Quotes & Sayings About Growing Your Own Food

You digest and absorb your life by turning it into stories,' he says, 'the same way this theater seems to digest people.' With one hand, he points to a carpet stain, this dark stain sticky and growing mold, branched with arms and legs.
Other events - the ones you can't digest - they poison you. Those worst parts of your life, those moments you can't talk about, they rot you from the inside out. Until you're Cassandra's wet shadow on the ground. Sunk in your own yellow protein mud.
But the stories that you can digest, that you can tell - you can take control of those past moments. You can shape them, craft them. Master them. And use them to your own good. Those are stories as important as food. Those are stories you can use to make people laugh or cry or sick. Or scared. To make people feel the way you felt. To help exhaust that past moment for them and for you. Until that moment is dead.
Consumed. Digested. Absorbed. — Chuck Palahniuk

No, the founders of our culture didn't just fall into a lifestyle of total dependence on agriculture, they had to whip themselves into it, and the whip they used was this meme: Growing all your own food is the best way to live. Nothing less could imaginably have done this amazing trick. — Daniel Quinn

When I was growing up, I was eating fast food every day. I'd drink soda non-stop, candy, just everything. It was horrible. My go-to was McDonald's, for sure. — Ryan Lochte

A farmer's work is more like that of a horse trainer than a mechanic, more like that of a healer than a computer repairperson. It is not really accurate to say that farmers grow food or raise animals. Farmers alter environmental conditions in such a way as to maximize a plant's or an animal's innate ability to do its own growing -- in the same way that the best horse trainers seek to draw out abilities already within their horses or in the way the best healers know when to stand back and let their patients' bodies do the work. There is mystery in farming. — Ben Hartman

Growing up the way I grew up, food was scarce. So when you had an opportunity to eat, you ate. When I graduated from high school and went to college, I weighed 160 pounds. So, I knew I had to put on the weight. I ate everything from fried food to fried chicken wings. When I came to Green Bay, I did the same thing because I was 172 pounds. — Donald Driver

Growing food was the first activity that gave us enough prosperity to stay in one place, form complex social groups, tell our stories, and build our cities. — Barbara Kingsolver

Peter sighed into the water, and his breath sent a small circle of it into tiny ripples. "It seems cowardly, getting old. Don't you think?"
She rolled onto her side to look at him, pillowing her ear with her right arm, and letting her fingers dangle in the water beyond her head. "How is it cowardly?"
Peter kept his eyes on his reflection. "You just curl up around yourself, and sit by the fire, and try to be comfortable. When you get old, you just get smaller inside, and you try not to pay attention to anything but your blankets and your food and your bed."
"Being comfortable is not a bad thing."
Peter shrugged and turned his head to look at her as if it was a matter of fact. "Of course it is. Old people lock out all the scary, wild things. It's like they don't exist."
She wanted to say that she would have liked for those things not to exist, either, but she held her tongue, because she didn't want to sound like a coward. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

I have never believed we had to choose between either a clean and safe environment or a growing economy. Protecting the health and safety of all Americans doesn't have to come at the expense of our economy's bottom line. And creating thriving companies and new jobs doesn't have to come at the expense of the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, or the natural landscape in which we live. We can, and indeed must, have both. — William J. Clinton

Agriculture probably required a far greater discipline than did any form of food collecting. Seeds had to be planted at certain seasons, some protection had to be given to the growing plants and animals, harvests had to be reaped, stored and divided. Thus, we might argue that it was neither leisure time nor a sedentary existence but the more rigorous demands associated with an agricultural way of life that led to great cultural changes. — Charles Heiser

I remember, around age three, peas growing in the back garden. Pinching them from their pods and popping them in the mouth was my first realisation that food came from somewhere other than a shelf. — Caitlin Moran

An apple a day might have kept the doctor away prior to the industrialization of food growing and
preparation. But, according to research compiled by the United States Drug Administration (USDA) today's apple contains residue of eleven different neurotoxins - azinphos, methyl chloripyrifos, diazinon, dimethoate, ethion, omthoate, parathion, parathion methyl, phosalone, and phosmet - and the USDA was testing for only one category of chemicals known as organophosphate insecticides. That doesn't sound too appetizing does it? The average apple is sprayed with pesticides seventeen times before it is harvested. — Michelle Schoffro Cook

Our [generation] people have the worst diet of anybody. I'm ready to put a farmer on my payroll. We've got to get back to growing our own food. You are what you eat! — Prince

I love Korean food, and it's kind of like home to me. The area that I grew up in outside Chicago, Glenview, is heavily Korean. A lot of my friends growing up were Korean and when I would eat dinner at their houses, their parents wouldn't tell me the names of the dishes because I would butcher the language. — Patrick Stump

Meanwhile starvation and death were rampant. The Boar came in increasing numbers each passing week. Food that had been reserved to keep hungry children fed went instead to feed the endless bellies of the steadily growing barbarian hoard. — Seth A. Kathigen

When the first of us failed at growing or herding or plowing the fields, we were told that we could sign a piece of paper and get money for the land, without anyone taking it. Mortgage, this was called, a piece of banker's cleverness that sounded good to many. I spoke against this trick, but who listened to Nanapush? People signed the paper, got money, came home night after night full of whiskey and food. Suddenly the foreclosure notices were handed out and the land was barred. It belonged to someone else. — Louise Erdrich

Every child should be given the right to grow up and become a productive citizen. This will not happen unless, at the very least, basic food needs are met. Ending childhood hunger should be a national priority. — Pamela Sue Martin

one of the great failures of human civilization has been its refusal to pay proper attention, or a proper wage, to those who perform the hard but essential primary task of growing our food. — Christopher Hitchens

For industrial goods, productivity growth has been more rapid than for the economy as a whole, so that prices in this sector have fallen relative to the average of all prices. Foodstuffs is a sector in which productivity has increased continuously and crucially over the very long run (thereby allowing a greatly increased population to be fed by ever fewer hands, liberating a growing portion of the workforce for other tasks), even though the increase in productivity has been less rapid in the agricultural sector than in the industrial sector, so that food prices have evolved at roughly the same rate as the average of all prices. Finally, productivity growth in the service sector has generally been low (or even zero in some cases, which explains why this sector has tended to employ a steadily increasing share of the workforce), so that the price of services has increased more rapidly than the average of all prices. — Thomas Piketty

I definitely love kimchi. The biggest influence that eating so much Korean food growing up had on me was that I have no limit for spiciness. The hotter the better. — Patrick Stump

Growing up, my mom had a catering business. I used to help her pretty early on and loved doing it. My mom is an amazing cook, and she helped me cultivate a love for food. She taught me that food can be beautiful. We eat not just for survival, but we survive to eat. It's part of who I am. — Kelis

Some kids have never seen what a real tomato looks like off the vine. They don't know where a cucumber comes from. And that really affects the way they view food. So a garden helps them really get their hands dirty, literally, and understand the whole process of where their food comes from. And I wanted them to see just how challenging and rewarding it is to grow your own food, so that they would better understand what our farmers are doing every single day across this country and have an appreciation for ... that American tradition of growing our own food and feeding ourselves. — Michelle Obama

Growing your own fruit at home is a wonderful treat and a huge money saver. Home grown food of any kind tastes delicious and being able to go outside and pick fresh fruit from a tree is something everyone should experience. — Julio Belson

Keep moving forward! You don't need permission from anyone in order to move on your own father's land! Go ahead and take the lead! — Israelmore Ayivor

The green man said, "I'm a fool, I suppose, to put any confidence in you. And yet I do. I am a free man, come from your own future to explore your age." "That is impossible." "The green color that puzzles your people so much is only what you call pond scum. We have altered it until it can live in our blood, and by its intervention have at last made our peace in humankind's long struggle with the sun. In us, the tiny plants live and die, and our bodies feed from them and their dead and require no other nourishment. All the famines, and all the labor of growing food, are ended." "But you must have sun." "Yes," the green man said. "And I have not enough here. — Gene Wolfe

[N]ow that growing your own (food, dope, hair, younameit) is hip," wrote the author of an essay widely reprinted in alternative newspapers, "it's time to resurrect the Dope of the Depression - Homebrew." Homemade beer inspired "good vibrations" and a "pleasant high." Unlike the rest of "plastic, mass-produced shit" of modern America, homebrew represented "an exercise of craft" and empowered the "politically oriented" to retaliate against "Augustus [sic] Busch and the other fascists pigs who [were] ripping off the Common Man." "If you're looking for a cheap drunk," added the beer adviser, "go back to Gussie Busch. But if you dig the good vibes from using something you make yourself, plus an improvement in quality over the commercial shit," brew on, brothers and sisters, brew on. — Maureen Ogle

It's become more readily apparent that we need to be growing our own food and growing more things organically. — Nell Newman

Ever since mankind stopped wandering around aimlessly and started cultivating its own food, society has been growing more complex. As soon as we stopped sleeping with our cousins and built walls, temples and a few decent nightclubs, society became too complex for any one person to grasp all at once, and thus bureaucracy was born. — Ben Aaronovitch

People are vaccinated with dangerous chemicals during their childhood, indoctrinated with immorality through television while growing up, taught to reject God by their teachers, fed with genetically modified food, and led to suspect others by their relatives and friends, and then you wonder why it's so difficult to find a normal person in this modern world, why nobody assumes responsibility for their words and behavior, and why everyone is so selfishly abusive. The biblical apocalypse has begun and the zombies are everywhere. It's just that we call them stupid and selfish instead. But they do act like there's no life inside of them anymore. There are no more normal human beings around. The survivors of this apocalypse are extremely scarce and must be treasured. — Robin Sacredfire

Food as a hobby used to be an elite pastime, and it has become something that is totally ordinary for people of every background. In that way, we see the growing up of the American food scene: that it's okay to be a regular person and be really into food. — Dana Goodyear

With no navigational skills, her travels became aimless, and after several days she began to experience excruciating hunger, as she had not the foresight to pack food before she set out. She drifted through tiny villages and saw juicy fruits and vegetables growing in the gardens of the peasants, but could not bring herself to beg for food or attempt to steal it. She ate small beetles and grasshoppers, since she had no hunting skills. She chewed on the bitter roots of sassafras trees, which turned her stomach sour but provided a small amount of nourishment. How — Brian Edwards

Cora Thompson had two of them
cats, that is. Which was quite remarkable considering she had never owned a pet before. Growing up in the rural South as she had, Cora had been taught that if an animal couldn't work in a field or be slaughtered for food, then it was of no use. Certainly any domesticated animal such as a dog or a cat would only bring about the destruction of fine furniture, stained carpets, and the onset of disease, not to mention the foul odor. That's just the way it was. — Barbara Casey

The growing attention Americans are paying to what they put into their mouths has touched off a new scramble by the processed-food companies to address health concerns. — Michael Moss

We do take seriously our responsibility, and growing ability, to educate people about healthy eating and giving them greater access to nourishing and affordable fresh food. — John Mackey

Leftovers make you feel good twice. First, when you put it away, you feel thrifty and intelligent: 'I'm saving food!' Then a month later when blue hair is growing out of the ham, and you throw it away, you feel really intelligent: 'I'm saving my life!' — George Carlin

In our society, growing food yourself has become the most radical of acts. It is truly the only effective protest, one that can-and will-overturn the corporate powers that be. By the process of directly working in harmony with nature, we do the one thing most essential to change the world-we change ourselves! — Jules Dervaes

Every crack is also an opening. When in the midst of great change, it is helpful to remember how a chick is born. From the view of the chick, it is a terrifying struggle. Confined and curled in a dark shell, half-formed, the chick eats all its food and stretches to the contours of its shell. It begins to feel hungry and cramped. Eventually, the chick begins to starve and feels suffocated by the ever-shrinking space of its world. Finally, its own growth begins to crack the shell, and the world as the chick knows it is coming to an end. Its sky is falling. As the chick wriggles through the cracks, it begins to eat its shell. In that moment - growing but fragile, starving and cramped, its world breaking - the chick must feel like it is dying. Yet once everything it has relied on falls away, the chick is born. It doesn't die, but falls into the world. — Mark Nepo

Especially for me, growing up in such a small town in the middle of nowhere, the desire to be away was incredible. I wanted to see new lands, meet new people from the city, and meet people that were in much less fortunate situations than I was, so that I could be more appreciative of my present. At least I had food on the table. — Garrett Hedlund

Washington is not a place to live in. The rents are high, the food is bad, the dust is disgusting and the morals are deplorable. Go West, young man, go West and grow up with the country. — Horace Greeley

Hatred and food were served up in equal proportions at the Connor dining table as he was growing up. — Bill Ward

Not to psychologize, but it's hard growing up in a family of 14 to ever feel like you're the center of the universe, or that you're that special or different. Because when it comes down to it, you're still fighting for food at the dinner table. — Ronan Farrow

One thing that makes me very happy is to see the growing activism among chefs in America. Chefs like Tom Colicchio, Bill Telepan, and Rachel Ray and food writers like Michael Pollan have gone to Congress, indeed sometimes even have testified before Congress, have lent this support to Mrs. Obama's effort to combat childhood obesity. — Jose Andres

I was the youngest of six kids, so yeah, feeding myself was important, but it's not like I was obsessed with food growing up. — Jim Gaffigan

We were to write a short essay on one of the works we read in the course and relate it to our lives. I chose the "Allegory of the Cave" in Plato's Republic. I compared my childhood of growing up in a family of migrant workers with the prisoners who were in a dark cave chained to the floor and facing a blank wall. I wrote that, like the captives, my family and other migrant workers were shackled to the fields day after day, seven days a week, week after week, being paid very little and living in tents or old garages that had dirt floors, no indoor plumbing, no electricity. I described how the daily struggle to simply put food on our tables kept us from breaking the shackles, from turning our lives around. I explained that faith and hope for a better life kept us going. I identified with the prisoner who managed to escape and with his sense of obligation to return to the cave and help others break free. — Francisco Jimenez

Have I added to their building blocks, shoring them up with strength and their own magnificence? Have I shown them enough color? Did I let them have enough ice cream and leave them alone enough without my anxieties? How can we know which is the right way? We have to go with our inner instincts and the feeling in our bones. But I can contribute to their growing cells, show them some foods that are better than others, walk with them, and encourage their own tastes. I can teach them to love and appreciate food, help them treat their bodies like gold, listen to them wanting more or less. The rest I have to trust. — Tessa Kiros