Just One Person

“But I’m just one person” goes through my mind. One person’s boycott won’t matter to a company that earns billions of dollars every year.

Maybe I can share what I know, I think to myself. But my mind shouts back, Who will listen?

As I learn more about where our food comes from and how the companies grow and make our food, I dive deeper into a state of depression that there’s nothing I can do that will make any sort of meaningful change.

So should I do nothing?

My mind whispers to me that one person won’t keep the polar bears from running out of ice, or protect the honeybees from being killed, or help the wild horses being rounded up by BLM helicopters and sold to slaughter. It shouts that Cargill owns the world and I have to get used to eating cows raised in feedlots and fed so much corn their livers burst. That part of my mind demands that I adapt to disease and illness caused by the top ten food companies. Afterall, most people seem to really enjoy the highly processed bioengineered food they create. Who am I to say otherwise? I’m one of their customers aren’t I? I’ve been eating Lay’s chips my entire life. Why stop now?

This voice in my head is telling me that people will wonder who I am to say this food is bad. I’m not a nutritionist, dietician, doctor, food scientist or farmer. There are plenty of experts applauding the work of these big companies. I’m just one person who thinks otherwise. But I’m not special. You’d have to be special to change the world.

Besides, who really wants to hear: it’s the food.

Who knows how much hate I will get for saying that the typical Western diet comprised of food with bad ingredients is making us all sick.

Shame on me. Not for wanting to change the world. But for thinking I can’t do anything because I’m just one person.

In fact, the most significant discoveries were all done by just one person. The most life altering inventions were created by one person. Technology often advanced because of one person’s ideas, because of one person’s resiliency to keep going. Just one person.

Would cell phones be the same if Steve Jobs hadn’t decided to take a class in calligraphy of all things? What if he had thought that as one person who dropped out of college he wouldn’t be able to create anything meaningful so why even bother?

One person planted a 1,360 acre forest all by himself to save wildlife. He planted trees every single day for 35 years. Now that little forest of his is home to Bengal tigers, elephants rhinoceros, over 100 deer and small wildlife. Just one person. If didn’t do it, would those animals be alive?

Then the better half of my brain takes control. Now empowered by these truths, it demands to be heard.

It’s not about them, it’s about me.

It’s about my health, my life, my present, my future. It’s about my family.

You see, I am in control of me. I have control over my health and what I eat. Taking back control changed my health and my life.

I also have control over what I think. So bye bye Devil’s Advocate. Your lease in my mind is herewith expired.

What can one person do? A lot actually. I can pot plants and grow a garden of my own food. This simple act will help my environment and combat climate change. It prevents gases like carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere because plants absorb carbon dioxide during photosynthesis and turns it into sugars locking it out of the atmosphere. It encourages local pollinators like honeybees. Most importantly, my food will be healthier. I don’t spray glyphosate on it so when I feed it to my family I will know that I am healing our microbiome, not harming it.

The food I grow is transported simply from my home garden to my kitchen immediately upon harvest, not on a truck weeks after ripening. Less fossil fuels are burned from my simple actions. I’ll buy the rest of my food from local farmers, so not only will I support those that are doing good for our earth, but I’ll rest easy knowing that I didn’t cultivate factory farming.

I’ll stop eating ultra processed foods that harm my health made with ingredients manufactured in a lab. I’ll only eat foods aligned with my values. I’ll cook my own food and develop recipes to replace every single processed food we’ve developed a penchant for.

I also have the most powerful weapon on my side. I can teach my kids. There’s three of them. Then they’ll teach their kids, who will teach their kids, who will teach their kids. If I made a difference to only one person it would make it worth it. However, it looks like a legacy moment for our family.

Who knows how much one person can do until you start. But if you never start, you’ll never know.

So it’s not about them, but it most certainly is about me.