It’s Climate Solutions Week on NPR and today’s theme is What We Eat.
The topic is not as simple as telling you that I ate avocado toast for breakfast. Because when it comes to climate change one has to ask where did the avocado come from? Was it sustainably—and humanely—grown, harvested, and transported? Was the bread organic or was it made from genetically modified grain? The questions could go on and on.
When it comes to improving our food and agricultural systems, it’s a complicated, overwhelming, downright depressing topic. It’s a mixed stew of corporate greed, ultra-processed foods, factory farms, government subsidies, and the economics of supply and demand that’s literally making us sick. Just watch documentary films like Food Inc., Kiss the Ground, and Poisoned to know what I mean.
Given how built up, paved over, and exponentially populated our planet has become solutions seem futile given our mere presence on the planet means we are contributing to climate change. I just want to eat my avocado toast without feeling guilty, but how can I, as an individual, make a difference? I try to do all the right things: I cut back on my meat consumption despite living on a cattle farm. I rarely drink soda or eat fast food. I bring my own grocery bags to Walmart, shopping at that bastion of consumerism only because there are no other big stores within 40 miles of our home. And I only make the trip once a week to keep my carbon footprint to a minimum.
Thinking about all this creates such deep existential despair I want to run to the kitchen to comfort myself with pie. In fact, that’s what I’m going to do, because making pie always makes me feel better. Like David Mamet said, “We must have pie. Stress cannot exist in the presence of a pie.”
Pie making is low tech and takes an hour or two, thus providing an opportunity to slow down the hurried pace of our modern lives. It allows you to travel back in time to when we didn’t have storebought, preservative-laced pie crust, or even farther back to before there were grocery stores.
Because you can put anything in a pie you can do like our ancestors did and use whatever ingredients are on hand. Pick the fruit growing in your own backyard, and if you don’t have any, your desire for homemade pie will inspire you to plant some. Either way it will help you appreciate nature and the important role it plays in our lives, insects and all.
Using your hands to make dough forces you to get away from your computer, put down your phone, and engage all your senses. Forgo the food processor and you get a tactile experience, thus really connecting with your food. Rolling out the crust and peeling apples is a meditation, creating the kind of mindfulness proven to reduce stress. The scent of the pie in the oven is aromatherapy. Pie, when going easy on the sugar, can be nutritious to both body and soul.
It may not stop our planet from warming, but sharing pie with others encourages empathy, promotes kindness, and creates community, all of which are essential to our human survival.
Beth Howard is an author and documentary filmmaker in Donnellson, Iowa. Her website is The World Needs More Pie dot com.
The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of Tri States Public Radio or its license holder, Western Illinois University.
Diverse viewpoints are welcomed and encouraged.