Urban Gardening Revolution Spreading with Help from Youth Music Video
Alex Pietrowski, Staff Writer
Waking Times
Music has always been an act of rebellion, and in these times growing your own organic food is also the task of dissidents. In this case, inner city youths from Minneapolis have created a music video displaying their paradigm shift and highlighting their rebellion against the greatest threat to their health and well-being: the food industry.
In many of America’s urban jungles, the only groceries available are the kinds of snacks and processed foods sold at convenience stores and the center aisles of small grocers. Most meals come from restaurants, mainly fast-food joints, and the combo of packaged junk foods and factory produced fast foods is proving deadly, causing more harm to people in these areas than does violence.
The urban diet silently kills people by slowly poisoning them with chemical preservatives, flavor enhancers and colors, while starving them of critical nutrients. Obesity, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, depression, are all linked to diets heavy in low-quality foods and sugary drinks.
READ: Gardening More Meaningful than Voting in a Rigged Political System
We’re not supposed to think too deeply about this, because there is money to be made, but the costs of being dependent on fast, non-nutritious and toxic foods are high, but, fortunately, people are catching on. In fact, you may say that a popular uprising is in the works, thanks in no small part to the message started by Ron Finley, known affectionately as the Gangster Gardener.
“I live in a food prison.. It’s all by design just like prisons are by designed. I just got tired of being an inmate. So I figured, let me change this paradigm, let me grown my own food. This is one thing I can do to escape this predestined life that I have unwillingly subscribed to.” – Ron Finley
He’s right. Many areas in the U.S. are food prisons, and an organization called Appetite for Change, a North Minneapolis, MN non-profit, is doing something about this, involving young people in the global mission to return to our roots, to get out in the garden, and to plant the seeds of good health and social change.
Appetite For Change uses food as a tool building health, wealth, and social change in North Minneapolis. AFC is a community-led organization that strengthens families, creates economic prosperity, and encourages healthy living. [Source]
In an outreach project, a team of youths has created a well-produced music video, Grow Food, rapping about the need for and benefits of changing the way we look at food and how we go about getting it and preparing it.
A sample:
“See in my hood, they ain’t really much to eat. Popeye’s on the corner, McDonald’s right across the street. All this talk about guns and drugs, pretty serious. But look at what they feeding y’all, that’s what’s really killing us.” ~Grow Food
Check it out for yourself and share it to spread the revolutionary message of independence, self-reliance and good health.
“The simple act of growing our own food directly challenges the control matrix in many authentic ways, which is why some of the most forward-thinking and strongest-willed people are picking up shovels and defiantly starting gardens.” ~Alex Pietrowski
Appetite for Change grows food, family, communities and leaders, in an inspiring effort to be the change we all wish to see in this world. Are you paying attention?
Read more articles by Alex Pietrowski.
About the Author
Alex Pietrowski is an artist and writer concerned with preserving good health and the basic freedom to enjoy a healthy lifestyle. He is a staff writer for WakingTimes.com and Offgrid Outpost, a provider of storable food and emergency kits. Alex is an avid student of Yoga and life.
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This article (Urban Gardening Revolution Spreading with Help from Youth Music Video) was originally created and published by Waking Times and is published here under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Alex Pietrowski and WakingTimes.com. It may be re-posted freely with proper attribution, author bio, and this copyright statement.