How “Food Sleuthing” Can Improve Our Lives and Our Planet’s Future—with Melinda Hemmelgarn
One of the most critical ways we can positively impact our health and our planet’s is to be aware of everything we put into our bodies. This is a topic dear to Melinda Hemmelgarn’s heart. A dietician and self-proclaimed food sleuth, Melinda advocates for greater awareness and education around how and what we eat. In this episode she discusses her mission to change the world of nutrition through education, advocating for policy change, and making better food choices. You’ll hear all about Melinda’s background, education, and career in nutrition before we delve into her passion for food education, better farming practices, and connecting food, health, and agriculture. This informative discussion brings to light the dangers of commercial farming practices, how the media perpetuates these problematic food habits, how pesticides affect our health, the importance of buying organic food, and so much more. Melinda leaves us with a plea to educate ourselves and become food sleuths so that we can change our electoral system and ultimately lead better lives as a community.
Key Points From This Episode:
A brief introduction to today’s guest, Melinda Hemmelgarn.
How Melinda developed her passion for food sleuthing.
Melinda’s history and experience as a registered dietician.
The importance of food education and policy to serve the health and nutrition of all people.
How we can combat the feeling of overwhelm using the resource Friends of the Earth.
How the Beyond Pesticides board gets policy recommendations through to those in power.
The importance of focusing on the community at large rather than just ourselves.
What she thinks the biggest disconnect between food, health, and agriculture is for people.
The importance of buying organic foods and when conventional foods are safe to buy.
The impact of drift and how it affects people who don’t buy organically.
Melinda tells us a little bit about health issues that are directly related to pesticides.
The importance of changing our electoral system in order to get pesticides banned.
The problems within school lunch programs and why kids need to be good food sleuths.
Melinda explains what media literacy is and why it’s so important.
Some questions we should ask ourselves when it comes to media messaging in food.
The importance of considering unintended consequences from consumer choices.
How Melinda believes we can make nutrient-rich, organic food available to everyone.
Tweetables:
“To whom much is given, much is expected.” — @food_sleuth [0:02:18]
“It’s sort of our cultural narrative to be so focused on us but we are part of a larger community on a very small planet and [we need to focus] on what we can do for our community and help each other.” — @food_sleuth [0:09:41]
“I don’t think we’re taught to connect [food, health, and agriculture.]” — @food_sleuth [0:11:12]
“Organic is the best option in the marketplace in terms of assuring that you're not going to have genetically modified ingredients.” — @food_sleuth [0:14:20]
“By choosing organic foods, we are not only protecting ourselves and our groundwater, air, and soil but we’re also helping to protect farm workers and farm working communities.” — @food_sleuth [0:16:07]
“[Pesticides] are changing the dynamics in the soil most likely impacting the nutritional content of fruits and vegetables.” — @food_sleuth [0:22:51]
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
Melinda Hemmelgarn on LinkedIn
Food Sleuth Email Address
PrimaFoodie Email