Blog #29: Kumain ka na? (Have you eaten yet?)

12 haikus about food: preface

The memory of 

Chow’s late night bread pudding date

Falling in love twice

When I tell you that

I’m gonna remember this

Then you know it’s good

Oil, onions, garlic

The kitchen smells so damn good

That’s only the start

Mama’s big sweet tooth 

A fond memory of mine

The joy that taste brings

Lil local food truck

I hug the chef serving up

Dee’s poi mochi love

Her love language is

Steaming bowl of sinigang

A hug in a bowl

Big juicy mango

Orange-yellow goddess fruit

Summertime is prime

Someone asked me what’s

the best thing I ever ate?

I won’t answer that

Kumain ka na?

Nanay asks me lovingly

My eyes tell her “no”

 Egg, scallions, lemon

Top my hot arroz caldo

I can’t wait to eat

Sunday morning love

Feels like hot cocoa kisses

Warm and sweet inside

Eyes roll to the back

Savor a little longer

This moment will end

--

Food is necessary for us to survive. If we get enough calories in our system, we have energy to sustain us through the entire day. If we eat all our essential food groups and vitamins, we grow to be strong and healthy. 

What’s not essential to surviving? 

The pleasure of fulfilling a long awaited craving; the whiff of fresh baked chocolate chip cookies made with a whole lot of love; or the simple joy of hand selecting the best seasonal fruits and veggies from friendly locals at the Sunday farmer’s market. 

Food is a feeling. The hunger may hit first, and then the longing for a taste that will release the dopamine in our brain. Maybe it’s the taste of childhood, some viral foodporn from Tik Tok, or literally anything with sugar to satisfy a sweet tooth. A satisfying meal brings joy and fulfillment to our lives.

Food is a memory. When I eat something really good, I always say something along the lines of: “I’m definitely going to think about this later…” Like every other sensation/experience/memory, I know the taste on my tongue is fleeting. I dive in for another bite, just to make the moment last a little longer. 

Food is nostalgia. It has the power to connect me with parts of my childhood. A taste of nostalgia, a little bit of inner child healed. A simple comfort meal of meat and veggies over rice brings me back to my mother’s kitchen where I was always safe and full.

Food is a love language. When my Nanay can’t speak to me in Tagalog, she speaks to me in food (and she truly throws down in the kitchen). “Kumain ka na?” or “Have you eaten yet?” is the question that precedes some of the greatest meals of my life.  Food is how my family says “I love you”, “Welcome home”, “I’m sorry”, “Thank you” or “I’m proud of you.” 

Food is community. Most cultures center food at every major event worth celebrating, and every moment in between. Breaking bread with loved ones are brief moments in time when everything is okay. And when I was in high school, I found out that walking through the halls with a too-large tupperware filled with my home baked goodies was the easiest way to make new friends. People always gather around food.

I think it’s pretty clear by now that I have a very positive relationship with food! I often tell my loved ones that if I didn’t feel a deep-seated urgency to save our planet from the ongoing climate crisis, I would be the owner of a restaurant or food truck. I would probably grow organic ingredients in the urban farm of my dreams, cook affordable plant-based Filipino food for folks in my community, and use a portion of my profits to support other community-based farm to table movements. I have such a passion for food because I see it at the heart of every community. Being able to grow and prepare food allows people to be self-reliant. And where there are satisfied tummies, there is an abundance of love. 

It’s an interesting thought that the best case scenario in my field of work is doing such a good job that we put ourselves out of business. My god, what a dream that would be! If we could have it our way, we wouldn’t have to fight for environmental and human rights because they would already be guaranteed to us. If we “solved climate change” and “restored human rights to all” we would be free to spend our time doing other things that speak to our soul. My role would be to cook for other people. I genuinely hope to make my dream come true one day. Until then, you’ll find me preparing meals in my humble little kitchen to fuel my day job of fighting for environmental justice. 

Many people have become gravely disconnected to the food they eat, and how can you blame them? Nearly everything available to us at the grocery store is wrapped in plastic, imported, soaked in pesticides, or all the above. The modern American doesn’t grow or raise or catch their own food anymore -- they hardly think about all the different hands (or lives) that it takes to deliver a single item to their grocery cart. The norm has changed; people rely on bought convenience now. Wrapping everything in plastic means that our food has a longer shelf life. Importing our food from other countries means that we get to enjoy out-of-season and diverse fruits, veggies and products all year long. And using a boat load of pesticides means that we get a higher yield of produce than ever before, while keeping the price relatively low. But this convenience comes at a cost. 

Millions of pounds of plastic to package food may never be recycled, adding to the ever-growing landfills that are choking every available space on Earth. Importing food from all around the world yields a tremendous amount of carbon emissions from constant air travel. And the pesticides used on our food to prevent the nuisance of bugs and weeds poison our environment and our bodies. Not to mention, it takes millions of gallons of water to grow produce. And millions more to grow the crops that ultimately feed livestock for meat and dairy. In an agricultural capital like California, farmers are deeply strained by the ongoing drought -- oftentimes forcing small scale farms out of business during our drier years. And when food decomposes in the landfill instead of compost, it releases large amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide. The lack of global composting infrastructure to prevent this from happening (even in a progressive place like California) is a huge concern. 

All of this is underscored by the fact that nearly 119 billion pounds of food is wasted every year in the United States -- that equates to 130 billion meals straight into the trash. This statistic would hurt any traditionally-raised Filipino to the core, knowing that many of our elders forced us to stay at the dining table until we finished every last grain of rice on our plates. This is also true of many cultures worldwide. Food is life; it cannot be wasted. This reminder is especially prevalent for my family, since we come from a lineage of farmers. My great great grandparents did not break their backs to feed our family, just for me to shovel a hard earned meal into the garbage. Of course we’re not all perfect -- it can be difficult to finish every last crumb on our plate. And our severely underdeveloped composting infrastructure makes it that much harder to feed our scraps back to the Earth. We can do our best, but it’s not always enough.

The unfortunate reality is that many people in the U.S. live in food deserts, where fresh produce and healthy food options are slim to none. In these communities, there is no food to waste. While many American households are tossing out about a third of the food in their fridge every year, many folks in low-income communities are forced to eat from fast food chains or convenience stores. Not only does this increase a person’s exposure to plastic pollution (hot items served in plastic allow chemicals to leach into the food), but it also increases the risk of diabetes, heart-conditions, and certain cancers. Food deserts are prevalent in low-income communities of color -- adding another strain to an already overburdened demographic.

When it comes to overburdened, there’s probably no other group in America that is under more stress than Indigenous communities fighting for food sovereignty. To understand the urgency of this fight, you have to recognize the incalculable value of food to a self-sustaining community, and see what happens when that basic resource is taken away. I recently watched a documentary on Netflix called “Gather” which details the indigenous food sovereignty movement -- how communities are exerting their power to protect precious food systems that have sustained them for generations.

I learned from the film that in the late 1800s, over 60 million American buffalo were slaughtered to starve the Plains Indians into submission. 60 fucking million. An unapologetic bloodbath fueled by the colonizers’ hunger for power. The colonizers understood that controlling the food source meant controlling the people, so they took away the buffalo and made Native Americans reliant on government cheese and powdered milk instead. Learning about this piece of American history was deeply disturbing and reminded me of humankind’s capacity for evil. And that was only the beginning. The deep wounds inflicted by this killing (and other events just like it) have not healed generations later. Dwindling food sources, once provided in abundance by Mother Earth, have forced communities to go hungry or rely on gas stations for sustenance. As a result, many Indigenous communities believe a “long-term genocide” is playing out. Diabetes, alcoholism, cancer, drug abuse and suicide are significantly more common for Native Americans than White Americans. This disparity tells a clear story. White colonizers wanted to eradicate Native people by crushing their spirits and their food source, but the descendants of those resilient communities are still here and fighting, despite the generational trauma that they have inherited.

There was a time in history, before the colonizers came, when Indigenous populations lived off the abundance of the land. They operated in reciprocity -- as long as they took care of the land, it took care of them. They learned the ways of each plant and animal, found out how to efficiently catch and preserve meats, and discovered food to be medicine. Over hundreds and thousands of years, they developed something called traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) -- an oral and written library of the intricate relationships between people, animals, and nature, and how to be good, self-sustaining stewards in that beautifully balanced network. The core value of TEK is to pass the teachings to each following generation, ensuring that the life-sustaining practices are not lost over time. My belief is that TEK is the playbook for how we save the world. It can help us understand how to take better care of the land and the animals, so everyone is happy and fed. 

Whenever I find myself feeling frustrated about our broken social systems, I remember that the capitalist “money/resources/power over people” mindset is at the root. Our current food system profits off our ignorance to the atrocities and inequalities of the past and present. When we used to grow our own food, we were deeply connected to the land. We planted our roots down to the ground, made a commitment to tend to our seedlings, and offered a part of ourselves to Mother Earth. We took responsibility for that fragile network because our lives depended on it. Mother Earth is depending on us to make the right decision now. It’s clear that we must decolonize our food system to repair the land and nourish ourselves. Food is the primary source of our energy; we have every reason to protect it. 

Large scale policy changes to our food systems are underway, but they’re slow to implement. As California residents we are all technically entitled to organic waste collection services under a law called SB 1383 (i.e. your city/county, no matter where in California, is obligated to provide composting services to you). If you live in a building that has not provided this option, consider reaching out to your landlord to ask about acquiring these services, as outlined in the law. Composting your food waste is one monumental way to combat the climate crisis while returning valuable nutrients back to the Earth.

In addition to supporting long-term policy implementation, we can contribute to the movement by being more intentional with our food. This looks like never putting more on our plates than what we can finish and expressing gratitude for all the forces that come together to produce our meal. We may consider joining a community garden to provide a renewable source of fresh produce for our neighbors; donating our uneaten foods to a local food bank; participating in food recovery programs for large events that are bound to waste food; or even shopping at bulk stores and farmers markets instead of supermarkets to avoid unnecessary plastic. By participating in these simple actions, we have the power to revolutionize the way we interact with food. We can be the catalysts for necessary cultural shifts. To me, that’s what moving through this existence is all about. 

I will continue nourishing myself with intention, and using that energy to advocate for a more environmentally just future. And on the extra tough days when I feel like giving up, I’ll find peace knowing that a classic comfort meal is the simplest answer to replenish my energy and ground me back in gratitude. 

On that note — I think it’s time for a snack. Thank you for reading/listening, you deserve a snack for that too. :)