That last attribute has been an interesting sticking point for our family over the past few years. Essentially, since I am nearing 40, I grew up in the local food movement. If it is supposed to promote good health, how is it that the members of my family still developed illnesses that were exacerbated by food intolerances…even though the foods we were eating were local, raw, sprouted, free of GMOs, and the like?

I will admit that, back about 10 years ago, in the height of my hubris surrounding local and sustainable foods, I didn’t really consider that illness could afflict me or my family, so long as we held the moral high ground with our diet. After all, we had the necessary nutrients, the rights enzymes, and none of the toxic poisons.

But life didn’t unfold that way. Each of us still developed our afflictions, from wandering eyes, to cavities, to type I diabetes, to neurological and digestive issues. We’re all happy and active and loving our lives, in spite of our personal travails. And along our healing journey, we’ve figured out that not all local foods agree with our bodies. That doesn’t, in my opinion, suggest that all local foods that don’t happen to sit particularly well with my family should be eliminated from everyone’s diet. Nor does it mean that we can’t satisfy our nutritional needs locally. There’s still plenty around here to eat. It just means we need to exercise care, and pay attention to what we eat and how our bodies respond.

This has been a powerful lesson for me with my work. It has helped me to develop compassion for all the other well-meaning souls who are trying to find their ways on the sustainable path while heeding their own dietary restrictions. In spite of this, I received a sharp letter from a reader last week, expressing anger that I should publicly admit that certain sainted local foods don’t agree with me. Apparently, as local food advocates, my family is supposed to be secretive about our afflictions. We’re supposed to let people believe that our health is perfect. By carrying on that image, if my readers or customers suffer illness, they should believe that the problem must be with them…perhaps they have made grave nutritional errors. Perhaps it was something their mothers did wrong while raising them. By carrying on this rouse, I would be teaching “As long as you adhere to a perfect local diet, then nothing should ever go wrong for you or your children.” Balderdash.

We are more than our food. We are mind and spirit, as well as body. When anything in the body-mind-spirit trinity is out of balance, illness can begin, no matter what you eat. And illness is one of our great teachers. Addressing it requires attention to all three parts of this trinity, and it can result in deep joy, tremendous learning, powerful spiritual growth, and profound healing…even if we never technically shed the illness. I am like everyone else, learning my lessons, and constantly attending to my own balance in order to achieve my highest purpose. And like everyone else, my balance gets disrupted on my journey. That’s part of the adventure of life. As a writer and local food advocate, I’d feel dishonest if I attempted to hide these experiences.

As each of us learns to balance our body, mind and spirit, not all of us can eat dairy, even if it is raw, even if it is full-fat, even if it is organic, even if it is local. Not all of us can feast on every vegetable and fruit, even if they are heirloom varieties from open-pollinated seeds. Not all of us can live free of animal products, even if the vegetables are biodynamic, even if the tofu is local and properly fermented. Not all of us can eat grains, even if they are whole grains, even if they are sprouted, even if they are not genetically modified, even if they were grown next door. Not all of us can tolerate meat, even if it is grass fed, even if the farmer who sold it to us is a saint. All of these are good foods. All of these will play an important part in sustainable, locally-based food systems. But they don’t all work for everybody at all times.

As the local food movement expands, we must learn to exercise compassion as each of us works to balance the body, mind and spirit. We need to deepen our understanding of illness and well-being, and accept that self-recrimination and blame are simply not conducive to the healing process. If the local food movement matures successfully, there will be ample diversity in the dietary options, enabling all of us to have our constantly shifting nutritional needs met as life brings her many lessons to each of our imperfect souls.

Comments

1. April 9, 2013 7:47 AM EDT
   I wonder if our genetic backgrounds, that is, where we came from in the world, our “original local,” could influence what foods agree with us.
   – Julie
2. April 9, 2013 8:04 AM EDT
   I appreciate you openess and honesty in all things. That is the way that it should be … real. No hiding the things in life that don’t seem to fit. If we are real and honest, then we can deal with what is, and go on. Thanks very much.
   – John
3. April 9, 2013 8:21 AM EDT
   I think our genetics *do* play a role. Also, our parents, their parents, and their diets play a role. And still, we might not be able to consume all of the local foods available to us. I certainly believe that local, organic, humanely processed, foods are better for us and are ethically and morally the right choice. That doesn’t mean anyone is wrong or “bad” if they can’t partake of some portions of that. There’s no diet right for everyone. And good diet is part of the whole. Paying attention to our bodies and responding appropriately to signals from it is part of the process. My eldest is now off milk having identified how it impacts him. Raw milk was no better than store bought. He’s enjoying almond milk instead for now.
   – jean
4. April 9, 2013 8:26 AM EDT
   your reader suffered from the kind of moral certitude that afflicts many religious extremists.
   Myself, my mother and grandmother all lived on small working family farms, Grew 90% of what we ate organically on our own acreages and we all have developed autoimmune diseases.As much as I do often loose sleep pondering where the hidden variable is the only one I have concluded is – we are all humans, and are not meant to live forever. Like all things around me, we are born ,live and die. No matter how pristine one’s diet or exercise plan, life as we know it will end
   – cargillwitch
5. April 9, 2013 8:37 AM EDT
   Shannon I am so glad you share from your own experiences.Diet is only a part of who we are and we are different and part of the whole at the same time. Being aware of what feels good in our body, whether it is food, a thought, an action is our own responsibility and a choice we each make. Opening and loving ourselves and our choices is our responsibility and I am so glad you can relay this so eloquently.
   – Becky
6. April 9, 2013 8:41 AM EDT
   There is something called “radical authenticity.” It doesn’t mean you shove what you are in other people’s faces willy-nilly. It means you stand your ground when someone else says your actions should be other than what is honestly you. Stand your ground, Shannon. If one starts lying, prevaricating and hiding the truth about food — what makes one any different from the lies spread by Corporate Food and Drugs?
   – Joellyn Kopecky
7. April 9, 2013 9:33 AM EDT
   “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food” said Hippocrates but he also said “It is far more important to know what person the disease has than what disease the person has.” On the physical level we have to take in consideration the biochemical individuality of each one of us and on the spiritual level the reach for a higher consciousness. Shannon wrote very eloquently about the trinity of mind, body and spirit. Doctors – and food can cure us – but healing comes from the inside in a supportive environment.
   – M. Delman
8. April 9, 2013 9:37 AM EDT
   Thanks for this post–wrestling with the same issues at present, and have been wondering, with a diagnosis of MS all but imminent, “where I went wrong”. Have reached some of the same conclusions you have, and will add that I think that environmental pollution, over generations, is leaving its mark on all of us, in spite of our best efforts. All the more reason to keep fighting the good fight–though it may take generations, I am hopeful the damage we have done can be undone. Thanks for your post.
   – Quinn
9. April 9, 2013 10:01 AM EDT
   And let us not forget that we all live and breathe in a polluted environment no matter how hard we try to avoid it. Going into the city for a day ( which has to happen occasionally) renders me coughing and hacking for several days and nights afterwards. I live near big farmers who still spray unmercifully, and although we eat as much organic as we can being a mother of 6 children and grandmother of 7 grandchildren I must admit not all is homemade or organic when time is crunched and I am sure our physical systems pay for it in one way or another. Not to mention the role stress plays in our physiological well being. That being said we all can only do so much and hope for the best.
   – Tamara Fehr
10. April 9, 2013 10:14 AM EDT
    Thank you for this post, Shannon. Illness brings up so much fear in people that they wish to keep it at bay by ritualistically eating and doing all the right things, and blaming those who become ill to convince themselves that they are safe. It is a prison, these strict orthodoxies aimed at avoiding a perceived threat, yet the prisoners know it not.

    After 20 years of searching, I have finally found out I have Sjogren’s syndrome. It could be worse, and yet, it could be better, too. Deep down I know that my load is perfect for me, and can serve to teach me greater humility, kindness and compassion–helping to break me to jail break out of my petty self–if only I allow myself to be taught.

    We’re all in love school here on earth. Welcome to the curriculum of life. I, for one, intend to pass this course with flying colors!

    – Anna Alkin
11. April 9, 2013 10:35 AM EDT
    thank you again for being so authentic, and having such great integrity. your blogs make a great difference
    – Ed M
12. April 9, 2013 1:52 PM EDT
    What a refreshing read. Thanks for being honest and open…traits all too often lacking in our world today.
    – Cheryl
13. April 10, 2013 7:46 AM EDT
    Shannon, thank you for your honest insights. People who expect local food to protect them from all ailments don’t understand some basic biology. More importantly, expecting a veneer of health perfection among local food advocates shows a penchant for public relations over compassion and truthfulness — traits that fortify life.
    – Suzanne Langlois
14. April 13, 2013 1:31 PM EDT
    There is also the issue of TIME, that is, where we are in our arc of life. We tend to think of growing up, and then being statically “adult”, when if we just consider what we looked like at 30 and then at 40 or 50, we know we are ever evolving- in one direction or another. Consider that menopause and probably the male equivalent takes a decade, and at the end, our whole hormonal profile is radically different. How can our bodies NOT need to adjust, and sometimes over react or not perform well as it tries to cope with the outside world and the substances we take in?

    The reality of this ever morphing “us” means we will respond to the environment and food differently at different times, making Life an improvised dance!

    – Loni
15. April 16, 2013 8:11 AM EDT
    Thanks for the reality check, that is what life is, no bout-a-doubt-it, just a silly point in words to prove you still know what I mean. Our kids have proven that over and over again to us. At home we often do what you do, trying for the best diets and local home grown. It is better, but everything as you pointed out is a balance. Our body, mind, and soul is connected and ignoring one or thinking one will not affect the other in some way is silly, yet we all think we are indestructible and have the answer or key to it all. The fact is humans we’re made imperfect with a beginning and an end in this carbon world, with great flaws at times and yet we can do miraculous things with the grace of God. Good thing is that our soul will never die and can overcome anything from this world. There is no doubt about “you are what you eat”, one of my favorite stories in the bible is about the crazy king who takes the word of a wise man and stops eating the way he did, like nobility had at the time-badly/fatty- and ate what his goats ate in the pasture. In no time at all he regained his health and his mind, during it all everyone mocked him. Sometimes we become too rigid or too stressed and disease reminds us God is in charge and that it is about the journey and how you love those people and things along the way. Just like your wonderful posts it makes me feel connected and lets me double check where I am or should be, most of the time I don’t know but God always lets me know somehow. There are those that eat and do well all the time, then there are those that barely eat and have the best mind and lousy health, then we have those that can heal many things with food(hey medicines are made from plants/food) and then there are those that do the wrong things and live great, but often they are the exception and very few. Enjoy the gifts in life, balance is key, and remember one bad piece of junk food won’t break you, but if it helps celebrated something wonderful, then why not? Just don’t make it a daily habit. We have been rehabilitating and giving resting homes for dogs for sometime and diet and excersice along with love has turned many around and some just for a time, but the journey was all priceless. Keep posting and remember there are many medicines in our foods, some are just in our minds, but the mind is more powerful than the body for the souls betterment. May you enjoy the air, the water, and fight for whats right, but smile, it is the best medicine, burn calories more than tears, and low fat too:)
    – Tatiana & the gang
16. April 17, 2013 8:08 AM EDT
    Not only is this a great lesson that’s hard to learn (I can be very righteous about my choices- but I’m learning to be less so), the photo of the radishes is gorgeous. I want to blow it up and hang it on the wall@
    – Britton
17. June 9, 2013 7:06 PM EDT
    Beautiful! Thank you.
    – Jessica