After hearing a distressing interview on NPR last week, one of my good friends came to me with a few serious questions about the state of the world. “How will we ever manage to feed everybody?” “ If it came down to Genetically Modified Crops or Organic Food, what should we choose?” “How many people will die from malnutrition before Americans start becoming seriously concerned?” “What do we have to do to put things right?”

The last question, surprisingly, is the easiest to answer. “All we have to do,” I said between bites on my hurried lunch break, “is learn to really care about our food. Becoming detached from the process is what got us in this mess. Reacquainting ourselves is what will, ultimately, get us out.”

The people of America, once proud farmers of family land, barterers and preservers, now spend about one hour a day on our personal diets. If you are wondering how we’ve managed to diminish the very necessary task of gathering, preparing, and eating food, look no further than our average budgets. We spend more money on fast food than higher education. We also spend more on burgers and fries than on literature, magazines, movies, and recorded music combined. And how many of us know when to transplant a tomato? Or how to cure a ham? Detached may have been too gentle a word to describe our relationship to food. Why don’t we just call it clueless?

There are, however, whole organizations of people fighting to educate Americans about their diets. You have nutritionists, economists, farmers, activists, international businessmen, politicians, school teachers and concerned consumers all banding together to get word out about the myriad of faults that compromise the stability of our current food culture. We eat too much, too cheaply, and with too little regard for origin or production. And that’s just the beginning.

Cue the Sedgwick County Extension Office. On the intersection of Ridge Road and 21st St. sits a humble little building that houses a thousand opportunities for self betterment. This homemaker’s playground is your local extension office. Not only does it answer over 300,000 phone queries a year, it also teaches classes, provides endless resources, posts national and local food safety alerts, and (when the weather warms up) hosts two farmers’ markets a week. If you were making the most of this facility, you would be benefiting from discounted local produce, delivered packages of chicken and steak, tips on where to buy what groceries, nutrition advice tailored to your age and lifestyle, free seminars on how to plant organic vegetables, kid- (and amateur-) friendly cooking classes, recipes, advice, and a better understanding of the complex, beautiful, and delicious world of food. There isn’t a single Wichitan whose life wouldn’t be enriched by the volunteers and professionals at the Extension Office, and yet so few even know it exists.

Since most of what this program offers is totally free, you don’t have a single good reason to neglect these services any longer. Do yourself a favor, and browse the website until you find something intriguing.

The following list of services available to the Wichita public may not be the solution to the riddles of world hunger, but they’ll reacquaint you with the process of bringing food to your table. And that, as I told my friend over lunch, is excellent progress.

• Dining With Diabetes: Classes to assist diabetics or their care givers in cooking safely and practically.
• 63rd Annual Beef Barbeque: With a lecture on animal welfare by the director of the KSU Beef Cattle Institute, Dan Thomson.
• Lists of up-to-date FDA food recalls.
• Prairie Land Food: Delivering discounted meat and produce to people who volunteer in their county.
• Ingredient Substitutions and an Online Recipe Adjuster for the home kitchen.
• 2010 Get Growing Vegetables Workshop.
• Video lessons on gardening, canning, and selecting produce.
• Plant a Row for the Hungry: Allowing Kansas gardeners to donate fresh produce to the food bank.
• Water and soil quality testing.
• Cooking classes on spring rolls, homemade pastas, quick breads, etc.

Have you used the extension office? What’s your favorite of its many resources? Let us know in the comments.

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