Thanksgiving is more than just elementary school plays and oversimplified stories of Indians and religious puritans. At one point, it was about families, and bringing it back to that, well, that might just be more than Norman Rockwell wishes.

Shawn Wozniak

We need to slow down for a moment and think about how our family dinner has changed, and our food system with it. There used to be a way of life in this country where families sat down at the dinner table together and had a home-cooked meal, often from scratch and whole food ingredients. That way of life, which we shared in common with the Native Americans and people around the world, is seemingly dying in our culture. As obesity statistics increase, and crime and violence also increase, a few thoughts strike me, and I’d like you to take them to your Thanksgiving dinner, at the least, and make it one that will be beneficial not only to you, but to your community and the environment.

The family dinner has now become a mockery of its former self, with families spending their mealtime eating unhealthy, over-processed food in separate rooms in front of separate TVs or on the run. I was guilty of this on occasion in high school, but for the most part, my parents cooked the dinner (yeah, my dad cooked, too – I’ve got a cool family) and we – my siblings and parents, ate at the dining room table. We talked, and most conversations would invariably end with my mom clenching her stomach in pain from laughing so hard because of my uncanny ability to turn any family dinner conversation into an uproarious monologue on my part about the finer points of defecation. I believe these experiences (laughter, conversation, time spent together over food) lead to a healthy social upbringing for the citizens of our country.

Shit-talk aside, I do have some advice for you, our readers – in your families, in your dorms, in your apartments – eat with the people you live with. There’s something to be said for what goes on at a dinner table with good quality food and good organic conversation. Parents, you’re the bosses. Use that. Your kid tells you to shove off? Take his/her iPod away. Take the TV away. To the teenagers – you have your angst, we all had angst, I had mine over moving and not making friends and trying to find my place in the world. It’s a part of growing up – but get over yourselves, please. I wish someone would have told me to do the same damn thing way back when and to stop pretending that my problems in my head were any more important than the problems of war and violence, poverty, government corruption, corporate greed and corruption, environmental degradation, and the feelings of apathy and helplessness on the part of humans everywhere that contribute to these. I’ve met teenagers who have their shit together way more than I did at their age who are into activism already and are working toward social change at 16 years of age. Back to the point, kids/teenagers – sit down with your parents and talk with them. They’re often pretty cool, and you might catch a story at the dinner table that will make you think and even laugh more than a rerun of Friends or Sex and the City.

The economics and substance of our meals is in disarray. When you eat, pursue nourishment. Don’t eat as an end in itself, savor and experience the taste of your food. One of the best things I’ve learned in my time as a discerning adult is that there are foods to be experienced beyond the wildest imaginations of Kraft, Con-Agra, or Tyson packages. There is a world of leaves, seeds, grains, vegetables, fruits and other foods found in markets around the country. They’re often a more nutritious replacement for the staples of the American or Western diet. And those staples that are a part of our American Thanksgiving? All are available in an organic variety – from free-range, antibiotic free turkey, to homemade stuffing from organic whole grain breads, to organic sweet potatoes and pumpkin. Choosing these just takes the time and the effort, and sometimes, a little extra cash. Taking care of our health and the environment ought to be worth that little bit of extra investment on our part, so that our descendents can share in the same abundant harvests that we here in the Western World share. Buy locally this Thanksgiving to cut down on food miles, to support your local farmers and economy, and to bypass the many transnational corporations that greenwash themselves by offering organic food.

Originally celebrated by Canadians, and then by the Pilgrims of Plymouth, Thanksgiving is a time for us to celebrate one another and the bountiful harvests that nourish our bodies day in and day out, and the end of the growing season. Whether you credit G-d, quantum physics, the cosmos, or whatever for blessing us with farmers who’ll eke out their livelihoods to bring us food for little remuneration and gratitude and with the natural phenomena (photosynthesis! the random chance factors that cause natural disasters!), we all have a lot to be thankful for – we don’t worry about food security daily, and many of us have quite a few luxuries we could live without, no matter how hard we think our lives actually are. At the same time, people in our country and around the world aren’t so fortunate. Thanksgiving is a time to think about and come up with concrete actions for them that they might be able to have the food security many of us take for granted.

Enjoy your time with your families this Thanksgiving. Turn off the Lions game and talk – many families have to travel to be together, and be grateful you have family members who can and will do so. Make a meal that’s conscious of both the people who raise and grow your food and of the environment. Be truly grateful for what you have, because it’s by chance or fate that you were born to your culture and not to one in a developing country. It may seem crass, but that’s a little bit to be thankful for, and maybe enough motivation for us to all do something to give a little more to them as the holiday buying and giving season rolls around the next day, Black Friday.

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