My definition of "Eating well" is eating foods that embody or represent the fullest combination possible of four key elements. I offer these elements in this order of importance: Quantity, Health, Quality, and Responsibility.

Quantity
By quantity I mean sufficient quantity to provide sustenance. Any discussion or debate as to what "eating well" might be, is moot (and is frankly, offensive) if one does not have enough food on which to survive.

To the hungry, any eating is eating well. Sufficient quantity, therefore, must be the first consideration in eating well.

Health
There are foods which are good for us and foods which are not. Let's go a step further; there are foods on which we can live and grow and thrive and there are those which (at the very least) do not promote our long-term well being. Further, there are pure foods and there are impure, tainted and adulterated foods. We may not always know exactly which foods are which but (despite fad diets, junk science, and dubious assurances from chemical manufacturers) I'm pretty sure that most people understand the basics of a healthful, properly balanced diet.

Eating safe, nutritious food is the second component to eating well.

Quality
By this, of course, I mean good quality. We live in an amazing society where we often take quality for granted because it is so pervasive in our lives. By the standards of much of the world even our most basic mass-produced goods are of deluxe quality. Unfortunately these high standards do not seem to apply to much of our food supply. Ignoring, for the moment, the nutritional aspects of typical grocery store fare, the fact is that much of the "food" offered there doesn't look nice, smell right, have proper texture or even taste good. We have been trained to expect our produce to be hard and tasteless, our meat to be entombed in plastic and characterless and our dairy products to be processed, sterile, and dead.

Without raising the expectation of quality to the highest level, eating well would simply be eating. Eating quality is another important aspect of eating well.

Responsibility
I believe that one must also eat responsibly to eat well. To eat responsibly, in this context, means to look at the broader impact of a dining decision. This is a huge subject that is open to individual interpretation and personal subjection.

Did you know that food in this country travels, on average, about 2000 miles to get to the end consumer? That just seems plain wrong on so many levels, but that's only my opinion. Discussions of consumer responsibility and awareness range from international socio-political-economic considerations and fair trade, to global environmental issues to concerns for living wages for workers, the humane treatment of animals and the support of sustainable farming practices, just to name a few.

Eating responsibly, on top of everything else, addresses the more spiritual side of eating well, perhaps offering some nourishment for the soul.

Putting it all together
For most of us, quantity isn't going to be a problem, so to Eat Well, all we have to do is re-direct our eating habits to include as many healthy, high quality and responsibly produced foods as possible. The best way to do this? Obviously, grow it, raise it, or make it yourself!

The second best way? Get to know your local food producers. Go to a real producers' farmers market (not a "re-sellers market"), talk to a farmer about his vegetables or his herbs or his eggs. Go visit a small dairy farm near you and meet the cows or goats and look at where the cheese is made or the milk bottled. Find a rancher who's raising a few grass-fed steers or heritage hogs or pastured sheep and learn about his meat operation. And, above all, support those local providers who meet your standards in the key areas I've been talking about. Sure, it's more work than cruisin' the aisles of MegaMart but you've got to decide. Do you really want to eat well, or not?

David is the co-owner and award-winning cheesemaker at Black Mesa Ranch, a small certified goat cheese dairy in northern Arizona. The Ranch web site is www.BlackMesaRanchOnline.com

David Heininger
Black Mesa Ranch
Arizona

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