A few years ago, I studied holistic nutrition and the same year, I became lay ordained as a Buddhist teacher. During my studies, I found that there was a direct connection between the two disciplines.

In my nutrition class, as my final paper, I looked at the loss of nutrients in non-organic soils.

As a general rule, an organic farmer feeds the soil during and after each harvest by planting a cover crop and through other methods that enhance and build healthy soil, such as applying compost. In fact, soil management is a requirement under federal organic guidelines.

Non-organic farmers on the other hand, instead of the soil, feed the plants, and that is usually done by applying Nitrogen, Phosphorous and Potassium – NPK.

However, plants absorb a much greater variety of elements than those three, and as a consequence, soil, over time, gets depleted of essential nutrients.

So in my final paper, I wanted to know if there is any correlation of what is missing in non-organic soils and the most common diseases in the US. I picked the ones that cause the most deaths: heart disease, cancer, diabetes, stroke, and a couple of others – and what I found was amazing:

Heart disease, for example, the number one death-causing disease in the U.S. with 50% of all deaths. One of the most beneficial nutrients for optimal heart health is Selenium – a nutrient that is one of the most depleted nutrients in non-organic soils throughout the US.

So while all diseases are caused by a variety of factors such as lack of exercise, an unhealthy diet, or smoking, I found that exactly the nutrients that are known to be beneficial to prevent these diseases are the ones that are missing the most. Even the exact order of their depletion rate correlates directly with the order of the diseases that kill us the most.

So for me, there was a direct connection to Buddhism, a teaching that is anchored around happiness and kindness.

In relationship to soil it became clear that she gives us clothes, and food, and nourishment, and that when we are unkind to her, when she is incomplete, when she is hurting – so are we.

On a walk with my dog last week I realized that change is in the air. There was a sense of – dare I say it – fall in the air. I don’t want to create any kind of year-end overwhelm here and I am the greatest critic when the Christmas decoration in department stores goes up already at the end of October – and yet, in this case, I could swear I felt a tad of fall last week.

Maybe it was the light, which right now is as golden in the morning as it gets as we are only three weeks past summer solstice.

Maybe it was the wind and the way it made some dry leaves shuffle against each other

Maybe it was my memory; maybe I remembered these days and somewhere deep down I knew that summer is right here, right now, and that after the summer, fall will come.

I was reminded of the seasons, of this year, of time passing, the celebration of what is yet to come this year, the harvest, the bounty, the flavors of 09, the progression from spring to summer, from seed to carrot, from caterpillar to butterfly, from boy to man, from summer to fall.

And it is such an interesting little struggle – in my anticipation for the opening of the Point Reyes Farmers Market every year I can also hear the voice in my heart that says, “no, please don’t let that day ever come” – because that day will also be the beginning of the end.

So as we are seeing tomatoes and summer squashes ripen, and boys graduate, and girls become women, and dogs get older, I am walking into this season with a somber sense of gratitude – for the seeds that have become food, for the grapes that will soon be wine, and for the courage to accept that we can’t do anything about it, that this is just the way life is.

A good friend send me the following article:

“Why do leaves burst into color exactly? It’s a sort of magic trick, a sleight-of-leaf maneuver, in which the tree, sensing impending autumn, yanks the green from the leaf, thereby exposing the leaf’s true color. The “real” color of deciduous trees are the ones you see in autumn. Spring and summer are one long green disguise, a cacophony of chlorophyll.”

So the beauty, the color of fall, is not something that happens “to” the leaf, but is a revelation of what has always been.

Just as the leaf, the carrot, or the cherry, the boy, or the girl, life is about expressing our true innermost beauty, which is always inside of us. May this year’s harvest be abundant and full of wisdom.

I was invited last week to be part of a preview of the film Food, Inc. (in theaters on June 12th), followed by a panel discussion with San Francisco Bay Area organizations such as Food and Water Watch, Pesticide Action Network North America, and the California Center for Public Health Advocacy – amazing organizations that have done fantastic work over the last years to change awareness and to make this world a better place.

Food, Inc. is an important movie for anyone who cares about food. It features interviews with Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food) and Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), and reports on some of the darkest areas of cruelty in the production of the food that we eat.

The movie is extremely powerful, so much so that half way through the film I found myself torn between appreciating the intention and rejecting it for the cruelty it shows.

I was sitting in the theater knowing that I would be part of the panel discussion right after the film, and I had to make a choice – either to let this movie not fully affect me so that I can be the role of executive director, or let myself feel what I felt and not really knowing if I could give a great presentation afterwards.

I was struggling with that conversation in my body between heart and mind, trying to answer the question: How can I choose numbness or ignorance right now, when I am sad about the perceived numbness of the slaughterhouse workers in the movie that I am watching?

Finally, I chose to fully feel the movie.

Right after the film had ended I sat down to be part of the panel, yet I knew I couldn’t just launch into my regular talk. My heart was beating and the scenes of the movie were still very much in my head, and so I expressed on the panel that I am struggling with the message of the movie, with the display of cruelty and violence, and I was wondering if anything good could come out of it.

I said that I know that education is important but also that my inspiration comes from the work of Marin Organic – amazing farmers, stories from the land, progressive ideas and first and foremost, hope and beauty – and that I don’t know how we could possibly hold both – the dichotomy and necessity of displaying cruelty in the pursuit of creating beauty and positive change?

Isn’t the motivation out of watching cruelty always anger, or fear? Can there ever be anything beautiful come out of anger or fear or will that motivation follow through the entire creation, like a silk threat, and destroy the creation at the end because of its inherent weakness?

And who are we to display the organic movement as the solution and the food industry as the evil “other”, when it is all about engagement and integration and changing things by becoming a part of it, because, truly, we are already a part of it?

And so I went on and on.

The film and my internal conversation stayed with me the entire week.

I realized last night – while all these thoughts of course are valid – that my motivation that evening came at least in part from fear myself – the fear that if we don’t all love more, we will fail as a movement.

And by following my fear, completely without knowing, in debating my thoughts with the audience and building a space as in “me and the other” between me and my fellow panelists, I, myself created the second greatest force that stands in the way of transformation and positive change – which is “separation”.

Everything I so strongly stood against that night, the separation, the being motivated by fear, the “me and the other”, in that moment, I had become myself.

What an incredible lesson.

I finally got the full meaning of Gandhigi’s “Be the change that you want to see in the world”. I believe what he is actually saying is not to be different – and then feel right about it – but actually, simply, be more loving.

Food, Inc. – in theaters on June 12th. Difficult to watch, but perhaps important to watch it anyway. You decide.

Okay, it did not leave me alone. I want to make this a challenge of sorts (as if we don’t have enough challenges in our lives already…).

People have emailed me with great suggestions on how we can use the whole Enchilada – or the whole broccoli, that is, such as freezing carrot tops (not chopped yet – to keep the nutrients – and it’s also easier to chop them when they are frozen) to use them for making soup later, or to feed pets with cooked vegetable parts that are not used for a meal.

I am now collecting the 100 most useful and creative ideas on how to avoid food waste – so don’t waste your time and write them down!

The five best submissions will be rewarded a signed copy of the Organic Marin cook book (http://www.marinorganic.org/MO_Store/shopnow.php).

Please submit your ideas by May 31st, 2009 to Connect@HelgeHellberg.com.

Thank you, and good luck!

Up to 20% of all foods that are grown and produced do not meet strict market requirements and usually end up being plowed under or considered “waste” – produce that is crooked or discolored, a mislabeled container of yogurt, a zucchini that has grown too large, too fast. Another 10%-20% is being trimmed off or thrown out at retail stores and restaurants – the stem of a broccoli, the outside leaves of a head of salad, food too close to the expiration date.

And if this was not enough, of all the food we buy, another 20% goes to waste at the household level – the liter of spoiled milk, a two week old half-empty jar of tomato sauce, or the carrots that have gotten so soft you can bend them around your head. So, of all foods that are grown and produced in the United States, only a little more than half actually ends up in our stomachs – that’s a lot of food being wasted!

Local agriculture and local initiatives often make use of “food waste” – such as San Francisco Food Runners (http://www.foodrunners.org), a program that picks up excess perishable and prepared food from businesses such as restaurants, caterers, bakeries, hospitals, events, corporate cafeterias and hotels, and delivers it directly to shelters and neighborhood programs that feed the hungry; or the Marin Organic School Lunch and Gleaning Program, which adds “seconds” to the weekly order from local schools, enabling 12,000 children to have access to local organic foods – all while working within the schools’ tight food budgets (http://www.marinorganic.org/organic_school_lunch.php).

What else can we do? Share your best tips on what you do at home to avoid food “waste”.

(Just a few days ago, I roasted the leaves of a beet in the oven, added a tad of salt and a sprinkle of olive oil, and they turned into crispy homemade chips – yum!)

Let us not forget that the cultivation of the earth is the most important labor of man. When tillage begins, other arts will follow. The farmers, therefore, are the founders of civilization.
Daniel Webster