"Reported for abuse. WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? No, not everybody thinks that "organics" are that important. Not everybody thinks the way they eat isn't perfectly fine already. No, not everybody shares your ULTRA-LEFT WING MESSED UP FOOD OBSESSIONS. Take the phrase "we all" out of your naive, childish, narcissistic vocabulary, princess, because you absolutely do NOT speak for everybody. And, yes, you've been reported for abuse for insulting complete strangers with your childish BS."
So, context is always very important. Here is what my new arch enemy is responding to from my Meetup Group:
"We all know we should be eating better. If you're like me, you pack your fridge with the best you can buy: as local, organic, and healthy as is available/you can afford. Then, you come home from work starving and stare with contempt at your veggies and all too often resign yourself to the hanger gods and get takeout or make grilled cheese for the upteenth time this week. Or maybe you're new at all of this: you really want to know how to eat well but don't even know where to start. Or maybe you're a meal planning wiz and are just looking for some new ways to keep things fresh and interesting in the kitchen. This meetup is for you! We come together every other week to share recipes, food, stories, ideas, passion and to learn more about how our food choices affect our health, community, and environment. At a meetup, we'll come together at a public place. I ask that each of you bring a dish that riffs on a theme announced beforehand and a written recipe. I really encourage hand written recipes and ones that have stories and drawings. You will set up your dish with the recipe in front and take a dry erase label we'll provide to indicate if your dish is vegan, gluten free or has common allergens like tree nuts. I also ask that you bring your own dishes and utensils and whatever you'd like to drink. There will not be paper plates nor plastic utensils, we can be better than that! We'll all dig in and chat for a bit, we'll listen to a speaker if we have one, then, once everyone has had a chance to taste each dish, we'll vote! (I was told once that pot lucks weren't a competition, but I strongly disagree and try to win anyway). The top three dishes will go up on my blog http://tenderheartfarms.blogspot.com/ and may (with your permission of course) go in my cookbook I'm working on. The intention of this group and this process is manifold. For one, it is bringing together good people to share good food. We're creating a community that fosters the idea that nutrition is important. By sharing recipes via the blog, we're able to then spread all of that goodwill to our greater food community. We're aiming to educate and inspire one another to be better global citizens with every meal. I strongly believe that what we eat: where we buy it, what we buy, who we buy it from, how we prepare it, who we share it with- all of that is so powerful. We have three times a day (if we're lucky) to vote with our forks for the kind of world we want to live in and leave behind. So, let's sit together and eat our way to a better world! **If you are unable, for any reason to prepare a dish (financially, physically, etc)to share, please come anyway. There is always enough to share.**"
So, as you can see, I started a potluck meetup. I am hoping it is a way I can carry on my food activism. My farming partnership didn't work out. I'm still honestly mourning that. This is a project I think people will really respond to. Actually, I published the group late last week, went about my weekend mulling over how to have an outdoor potluck while El Niño is doing his thing. I simultaneously discovered 70 strangers have joined my meetup group and I had hate mail. So, 70 likes, 1 hate. I'll take it.
I can just imagine this woman rage-eating a Big Mac, binge-listening to Rush Limbaugh while her family values vein bulges in her head. Thing is, she's mistaken me for some straw-man that she can rail against. I looked her up on meetup (I can't contact her, she blocked me) and she is a member of the Folsom Tea Party Patriots, enjoys art, history, creative writing: you know, a complex human being. So she's not my imaginary straw-man either, funny as my mental image was. She missed my nuance. She ignored the context. We could have had an interesting conversation, even grown in our world-view. Instead, she cyber bullied me.
I've said many times on this blog: I am not perfect, I am not here to preach. I have been paying attention though to many things in the world, and I have found that food literacy and food security are a few really important threads tied to soooo many of our problems we share as human animals. Here is a blog I wrote a few years back that really fleshes out this whole idea; the video at the end is a great watch too. I have pretty strong opinions about how we can work with those threads to weave together a support network that promotes positive change through personal growth. Not to humble-brag, but that's pretty humble to suggest that we're all part of the solution and we can learn together, so I don't get her anger there.
I'm curious too why she took such offense at my claim that "we all know we should eat better". I mean, shouldn't we? Only 4% of people in the U.S. eat their Recommended Daily Allowance of fruits and veggies. Unless we're that mystical veggie unicorn 4%, we SHOULD all eat better. That isn't heresy. We have record numbers of health complications caused by poor nutrition that is costing our nation a crap ton of money. We can argue FOREVER about why and what exactly that means, but that's the overarching theme. I'm just trying to work with people to make being healthy more enjoyable. I'm just trying to help people set personal goals and taste outside their comfort zones. I'm just trying to help people make better choices and feel better, whatever that means to them. If that makes me a narcissistic-obsessive-princess, fine, get me the biggest veggie crown you have and a throne to match.
Lastly, if she is so secure with her eating choices, why's she so mad at me? I mean, having been a vegetarian for a few years, I wasn't cyber bullying meat eaters. I mean the worst it got was self-defense. I had a friend who, when he knew he was going to see me, would wear a shirt that read, "for every animal you don't eat, I eat two". Funny and true as it was, my response was usually, "whatever bro, don't cry to me when you get colon cancer and the sadness of all the animals you ate gives you cancer". I was secure with my choice, my own personal reasons for my choice so I wasn't threatened by a differing opinion. I tried to laugh it off with a gentle ribbing.
I am not currently a vegetarian though. While I ran a farm I butchered and ate my own birds. I grew to change my opinions and learned that respect for other living beings was most important to me, and I found in my own personal conscious that I could accept eating meat if it lived a respectful life and met a humane death (man what a loaded oxymoron that is!). But, I never tracked down people on the internet to anger troll them just to validate my own beliefs. I have many vegan friends and we successfully have potlucks all the time. I never insinuate that my food choices are superior, because often, you can't hear me over my mouth full of Del Taco. I'm trying to do the right thing for me, and help others find what's right for them by sharing information so we can all make more educated choices. Even if that means "knowing better" and doing it anyway.
Anyway, what I think I am trying to say is: chill the fuck out. Yeah, the group is tagged "vegan", but it's not exclusively for vegans, it means they're welcome and we'll find ways to incorporate their values. It's also tagged "organic" but if you can't afford organic food, cool, no one is going to chase you away with pitchforks and torches. The group is tagged "whole foods" but you know what? 100% whole wheat bread is hard to palate sometimes, so if you bring pancakes made with white flour, people will eat them, and like them, and no one will explode in some hippy rage. If their values say they can't- they won't and I absolutely won't tolerate bullying either way.
I want this group to be educational. I hope to give talks on budgeting, meal planning, food waste, food insecurity, or just a talk about the fruit or veggie we pick each week. I plan to invite my friends and eventually "experts" to talk about their passions in food and their areas of knowledge. I want this to be an open experience, a place to share ideas, even if your idea is challenging. Hell, especially if it is challenging. Let's share. Let's grow and learn. Most importantly, make up your own mind about things, and be nice to others.
