Whether you call it being a co-producer or being an active participant in the ecology of food production, distribution, and consumption, moving away from the passivity of simply buying and eating food can take you along a variety of paths. Overall, it means inserting yourself into a cycle, rather than being a big open mouth waiting for whatever the system down the pipe. Mostly it means viewing food as an environment, not a unidimensional production chain, with every individual influencing what, how, and why food is made and eaten.

A couple of hundred years ago, 50% of us participated in growing and raising plants and animals. Today in industrialized countries, that figure hovers around 2%. It is defintely nice to be freed up from the fields so we can do lots of other productive things, but it’s also worth thinking about how that 48% of us spend our time, and whether it’s a good thing to have so much power so centrally placed. That doesn’t require reverting to widespread, pre-industrial habits, but don’t you want more of a say in how we make the stuff that ultimately makes you who you are?

Here are eight ways you can help influence the quality of the food that goes into your and your families’ bodies. These are just a few of the things you can do, but they’re all based on three simple ideas: giving feedback, wielding power, and thinking cyclically rather than linearly.

1. Shop at a farmers’ market and really get to know the producers you are buying from. Talk to them, ask about their products and their processes, understand their reality. Then you can give feedback and express preferences, and wield your influence where it can have an impact.
2. Act less with your money and more with your voice. Shopping wisely is great, but being part of the cycle is more than just “voting with your dollars.”
3. Eat seasonally. Buying tomatoes in January and strawberries in March means you’ve placed yourself back at the end of the chain, not participating in a dialogue or being part of a circle of communication.
4. Do a little home preserving (to start). Canning, saucing, freezing, drying—it will keep you from boring yourself to death with nothing but root vegetables all winter long, and you can feel proud and creative at the same time. Tomato sauce, strawberry jam, pesto, and pickles are all very easy and very satisfying. Move up to apple butter and canned vegetables as you get good at it. Do it with neighbors and spread out the work—it’s convivial to boot!
5. Educate yourself not just by reading labels, but also legislation. Watch À la di Stasio, but also Food, Inc. and The World According to Monsanto. Realize that each of your actions leaves a mark on the food environment—you can either support the status quo or make choices that help improve your health (social, cultural, physical, emotional) and that of the world around you.
6. Go to municipal administration meetings and exert an influence where your impact will be felt. The federal liberal party has made food security and localness part of their platform, but making political promises stick means making sure that individuals with opinions about food participate locally.
7. Become a co-distributor. CSAs and food drops, collective buying (and raising) of food—these are ways to take power back from the large food distribution network, including food-service and supermarket chains.
8. Grow something, whether it’s basil on your back deck or beans and peas in a garden plot or apples and asparagus at your cottage. Go and actually be a producer. There’s nothing like doing it yourself, even a little, to understand what really goes into making food.

— David Szanto, Slow Food Montreal