Earth Eats welcomes new blogger, Yvonne Maffei, a regular contributor to Indiana Public Media’s Muslim Voices project and the founder of My Halal Kitchen, a blog about halal food and healthy cooking. You can learn more about Halal (which means ‘permissible’ in Arabic) over on the Muslim Voices blog.

My interest in healthy living began in the teen years when I devoured magazines and books that offered information on eating right and exercising. I not only wanted to keep off weight, but also to feel healthy. In the process, I was fortunate to develop health-conscious habits and attitudes about food well into my adulthood. Alhamdullilah (Thank God).

The same concept is as true today as it was when I was a teen: We need to educate ourselves about food, nutrition, exercise, and now more than ever we need to know where our food comes from.
Agriculture Has Changed

Important things in our commercial agricultural system have changed, and not necessarily for the better. For example, so much of the food entering the marketplace is actually being modified, over-processed and lowered in quality faster than you can bring a fork to your mouth. What’s worse is that without consumer action, you can’t expect much to change for the better.

I’ve spent a lot of time studying food documentaries as part of my self-initiated health education. Not only was learning about the process of agribusiness an eye-opening experience, but the more I learned, the more I realized I needed to educate myself about the source of my family’s food. I sincerely believe that the quality of our lives and the generations after us depend on this knowledge, which is why I pass it on to you.