08/27/2026
Anthropology Discussion || A core value of my business is to connect people daily to the awareness of where their food comes from. This isn’t what most people consider, nature if referring to the wild and untamed areas of the world. Yet, it’s my little way of reminding people daily of how much we’ve tamed the sources of our nourishment.
My community culture is largely people who care a great deal about the impacts made on water, land, air and how Agricultural practices can harm or improve outcomes for humans as well as all of biology occupying spaces where food is grown, harvested or raised. I certainly observe a lot of the disconnect in people about the impacts of what we purchase has on water, the players in policy making who decide who gets access to water, land, as well as every aspect of what would allow for a human to be self-sustaining in tribes, homesteads, or communities.
Nature isn't "out there" to me, it's the soil, weather, animals, and seasons we work with directly every day. The nature-culture breaks down fastest at the site of agriculture, because farming is the oldest technology-culture for managing nature. It’s radically changed over time and how people choose to farm reveals which model of "nature" their current perspectives or period of time they have lived in. What I mean by this is how much the access to technology of that era can impact the growers perspectives and expectations of what they would grow, how and where they can grow their crops.
I learned last semester in, World Food and Fiber Systems (PSSC 392), about how global food systems are the clearest large-scale proof that "nature" and "culture" are inseparable. We learned that all calories humans eat have already been shaped by millennia of cultural intervention (breeding, irrigation, trade, policy). I also learned last semester in my American Environmentalism course, how radically disease impacted America once settlers landed on the shores. This happened largely according to the reading in, “Manifest Destiny” due to the new habit of this Nation to domesticate and living in close proximity to animals. The tribes moved with seasons and hunted for their food, never being in close quarters to f***s and having frequent exposure to animals who carried diseases.
A lot of culture impact on the mindset of believing humans are removed from bad behaviors that impact nature in harmful ways tends to be a lack of exposure to knowing what might look like a reversed look of what has become cliché, “farm to fork”. I started watching the documentary, “Stolen Paradise”. I was happy to see the timeline story of how there was plenty of rainfall in the area that now sits bone dry. With the water being diverted to Los Angeles, it has radically shifted the potential for population growth and for decades changed how millions of people either can or cannot access water.
A lot of the nature story does need to be told from what would sound more like, “fork to farm” for most people. To break down for people the impact their goods in their home that are commonplace and take them back down the line to show what, how and where in nature their favorite gadgets make a lasting and sometimes damaging mark…
For some it would shape what they consume, how they regard the global impacts of their choices and the actual human impact, the animal impact and trickling all the way back to the soil. For others, as Joel Salatin, the American regenerative farmer, author, and lecturer poignantly says, "While preachers rail against bringing junk into our homes via the TV, the internet, and pornographic literature, few bat an eye at a home stashed with high fructose corn syrup, potato chips, and Pop-Tarts. Indeed, some even suggest the cheaper we eat, the more money we'll have to put in the offering plate." He has said, how he thought if people were more informed of what the impacts of their actions were when it came to what was in their food and where their food came from, they might make a better choice. I believe it's in the film, Food Inc., where he ironically acknowledges that mostly, people just want an organic Pop-Tart. It's a far cry from understanding the nature of how we survive. With the mass ignorance and lack of connection to nature, I tend to hold a line with first attempting to connect people to their plate.
