Looking at the food coming out of the garden, I wonder how we ever came up with the idea that food can be industrialized. I wonder about it when I cut open a cabbage I just picked. It is so different than any cabbage I find in the stores, even the local co-op. Store potatoes don’t have the deep flavor that the potatoes I dig out of the ground have.

Perhaps it’s that to have a cabbage that can endure going through the food industry, from growing in a field with thousands if not millions of other cabbages, to being picked quickly, industrial processes demand efficiency so industrial cabbages need to be picked as speedily as possible, packed, shipped through warehouses, trucked to stores, and stacked on shelves; such cabbages need to be tough and endurable.

Cabbage varieties that don’t go through the food industry can be sweet and delicate. Eating cabbage picked moments ago is sweet, crisp, and full of love. Real food can’t be industrialized, just like a parent’s love can’t be canned and sold on the shelf.