Prepping for HLS 13

Tomorrow, I leave for Minneapolis to attend the Healthy Living Summit. This will be my third year attending. I love this event for so many reasons: the coming together of healthy living enthusiasts, the chance to learn new blogging and life skills, sharing meals and sweet treats with fabulous people, and the chance to explore the city.

Even better, I’m speaking at the Summit this year. My topic? Growing your own food.

In the grand scheme of growing food, I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface, but when I started to collect my thoughts, I realized that I know quite a bit about food and community building.

The flow of my presentation will follow my learning path for growing food. It all begins with one question: Where does my food come from?

From here, I started to understand that most of the food I purchased in the grocery store traveled an average of 1,500 miles, sometimes more, before it reached my plate.

Even more, when food is coming from that great distance, it needs to be preserved and treated with different chemicals. While it may retain the appearance of the food I know, the composition gets totally messed up. So, what does it mean if we don’t know the source of our food or what was used to help transport and preserve it?

Enter my fascination and obsession with growing food, learning about locally-sourced foods, and meeting with farmers and growers who grow soil and take care of food nearby. I’ve spent the better part of the last three years learning more about these topics.

I’m excited to share more about my food growing journey with the Healthy Living Summit attendees. I’m also ready to meet new people, to learn some new skills, and to spend the weekend in Minneapolis!