Garden of Vegetables

Last week First Lady, Michelle Obama, dug up a section of the South Lawn of the White House to plant an organic vegetable garden.

I thought it was fantastic to have some local children come to the White House and help dig up a garden. Word on the street is that they are even going to plant kale!!!

I wish every child had a chance to see where real food comes from. I was fortunate by growing up on a farm, my parents had a HUGE garden filled with rows of potatoes, peppers, tomatoes, carrots, kale, cabbage, and everything in between. I remember countless springs planting everything and countless summers hoeing and weeding, and countless autumns running to the garden to get something for dinner.

When I talk about healthy food I don't mean organic. A lot of people assume healthy = organic or that organic means local. Organic just means that the food, wherever it came from, has met the 'standards' to be able to be labelled that way i.e. least amount of pesticide possible as an example. When I talk about healthy I mean fresh or whole, not packaged. As I've said before you shouldn't really need to shop in the aisles of the grocery store, shop around the perimeter and you ensure that you are eating healthy.

So congrats to Mrs. Obama for leading by example. If more children understood where food comes from and what 'healthy' really means there would less obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.