The March Hare: Summer 2007 Issue 53

Cover Page • Cooking at DR • Nature Corner • BJ's Bio • Local Foods • Slow Food

Dancing Rabbit — A Slow Food Refuge

by Brian Liloia

Let me start off by saying that I am something of an idealist. That is to say, I strive to live a practical life that accounts for my underlying beliefs and worldview. This mentality permeates many facets of my daily being and how I want to live, including the food I want to eat. I devote a significant amount of energy to thinking about food: where it comes from, why I should or shouldn't eat it, health benefits, etc. "You are what you eat" is a very tired cliché, but nothing could be more true than that. Food is life. Of course, I simply enjoy good food, too, both cooking and eating.

Before coming to Dancing Rabbit as a resident, I lived in the heavily populated and developed suburbs of northern New Jersey. Living in that environment, I easily became frustrated by my inability to eat the way I envisioned as ideal. But what is ideal? For one, I love to know that the food I am eating is organic. Biting into a tomato that has been sprayed down with pesticides, or consuming wheat that has been genetically modified, is not something I would consider favorable, but unfortunately it's difficult to avoid the masses of chemical-laden foods and GMOs taking up the shelf space at the corporate grocery store these days. Highly processed foods are equally unappealing and widespread.

Even more difficult to achieve is a local foods diet. How many people have the ability to get the majority of their vegetables from a neighbor, or grow their own food in their backyard? If you're stuck in the suburbs or a city, chances are that most of the food that you eat has traveled hundreds, or more likely, thousands of miles before reaching your dinner table. It takes a lot of energy to transport and store all of that food in this globalized economy. It seems that the local foods movement is only slowly picking up, with knowledge about the seasonal and proximate availability of fruits and vegetables seeping into the mainstream consciousness. In my hometown, the dearth of local farmers markets (okay, well, there was one or two, but a market that sells Dole bananas and fruit shipped from South America is not what I would label a real "farmer's market") and the expense of eating organic foods is discouraging and challenging.

Thankfully, my diet ideals are closer to being realized at Dancing Rabbit. As a member of the Bobolink food co-op, I love knowing that the wheat I eat is grown only three miles away at Sandhill, that the tomato sauce is homemade and canned from organic and homegrown or local tomatoes, that our adoption of bulk foods is cutting back on the incredible wastefulness of food packaging, and that the meals are just darn tasty, and I look forward to each one. Many of my priorities-- organic, local, whole, and unprocessed foods, are highly cherished and adopted here. I will not claim that Bobolink (or Dancing Rabbit) is entirely perfect when it comes to these categories, though: we eat our fair share of rice shipped in from California, and I can't help but indulge in chocolate chips from Zimmerman's every so often, for example (I won't pretend to be the 100% perfect idealist). Nevertheless, the step towards the ideal diet has been immense and very encouraging, and I have a much better opportunity to advance my practical adoption of food ideals living in this environment at Dancing Rabbit. Since a decent chunk of food is grown here "on the farm" in gardens, and many vegetables are purchased from a local Mennonite grower, I feel comfortable knowing that much of the food I eat is local, fresh, and seasonal. Rarely do non- organic foods make it into the kitchen, processed foods are equally few and far between, and I love knowing my good health is more assured because of this. What better health insurance is there than to eat whole, healthy, and natural foods?

The progress has been great, and I only see increased improvements in the future. I anticipate the day when Dancing Rabbit grows the majority of its own food, depending on far fewer non-local foods. I feel comfortable knowing that my "ideal diet" will be attained with the increased efforts of the like-minded residents and members of DR.

Cover Page • Cooking at DR • Nature Corner • BJ's Bio • Local Foods • Slow Food

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