Dear Relatives — like so many of us, I find myself more and more pleased that being an activist has become an easier road to walk. Victories for human rights and for the Earth increase in number and significance and we hear about them sooner than we used to. Everyone’s talking about green jobs. Our hopes are up, we may actually have an activist leading the free world — Yes We Can! It’s quite a time to be a part of it all, isn’t it?

One of my favorite anecdotes in discussions about the changes in public attitude towards environment and health concerns feeding our children. So much has changed in my lifetime. As a young mother, it was almost impossible to find, let alone afford, organic baby food; it was tricky to find a place to nurse a baby in peace. These days, parents can find a wide variety of organic baby foods and formula in almost any supermarket; my grand-babies were all breast-fed (even the twins!) and fed only organic baby foods. Now that the monopolies have more “natural” offerings available to consumers, are we happy with the production? Is there a next step that we need to take?

IICPH has a stellar reputation for providing thoughtful analysis and corroboration of community environmental health concerns. Most of our works for communities report on contamination of the air, land and water. It has always given me sadness when we report arsenic, tritium, mercury, lead or other highly damaging pollution where people have food gardens or farms. People who live downwind, downwater from uranium mines, tailings ponds, refineries or within five to ten km. of nuclear power plants should not grow their own food or purchase from the area. Food discussions at our Good Life Gatherings took on sombre notes with the realization that we must be very careful where we grow our food, where it comes from and how it is prepared. Our choices become sensible when we consider the impact on our own and our collective health.

The good news is, learning to choose, grow and cook good food provides not only sound environmental education, but when applied, benefits everyone’s health and saves people money! The truth is out there, people want clean food and we are uniquely positioned to help them to learn about it. Never has our work to educate been more timely and important … and good food is a delicious place to focus.

Perhaps the silver lining of the economic collapse is that the cards are on the table and independent activist voices are welcome and needed. An informed public continues to grow in wisdom and in numbers as the next generation begins making its mark in the history books and business reports. Let’s fill their bellies and minds with good things.

_Willi has been working with IICPH since 1997. She lives with her son in rural New Brunswick. Expressions of her dedication to the clean food revolution can be found at www.roughtimescooking.com