The Deeper Beauty Of My Lunch

 

The beauty of my lunch goes deep. Deep enough that I wanted to take a picture of it, to memorialize its ephemeral beauty. So that I may study and savor its richness long after it is gone.

I have had two compliments on it today, by coworkers expressing a desire for such a salad. I’m sure it looks quite unlike anything they are going to see all day. Excepting the wrapper of the Skittles package, it is way more colorful than anything to be found in the vending machine, which my coworkers jokingly refer to as the Wheel Of Death.

If I were to bring this salad to the art department of my local college I wouldn’t be surprised if some painter did not draw inspiration from it and ask if he might capture it on canvas for posterity’s sake . Perhaps I shall blow up the image, put it in a frame, and hang it upon my wall. I know just the spot.

They say that beauty is only skin deep but this goes deeper. It is a wonder for the eyes, but it is also an experience for the taste buds. Each bite a different texture of crunch. Each taste a subtle shift of flavor that blends with the rest. And when I have finished, I shall arise from the table not full, not sluggish, but energized and ready to return to work. The enjoyment of eating it is but a precursor to the joy of having it inside of me. It does not sit like a rock in my stomach but is already making its way through me, causing my body — not merely my tastebuds — to be awake and alert.

But it goes deeper. For it is a variety of natural foods, each packed with one or more of the vitamins and minerals which are essential for this soft machine which I inhabit. I have not filled myself with harmful food, like I once did in my childhood. I did not choose option C3 from the Wheel Of Death. All that I have ingested is of nature. All that which is consumed by me is what my body has evolved to find nourishment in. There is no falsity in it, no artificial coloring required. This, my friends, is lunch as it was intended by God, the Tao, the Mother Goddess, whatever spiritual reference resonates with you.

But it goes deeper. The food I eat was grown as a labor of love. Each vegetable was raised by those who choose to farm, who have a great love for it. It was not grown on some massive farm, not picked by exploited immigrants who do not have the same quality of life I do or the same career choices. It was grown by people very much like myself.

But it goes deeper. At the farmers market, these wonderful growers of food offer their wares for sale and I am able to meet and express my appreciation for their efforts. We talk, and in communicating we create the bonds with which our local community is knit. There is no automated checkout at the farmers market.

But it goes deeper. This salad’s importance has an impact upon the planet. Or rather, it doesn’t. Because there is nothing in it that has been shipped further than 30 miles. Most of it has not had to travel more than five. Some of it required no additional travel at all. While the grocery stores in town are filled with foods that have traveled across the country and from other continents, this food I eat has only a tiny footprint upon our tired and weary Mother. In eating this salad I am asking of Her as little as possible, and her gratitude for this is the gift of the freshest and most flavorful vegetables one can find. Bill Gates wishes he could eat produce as fresh as this.

But it goes deeper. This produce was not raised in a cage. The tomato never had its offspring torn from it at the moment of its birth. There was no animal suffering involved in the meal. No milk taken from a suckling’s lips to be given instead to an adult human. This salad did not require the repetitive motions of manual laborers performing on living creatures some of the most inhumane actions imaginable with a sharpened blade. Neither man nor beast was traumatized in the picking of these radishes.

But it goes deeper. This food was grown in accord with nature. It did not require unnatural chemicals or fertilizers. It is sustainable. Its creation does not unduly tax the ecosystem. It does not create massive manure ponds. The streams that acquire the runoff from the area where these vegetables were farmed do not carry algae to nearby rivers and lakes, killing off the fish and other creatures.

But it goes deeper. This salad may feed me, but it does little to feed the corporations that control so much of our food supply. That control so much of our economy. That influence our government, buy our elected officials, create commercials that induce our children to eat unnatural and unhealthy diets. That feed our children such unhealthy foods that they are unable to perform at school. That feed them such unnatural foods that our children require medications simply to function as normal children should.

That’s pretty deep. Way deeper than a Happy Meal. Way deeper than a Kit Kat commercial. Even deeper than the bottomless salad bowl at Olive Garden. Plus — and this is the best part — it makes my coworkers envious. Taste The Revolution.