this way.
Can we feed the world without corn? And yes, we can. Processed food actually costs more than organic food if you look at the weights involved. For example, tonight, again on our break we saw a family of 4 (one toddler, one baby) spend $19 for dinner at QF, buying crap at the cafe. They could buy one of our chickens for that, and it would last 2+ meals, and have money left over for some yummy veggies. But they would only see that they were paying $4lb for our chicken.
I'm such a Joel Junkie that I had nothing big to add but appreciated the man's intelligence and ability to answer even the most vague question in an interesting manner.
Ironic that my friend was buying her take out dinner as we were on our way to the second part of Joel Day in Courtenay. Dance with Dinner. Connect with your food. Know how it's raised. Know what it ate. Know how it is prepared. Prepare it! Know your farmer.

During Dance with your Dinner Joel spoke of our disconnect with food - kids who don't know that carrots grow in the ground. How at 4 pm 75% of people still don't know what's for supper (me some of the time - that's why I made yummy tomato sauce...) How 25% of meals are eaten in the car. (Only if I buy ham and cheese croissants from Comox Valley Bakehouse on the way to swimming from piano.....) How we spend an average of 20 minutes in the kitchen preparing and cleaning up after meals. (Ok, I feel like I spend my life in the kitchen......so I have no idea where this stat comes from!) How our average food item travels 1500 miles. In 1900 the number was 100 miles. How some kids don't even know what a pot is....they just open boxes and microwave their dinner. Or like my friend, pick up take out at the supermarket. And let me tell you, not much at that store looked appetizing to me - Overcooked, overfried, overfoodcolored, sitting for overlong. YUCK.
Here in the Comox Valley there is a real grassroots movement of parents and people to meet the farmer, buy at the farmers' market and buy local. It is the buzz. Hopefully a long lasting one and not a fad. Gardening is huge here and in Cumberland, the small village near my home there are community gardens run by kids with moms supervising. Our farmers' market is full twice a week at the a field with live music, baking and of course coffee. I love going for the atmosphere. I love seeing all the farmers.
All in all an interesting evening but perhaps the wrong talk for the group of people who were there....We are already converted, we know all the shocking data - What is the next step?? How can we change the world and the attitudes of our fast food nation?

More on Joel to come. So much buzzing around in my head.