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“Give the stomach good, wholesome food, and it will fill your veins with pure blood which in turn will give you a healthy brain and drive away the whole brood of manufactured troubles.” This quote is from a piece entitled Kitchen Education written by a Shaker plowman in 1883.

The Hella Delicious Food Culture was officially initiated in 2007. Based on traditional rituals and respect for nature including micro-organisms, minerals, mushrooms, plants and animals, it is a grass-roots culture built foundation up. Across the world our earth, food and ourselves are being poisoned by greedy, mindless corporations that have insinuated themselves into every aspect of our lives. The most addictive aspect of this is through our food. From the minute we are born into our Western culture we are marketed to, imprinted and trained to respond to certain brands.

When we take food preparation back into our own hands we start to break this cycle. When we get to know the farmers that are growing our food we break another link in this cycle. Everytime we grow our own food we also break another link.

One of the most wonderful things about taking control of our food preparation rituals is that there are as many ways to do this as there are people in the world. Everyone has their own needs, sensitivities and tastes, some of these may have developed over generations. Do it your own way, whatever feels best. If you don’t know where to get started, exploring your own ancestral foods and traditions is a fascinating way to begin rebuilding your roots.

The Hella Delicious Food Culture brings together all the diverse food traditions from around the world, food is fascinating, delicious, peaceful and comforting. Through appreciation of this and sharing our sacred delicacies with each other we can find ways to connect and work together. Good food is our starting point and finding ways to get good food to everyone is our goal.

Main roots emerging from this food centered culture:

• Fermentation (homemade probiotics)- kefir, kombucha etc
• Community Currencies,
• Ubuntu (open source),
• Bodywork modalities like craniosacral therapy, qigong, shaking
• Therapeutic diets SCD, GAPS
• Detoxification
• Personal rituals like I Ching, runes etc
• Crafting,
• Foraging,
• Guerrilla Gardening / Natural Farming / Biodynamic
• Market Clubs

There’s probably a few I’ve left out. Please see our Urban Dweller’s DIY for some tips on living as off the grid as possible in an apartment in a city.

Although the site has one main author at the moment (hellaD) we have recently gotten more authors please let us know if you’d like to get involved. Topics mentioned above are areas we are looking for more articles, but we would really love to have vegetarian bloggers, raw food bloggers, world food bloggers, paleo bloggers, breathatarians all involved. Our main goal is to put a stop to factory farms and get back to a more responsible and conscious way of life. Please contact us if you are interested. See here for other ways to contribute. We are also currently accepting interns.

Food crosses all boundaries and all borders. Everyone and everything needs food. Food is the common denominator and the differences in food across cultures simply provide fascinating ways for us to shared our joy of eating.

Although Hella Delicious is focusing on raw milk at the moment, that is because we need to know where our food is coming from as part of the Occupy Big Food movement. The industrial milk system is dirty and inhumane, we can’t trust that we’re not getting antibiotics, pesticides and all manner of man-made chemicals. The whole thing is a silly waste of time and we would rather be talking about how we can deal with the Fukushima issue and closing down the other nuclear plants, getting rid of pesticides, cleaning up the earth. We are out of time people! We need to start cleaning now. Every day there is a new oil spill, nuclear leak, bombing and there is so much that we never hear about. Our world is toxic. We need to stop everything and clean it up now or our children are gonna spend their lives suffering more than we are.

Philosophy:
More than just ingredients go into a dish, part of the love of the person growing the vegetables, raising the animals, cutting and mixing the ingredients goes into the food too. It is good to touch your food with your bare hands and to feel it. Just as it is good to make sure your hands are clean before you touch the food! This personal touch adds more to the food than any amount of sophisticated processing or flavor crystals could ever add.

The rituals of food preparation vary quite drastically between countries, but were traditionally central to every aspect of life. In our modern world we have found a million short-cuts to make food cheaper and easier to prepare, as a result we have sacrificed much more than just nutrients and flavor, we have also cut off part of our soul and the deep connections our ancestors cultivated for millenia.

Symbiosis:
Micro-organisms are our friends in the kitchen and the process of fermentation has been used since man first discovered mead. Bacteria and fungi have helped our digestion and provided vitamins for humankind for millenia. The war on “germs” and our irrational fear of these unknown micro-organisms is unhealthy. Cultivating helpful micro-organisms is one of the best ways to ensure that super-bugs and other unwanted viruses cannot gain a foothold in your home or in your body.

Cooking in cooperation with these invisible alchemists takes a whole different mindset. The symbiotic relationship that results moves with a cyclical rhythm creating the vitamins and nutrients that have been removed from our diet with industrial processing. We should not need to spend hundreds of dollars on supplements and the packaging and marketing that goes along with such things.

DIY:
Hella Delicious endeavors to demonstrate affordable, healing, practical and convenient methods for us to nourish our bodies, minds and souls. We should follow Belo Horizonte’s example of ensuring that nutritional food is a basic human right and must be made affordable for all.

We should never have to fear our food, whether we are living in America and afraid of hormones, antibiotics, genetic engineering, nanotechnology and chemicals contaminating our meat, or in Myanmar afraid of typhoid in children’s popsicles and mercury in the fish.

Hella Delicious History:

• Origins of Hella Delicious
• hellaD in Conde Naste
• How I healed my Gut

Hella Delicious is a member of the Weston A Price foundation and has great appreciation for Sally Fallon Morell for bringing Weston. A. Price’s work the world in such an accessible way with her Nourishing Traditions cookbook. Please see our webseries Mouth of Babes for some fun videos on making good food for fertility and pregnancy.