Reconnecting to Our Food Roots - Get to Know Sonia Blough; Holistic Nutritionist, Researcher and Naked Innovations Collaborator.

Sonia Blough grew up in a Virginia home where healthy food was valued and there was a reverence for the simple pleasures of cooking and eating together.  At 10 years old, she would stand beside her dad at the kitchen stove stirring a roux for a proper mac and cheese.  Indeed, she was destined to become a passionate foodie.  Sonia also cultivated a deep curiosity about the role food plays in the human experience which led her to pursue a degree in Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Southern California with a focus on food.  

“Food is the oldest expression of human culture.” Sonia explains.  “For much of human history, our lives centred around food.  It was our livelihood, it was bartered, it was currency, it was woven into the fabric of community life.”

People had to think about food a lot for most of human history, but things have changed in the modern Western world to the point where we hardly think about it all.  It is this estrangement, Sonia believes, that has led to a breakdown in the health of humans, our communities, and the natural world.  “We have become totally disconnected to food,” says Sonia.  “We need to open up people’s minds to thinking about food again and restore that connection.”

According to Sonia, we lost our way about 50 years ago when we began sacrificing healthy soil and plants in pursuit of greater crop yields.  For a while, we deceived ourselves about the toxicity of the chemicals raining down on farmland. 

At the same time, American cultural values of productivity and individualism infiltrated how people viewed food, and later spread to other parts of the world.  Suddenly it was normal for people in Western societies to be scarfing down processed food alone in our cars.  TV dinners and other microwavable, prepackaged meals leapfrogged over home-cooked meals to enjoy a higher status.  The folk wisdom of our grandmothers was drowned out by advertising jingles pushing fantasies of magically engineered foods promoting instantaneous vitality and new and improved physiques.  The tide of consumerism swept us further away from our food source, leaving an ocean between the store and farm.

Ironically, Sonia found herself quite physically disconnected from food when she ended up stranded in the middle of a Los Angeles food desert during college.  The effort to obtain healthy food was a constant battle and a societal privilege.  Today, many impoverished people are unable to surmount the barriers to obtaining nutritious meals and are plagued by obesity and chronic disease, but this is not true of all countries.  Spending time in Europe, Sonia found hope in the continued prevalence of farmers' markets permeating different neighbourhoods of the city, regardless of the socioeconomic status of residents.  The ethics of this accessibility and issues of food justice remain important to her, as is the importance of pleasure and community that surrounds food in many European countries. Drawn to the European lifestyle, Sonia taught English in the south of Spain for two years and made Barcelona her home after receiving a degree in International Studies on Media, Power, and Difference.

Sonia continued to expand her extensive knowledge of all things related to food, earning certification as a Holistic Nutritionist.  She follows Chinese traditional practices built around the principle that food is medicine.  According to this ancient custom, people eat with the rhythm of the seasons and food is consumed based on its energetic qualities that keep the body in balance.  Salad, Sonia explains, is a perfect summer food, loaded with yin foods like cucumbers, tomatoes, and lettuce that are watery and cooling, and, unsurprisingly, harvested in the summer.  In winter, salad would not be an optimal choice, as the body craves the yang energy of cooked foods like a rich, slowly simmered stew.  

Sonia practices food as medicine in her own kitchen, eating seasonally and making almost everything from scratch. Her shelves are reminiscent of an apothecary with jars brimming with the flavor and healing qualities of fermented food.  For Sonia, fermenting is a way to practice mindfulness because she lets no food go to waste, and she looks forward to sharing more of her passion for fermentation in future workshops. Sonia has also worked as a nutrition coach helping clients make that critical connection between not only where food comes from and how it makes them feel, but also how they are eating.  The common issues of bloating after a meal can be linked to so many things, from the food combinations to a lack of mindfulness while eating. Sonia’s holistic approach to nutrition considers all these elements, from stress to being present while eating to where clients are sourcing their foods, and what types of foods they are eating. Sonia’s goal was to empower people to make good decisions about what to eat.  “Food is medicine or food can be poison. We choose.”

Sonia sees the path back to health and better food systems as one that reveres the local and seasonal, or the way we used to eat.  We need to follow the grandmothers and their jostling trolleys to where fresh, local food is available. In less developed countries, this style of eating is often still the norm, as are the strong community ties between producers and consumers. We have a lot to learn from traditional food cultures about health, community, and connection to nature. One of Sonia’s treasured rituals is to do her shopping at the local slow food market, Mercat de la Terra, or go to Maison Carpinelli and buy from a local grower.  She loves the treasure hunt among gorgeous, vibrantly coloured produce that will inspire a meal or two.  She will make you salivate as she rhapsodises on the perfect black tomato, a pink-striped beet, or a glossy selection of perfectly ripe eggplant in different shapes and colors.  Choosing from different varieties of produce is not only pleasurable but conveys to Sonia that the farmer is focused on biodiversity. What starts as a feast for the eyes will soon become a gorgeous meal. For Sonia, food shopping is an art form, free-flowing, improvised, a bit like jazz.  This kind of reverence for buying and cooking food is one that we should all try to adopt more of, to stop looking at it as a chore and start to see it as an opportunity for self-love, community building, and living in alignment with nature.

Sonia considers herself a spiritual person and acknowledges the ethical considerations behind our choices of where to shop.  Patronizing your neighborhood grower will put money back into the local economy and ensure you are supporting a conscientious steward of the land.  And unlike a supermarket chain with stock picked by faceless and often exploited laborers, you are not left wondering about the human cost of your meal.  Your basketful of organic produce will be rich in good Karma. Sonia maintains a serious meditation and yoga practice, but she says cooking is the most meditative thing she does. She loves the physicality of working with bread, chopping vegetables, or massaging cabbage to ferment.  She has been known to get into the flow marinating artichoke hearts and being surprised to learn from housemates that she had been in the kitchen for five hours.  The only thing that might rival the simple meditative pleasure of cooking is working on a farm.  Sonia has spent several summers volunteering on a farm in Italy.  “Farm work is hard physical labour, but the repetitive motions are very calming. It is transportive.”  

Sonia laments that so many of us have been scared off from cooking since it’s such a pleasant way to connect with food.  Maybe we are intimidated by television’s high-pressure competitions or perfectionist celebrity chefs.  But more likely people need to ease into cooking simple meals again.  “It’s important to honour our bodies by setting aside a few minutes a day to prepare something nourishing.  No matter how busy she is with work, and she is busy, Sonia makes time to cook.  Even when only cooking for herself, she will take the time to make something nourishing and beautiful. Actually, she says, it’s not so hard. Sonia will get up from her computer just for a moment to put on some rice and roast some vegetables. Add a tablespoon of kimchi and some sautéed tofu and you have a healthy no-fuss meal.

As a scholar, researcher and writer, Sonia’s relationship with food is partially cerebral, but her deep passion for food is emotional, even spiritual.  For Sonia, the way she connects with food daily is one of life’s great pleasures. “Cooking is my love language.  I love serving people something that I made with intention, that makes them happy.”  There is something unparalleled about the calming nature of baking bread, or the joy of sharing a freshly baked batch of cookies with friends. She laughs talking about constantly getting covered in flour from head to toe.  Sonia knows, like our grandmother’s knew, that healthy food will nourish the body, but the soul is also hungry for that special joy only found in kitchens.  

‍About the author: Mary D'Apice. American writer and educator Mary D’Apice lives in Barcelona where she delights in discovering vibrant community gardens flourishing in reclaimed abandoned lots. Mary is passionate about telling the stories of inspiring individuals who are working to promote human and planetary health by re-imagining our broken food system.