{"id":139,"date":"2017-06-30T20:13:07","date_gmt":"2017-06-30T20:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385\/?p=139"},"modified":"2017-07-06T07:11:36","modified_gmt":"2017-07-06T07:11:36","slug":"back-to-the-farm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385\/back-to-the-farm\/","title":{"rendered":"Back to the farm"},"content":{"rendered":"

Figure 1 \u201cClick Americana: Memories and Memorabilia.\u201d This is Click Americana. Synchronista LLC. Web. June 24th, 2017. http:\/\/clickamericana.com\/topics\/food-drink\/have-a-summer-spree-with-lipton-onion-soup-mix-1966<\/p><\/div>\n

What was my grandmother eating? This is the question posed by Michael Pollan\u2019s book, and is a query I found myself investigating. For me, I transposed the question onto my grandfather, who grew up on a farm. This farm, on which the family subsisted throughout the Great Depression, allotted him a status as a young man that few in South Georgia had; namely, that he never went hungry. He had to work long hours, and hunt small game if they wanted meat on the table. My grandmother describes him as young and handsome and \u201cfit as a fiddle\u201d (her words, not mine). This would change dramatically when he returned from his service with the Merchant Marines.<\/p>\n

Apparently, the abrupt change to a sedentary lifestyle and diet of mostly processed foods, did not treat his young body well. But Nanna liked him anyway, and they started a family raised in the manner of the 50s, which was off-farm and incorporated a lot of canned goods. Nanna is no great cook and I have her recipes to prove that most concoctions were a combination of cans and spices. Pollan was certainly not speaking of my grandmother when he posed his question, but he could have been referring to the changes my grandfather experienced.<\/p>\n

His body, which was once a gifted athlete, aged into a diabetic and morbidly obese state. He became notorious for leaving shoes behind, which were sacrificed for the comfort of his chronically swollen feet. The four daughters he and my Nanna raised inherited a complicated relationship with food. Three of them struggle with severe morbid obesity and the fourth struggles with Lymphoma; all have a diet high in processed foods. As I read through Pollan\u2019s text I found myself thinking over how my grandfather ate as a young man, and how I could regain some of that knowledge my family has lost. I am intrigued by the idea of reclaiming my genetic inheritance as well. I wonder what changes might manifest within my body if I found my way back to the proverbial farm.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What was my grandmother eating? This is the question posed by Michael Pollan\u2019s book, and is a query I found myself investigating. For me, I transposed the question onto my grandfather, who grew up on a farm. This farm, on which the family subsisted throughout the Great Depression, allotted him a status as a young man that few in South… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,21,22,23],"tags":[43,61,80,67,33,77,64,68],"class_list":["post-139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-citizenship","category-consumption","category-farming","category-food-movements","tag-farmlife-eatinginheritance-whatisfood-food-nutrition-nutritionism","tag-consumption","tag-farming","tag-health","tag-industrial-food-system","tag-processedfoods","tag-sustainability","tag-westerndiet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":286,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139\/revisions\/286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}