Walking the walk has never be easier (MISC.)

My family is huge in organic foods, healthy eating, and efficiency. Having a background in farming, when my parents lived in China, just adds to the lifestyle of utilizing every conspicuous nuance in an organism. Nature should never be dubbed as futile.

My grandparents were the landscapers when we moved to our "new" house a little over 10 years ago, so our backyard has been turned into an Asian garden fiesta. I believe the only thing that we had to actually purchase were the seeds, tools, pots and some wires to act as blockades to the unremitting little rabbits and deer. The rest was gathered by my grandparents from neighboring home-construction dumping sites: rocks to pave paths, wood to build wooden beds, the home-made shed, poles for vines, and string and nails to secure everything together. Other people's trash becomes my grandparents' treasures. I believe that our garden is the DIY heaven. However, 10 years really does something to a garden; now, grass and greens have penetrated our paved paths, making it seem like a camouflaged road, the vines have climbed all over the wires we hooked from tree to tree, draping down like miniature weeping willows covering a canopy every spring, the tree branches my grandparents braided have morphed into compliance, but most of all, the weeds have proliferated since the stop of constant care. But still, I'm very glad that the Japanese beetle epidemic has died down so now I can eat my Chinese cucumbers knowing that we did not use any pesticides. I love our garden. Nature has taken over and beautified it even more.

Nature struck again when this year, I found that our main "canopy" had a new species on it. It was the lilac/lavender flowers that I see everyday coming to and from school on the highways. After my vines suffered a week or so of lavender colored invasions, my grandparents finally spoke of the flower's faint familiarity. All along, it was the same flower that my grandparents picked and ate back in their village in Northern China. The manifestation of purple only lasted for another week before we ate it clean.

Look at what Nature has brought us here!

Closer look! Looks venomous? Just kidding! It isn't!

Chomp Chomp Chomp. Done!

To tell you the truth, I didn't like to eat it one bit. Something so vibrant in color should have a stronger taste than... tastelessness! But nevertheless, I still held my breath and ate it, knowing that it was organic and exotic, characteristics my taste-buds crave (even though my mind was confused by the aforementioned point). My point is that there is no excuse for people to be hungry because, look around, everywhere has the potential to grow food. I was enlightened by this point at my first meeting with Maurice; he turned around and pointed to the school roof and said, "we can grow food there!" then he turned back around and pointed to the semi-empty parking lot and said, "and there!" Nature has made the places capable of growing food almost, if not completely, ubiquitous. We must be open to this potential and embrace the number of possibilities we can gather and implement.

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My grandparents were at it again with their creativity. This time, they found several mulberry trees on the side of a road, one day, and decided that they would take some berries home and grow their own mulberry trees. Sounds, like possibilities for them are imminent, no? Well, all I have to say is that they take advantage of everything around them. I admire their ability to recognize that everything has potential. This is how I work and think, now.

With my grandparents back in China, my father there as well for a business trip and my sister at school (NCSSM!), our flourishing mulberry trees had no tenders. So, my mother and I decided to take on the roll. My mother was outside for a while before I joined her and she already had this much picked:

Simultaneously picking and eating! Talk about a multitasking mind and body cleanser.

She only went around picking the ones closest to the ground... we weren't even 1/3 done...

2 Mulberry trees = a LOT of work. Oh how much we needed to know about Espalier when we planted these!

Deliciously juicy... all natural!

Blend 2cups of freshly picked mulberries and 2-3 ice cubes and you have yourself the sweetest natural smoothie you have ever tasted!

There was a tiny bug crawling along the bowl before I snapped this pic... must have carried it in from the picking! But hey, bugs have a ton of protein so... bon appetit!

Just one hour and one tree produced a couple day's worth of fruit for our fruit devouring family! Now, that compares to the average week's intake, I'm guessing, which is a LOT! The sad part was that when I went to NC State for AP Exams in the beginning of May, when mulberries become the juiciest, there were mulberry trees around every corner I walked. Why is that sad? No one was picking them! All the juicy and anti-oxidant rich fruit were going to waste just like that! As I walked, I counted about 5 of them. Passing under each one, I winced every time my shoe crushed and squished an innocent and nutritious berry. If just one hour and one tree could satiate a family for a week, think about 5 hours for each of the 5 trees! That's 25 families! Sigh...

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 Remember that huge snowstorm that kept school and work out for a week? Well, there were several this year, which was very odd for NC, but I'm talking about the one in February. Fine, almost all were in February, but this section of this post is about the snow storm that happened around Valentine's Day.

This was the week that Fencing Junior Olympics, in Portland, took place. The night, around 11PM, before it started snowing, my mother made a split-second decision to get me on a plane the next morning so I won't get snowed in. All I can say that, with pure luck and a mother's incisive intuition, my father and I were able to snag 2 seats on the first and almost the last flight out of RDU. We made it to Portland safely. Unfortunately, my mother got stuck coming back from work that day for 5 hours and my sister was stranded for a couple days at school in Durham.

When I got to the Portland Greater Convention Center, one of the first things that I noticed, other than the magnificent architecture, were these bad boys. Now, looking back at this picture, I know exactly what Justin from CompostNOW was talking about with the 3 cans. I examined it's beauty and compactness and pure genius architecture and utility. At this time, I was setting my mind on wanting to integrate trash bins like these into schools, so this was a prime example for me to emulate.

Portland, Oregon, is surely developing in the right direction. Come on NC!

Beautiful.

Why don't we have these bins in NC? Why not all over the world? I mean, I first came into contact with this concept when at Whole Foods, and now this, so why is it taking so long for people to catch onto this needed trend? Slowly but surely we can do this. Think about it: schools with compost bins next to the trash and recycling bins, planes, convention centers, businesses, restaurants, parks, trains, transportation stations!

Hopefully, you have gotten this far... long post, I know. But I feel that it is necessary for us, especially as living beings in a society that needs some work, to look around and notice patterns, notice all the possibilities around us and notice the lack of food infrastructure (not only food!) we have right now. "Food" isn't in the form of what is on our plates every breakfast, brunch, lunch, linner, and dinner, it is a cycle: from the ground and trees, to the factories (sigh... processed food.............), to the stores, to our cars, to our refrigerators and pantries, to our recipes, to our plates, to our trash bins (should be compost bins), to our landfills, etc. What we have right now is all we need to get started. We just have to make everyone else more aware of the fact that anything is possible and issues like these are only changed with inspiration, motivation, dedication, and concentration.

Dead End

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After a couple key events, which included an enthusiastic meeting with the school's nutritionist ending with a new contact added to my opportunities list, and a phone call with that same person, who is the head of Wake County Public School System's Child Nutrition department, I have gained knowledge - like how WCPSS is currently spending $200,000 per year in local fresh food for the schools and etc - but have had my path blurred. To think about it, $200,000, for the largest school system in the state, does not go far at all. We, as normal Americans, spend more than $1000 per year sustaining one person with produce and the like, so technically, WCPSS is barely holding up 200 students. My whole school's population is more than 10 times that number that. But on the bright side, "WCPSS is working very hard to grow that integration".

What we need to do as humans who advocate change for the good in current lagging regions is to emulate and to seek advice and lessons from the journeys that others have taken to get their regions to become adherents to the trend of change. Unfortunately, people's natural tendency is to revert to familiar and comfortable grounds. North Carolina, WAKE UP!

Starting is the HARDEST part

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Entering into Enloe High School to me was like opening the doors to freedom. Especially the freedom of catalyzing my passion into something... different... something... amazing.

As my first post explicitly stated, I am a hypochondriac. A health freak, or nut, indeed. But to my surprise, I found that my idiosyncrasy is not typical, instead it is exceptional. Do people know how perfunctory routines could be beneficial to your health or permanently deteriorating? Of course they do.... do they not? Who doesn't? But if everyone knows about the affects of present food consumerism (my confusion is not just confined to the situation on food; FYI), why do they keep up the buying of gallons of soda, disgustingly processed food, deep fried donuts, and et cetera? Why has everyone not yet boarded the train of organics, greens, natural colors, etc? I'm very confused. But I am going to figure this out.

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It was September of 2013 when I first started my journey. I've gone through a lifetime of preparation and finally found what I was destined to do. A "Health Reform" was what I was after. But how?

From asking teacher to teacher, I finally made my way to the Assistant Principal who manages my high school's cafeteria. I approached him during lunch in the courtyard, a school hotspot for meals and class changes. I showed my passion and explained my ideas to him in a brief conversation. I wanted to learn more about the school's food system, because, eventually, I wanted to integrate more fresh produce into the system. Many schools and districts around the country have already integrated this model to bring food from local farms directly to the plates of the students in schools. North Carolina is always one of the slow runners in integration, sigh. The meeting ended with the cliche "Oh, you're one of those kids. Well, okay, we'll see what you have in mind. Make a power point about your ideas and present it to me. Then we will see if we could present it to the Wake County Board, but don't get too worked up about this because change in the system requires higher federal approval which takes time to happen. But aside from all that... I'm excited!".

My father told me this one quote that will use for the rest of my life. "9 out of 10 people will say NO... but once you find that 1 person, you'll be golden." I started off with 1/9.

 A couple paths opened up for me in result of that conversation with the Assistant Principal. One was to do the presentation. And one, the one I took, was a referral to the school's nutritionist.

What's next? Let's get this snowball rolling.

A Taste of My Passion Concoction

I have not always been an advocate for public health, well at least the kind that matters.

When I was younger, I would love McDonalds and would ask to go get a couple Oreo Chocolate Chip McFlurries after every gymnastics practice, and I would love to loathe eating naturally colorful things like broccoli, or red bell peppers. I was repeatedly pounded with ads and PSAs that said “healthy foods save lives” or “McDonalds can kill you” but no message ever sank in, especially because of the lack of gained weight I maintained due to the grueling practices. There was no reason for me to stop. There were two eras in my life that cemented me into my current regimen. When I started developing hormones that resulted in skin flares, I became eager to find the next remedy to mend my skin and confidence. Everywhere I looked there were websites and Dr. Oz shows saying “Solution to Acne: Healthy lifestyle”. Through this realization, and through extensive research on acne and the longevity of one’s vitality, I began to control myself. However, this became an unhealthy obsession, some might say that it was an addiction.

As I was quitting the horizontally and vertically growth stunting sport of gymnastics after seven years, I was entering the phase of puberty in which you become conscious of what others think about your appearance. I began exposing myself to the fashion industry’s “model-standard”. It was then, that I began fencing, and after a couple years of recreational fencing, I started competing. One summer, I experienced my first case of tendonitis - my first chronic injury within this new sport. I was suggested to take a couple months off, which I did after 4 months of stalling with the athlete’s tendency to work through the pain. During those 2 months, I started worrying about gaining weight and fat due to the lack of doable exercise available for me. Thus, starting another long era of calorie-tracking (sometimes I even went days eating less than 600 calories while exercising to bring in a negative net). I was not the slightest bit aware in that zeitgeist that through this form of malnutrition (although I was only eating fresh produce, fruits and organics) my mood became unbearable and easily phased, my focus on priorities shifted into a downward spiral, my relationship with my family was on edge, and my injuries were not healing, instead, they were getting worse. Those around me were always pushing me to eat more, but I refused to give in because I thought I was doing the right thing. This scary era in my life went on for about a year. No one else knew about it, but the effects of my decisions were publicly visible.

It was a very gradual change that put me back on track and better than ever. It started with me becoming seriously competitive in the sport, which resulted in an increase in intensity and time in my training. The effort and the energy needed to maintain my composure and improve my performance could not even merely be met with my current habits and lifestyle. Thusly, as my food intake grew, and the category of foods consumed were nutritionally optimized, my mental and physical health skyrocketed. I hadn’t felt so energized in forever and a year. Oh, the wonders that were evoked from dormancy; my ability to focus was peaked, my muscle gain was unprecedented, my irritable mood was controlled and put into a coma (hopefully for forever), my grades catapulted upwards with less effort, my relationships with my family members were improved, my priorities shifted for the better, etc. However, these catastrophic results were from a constant uphill of nuance-like changes. The progressive changes and persistence turned my life on a novel and efficient track. Now, you might call me a hypochondriac, for I am still in a healthy extreme as far as consumption of certain foods. Through my battle against the darn acne, I’ve refrained from even tasting the slightest concoction of cacao/choco (it’s a myth, yes, but it is a completely viable excuse to repeat to myself when I have a healthier option or the choice to say no - which is all the time), stuff that cooks in a pot of oil, and many other foods that I have similar peeves about. But my decisions are based on the result of the consumption, the future, not the present. I know that if I do not get enough lean protein, then my performance goes into the red. If I do not eat my 5 different natural colors each day, then cancer is inevitable (exaggeration; but thank you, Dr. Oz). The most important concept that I learned is that you certainly are not what you eat, however, what you and how (much) you eat defines you.

My efforts to become a more “efficient” person in all aspects of life, have gained me my present stance. And now, in hindsight, through my experiences, I have gained the knowledge through self and public observance that everyone has a striking potential, but not everyone’s has been unleashed fully and/or correctly, but equally as important, not everyone knows that they, themselves, contain such capability. Generally speaking, if each and every person could be able to release and effectively use their capacity, the world would be able to advance with lightning speed; the impoverished would hack away at social classes, and problems would be solved much more efficiently. With this line of thinking, the next generation, even if they are birthed into a hard state, will be able to achieve and accomplish feats that seemed unachievable and unattainable to them before. We must, as people who are granted lives that are much more comfortable than the lives of others, balance this unbalanced equation for ourselves and our surrounding peers. In retrospect to all that I, personally, have gone through, what my family has gone through and, of course, what those around me have gone through, I have come up with mottos that I live by. One of the many is: “Food drives the mind. The mind drives the life.” If food awareness, access, and reach are all obtained, think of all the possibilities that could be brought forth from the masses of potential released.

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I have, on the other hand, always been an advocate for our natural sustainer.

My first memory that sparked my promotion for the environment started when I first entered Elementary School. I clearly remember at lunch, every day, those sitting around me would say “Aw man, Mommy packed me this again?” or “Ew, I hate this!” I was already growing accustomed to the complaints but what happens after the moans are still very foreign to me. The grievances were 95% of the time followed by a shoot and a score into the nearby trash bin. Horrifying. Absolutely horrifying that the natural tendency of people is to waste things. Even more horrifying is how humans make a game out of such things. I was raised in a hardworking household who have seen and experienced starvation, thus heightening my awareness and action towards eating every bite that I am given. When Hurricane Katrina made her spill down the staircase, I can undoubtedly recall the masses of food cans and the sort that were piled up in my school’s front office for donations. This phenomena really did not make sense to my preteen mind, and it still does not today. How could people waste things that are commodities to them so frivolously on a daily basis but once a blue-mooned disaster that makes headlines powers through, they are willing to generously give supplies? Disasters are perpetual in a world like ours. As follows, everyone should be frugal with their commodities and not take them for granted, because the person next to you right now might need those extra apple slices that you just tossed into the trash because you weren’t famished or you don't have a preference towards the nutrition-packed-fruit.

The earth produces all the materials that we need to make things, likewise, the earth can reuse the materials that we deem “waste”. BOOM! MIND EXPLODED! If our mother earth has the power to do such a thing, why don’t we have that same power? Well, we do, and I learned this through my own frugality. Simultaneous to my acne-phase, I began my obsession to have the clothes that were deemed “trendy”, however my family was and is very frugal so anything that is extraneous to our needs was quickly eradicated from our buy-list through logically reasoning. “Trendy” and expensive Hollister cotton tees were included in this eradication. I did not let my own values go, so to combat this wanting and yearning, I decided to make my own “poser-trendy” pieces. I would use clothes that I, my sister, and my mother did not wear anymore and completely transform them by use of a simple sewing machine and tools/pieces around the house. To this day, one of my mottos is “Nothing is Waste”. I create much of my wardrobe and style from hand-me-downs or fabrics that were bought and that had served a different purpose in their previous life (curtains, etc.). I also had myself a short-term business going with altering and transforming jeans and pants for my friends from samples from my father’s business. Nothing is waste. I believe that through this passion and eye for creating new products out of the old, I was able to mesh my frugality and my eco-friendly/problem-solving attributes together. Going back to the thesis of this paragraph on how the Earth creates matter as a cycle, it is our job on this planet to maintain and further enhance this cycle. Landfills will fill up, yes, global warming will affect and has affected all, yes, but what are we doing? There is potential in every nuance and crevice in this world. And this is the next concept that I advocate. The beauty of composting (and methods alike and in different fields) is that we can use natural methods to renew what we deemed of as “waste”, that the Earth originally naturally produced, and reuse what we, with the help of our nature, made. The soil that is essentially a natural and chemical-free fertilizer now goes back to create more things such as organic food, etc., and the cycle goes on. The Earth is truly genius, and we must exploit and use her knowledge and omnipresent resources efficiently.

Lastly, I created the name “The Food Ark" so that it’s back story could allude to the story of “Noah’s Ark” and how Noah essentially saved many, many, organisms from disaster. That is ultimately our goal: to provide the Earth with those who are passionate who will sustain her, and to provide people with a channel that leads to success.

The Food Drives the Mind. The Mind Drives the Life.

Nothing is Waste.

Everything Has Potential. Everyone Has Potential.

We are the Food Ark.