Remembering The 'Why'

As I have previously mentioned, I am in the (very) early stages of setting up a small homestead where I plan to produce all of our own food.  For the last few years I've been concentrating only on the 'how'.

How do I grow enough food to feed a whole family?  
How do I do it in the most efficient AND the most environmentally-friendly way?  
How do I produce food year-round?

In this sea of 'how', I haven't really been giving much thought anymore to the 'why'.  

Why tackle such a hard project?  
Why sign up for the strenuous physical labor that will be involved?  
Why not just pick up whatever I need from the local grocery store, like everybody else?  

During my recent trip to Pennsylvania to visit with family, I was reminded of the many reasons why I have decided to commit to what promises to be a life-long project.  I was reminded of just how many people in my family (like many families in America) suffer from modern 'western' diseases - diabetes and heart disease.

I think this quote pretty much sums it up:

"The human animal is adapted to, and apparently can thrive on, an extraordinary range of different diets, but the Western diet, however you define it, does not seem to be one of them."  

― Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

I want my husband and I to have long, healthy, active lives.  The more I read, the more I become convinced that to achieve that requires drastic changes in the way we eat.  I especially want to make sure that our future children will grow up eating healthy, delicious food and understand where that food comes from and what it takes to bring it to the table.  

As it happens, I also figured out I much prefer to be outside than to be stuck inside an office and we're lucky to own enough land to make it possible for me to do this.  Not everybody could do this, or would even want to.  That's ok, too.

But for me, remembering the very long list of the reasons WHY I want to do this freshens my resolve to make it happen, and to enjoy every step in the process.