I have long been inspired by my grandmothers cooking. Her generation grew up eating simpler foods. A lot has changed since then. We now feed a world population that has grown significantly and there are plenty of challenges to making food easily available to everyone. Consolidation in the food industry has lead us to a place where the synthesis of flavor and freshness is marketed at the expense of local food production and natural ingredients.

During a summer trip to the market with my niece I started paying attention to the ingredient list on some of her snack crackers. Next to some basic ingredients was a long list of strange and hard to pronounce words that included fillers, sugars, and stabilizers. I freaked out! When I tried preaching the evils of GMOs and conventionally farmed foods to my sister Melissa, she looked glassy eyed and bored. I think she even let out an exasperated sigh. Good gravy, I thought, why is this not incensing her? So I asked her and she said “I just want to be able to go into the grocery store and buy things and not have to think about every ingredient. I just need to believe it’s safe- I don’t have time for anything else.” And a light went off for me...