Food Day is October 24, 2012. This month, Food Day Kansas City intends to spread the word by strewing Apple Share events throughout the metropolitan area.  Apples are at the core of health — an easy and inexpensive way to chomp on real food, plus they embody a symbol to raise awareness about food issues.  Apples will be doled out at various venues not only for nutrition, but to get us thinking about daily diets and health.  Grass roots activists that, in a way, fall from a tree.

As a celebration of the hale and hardy, these crisp red orbs will be handed out by volunteers at such diverse sites as KU Medical Center, St. Luke’s Hospital, American Century Investments, Children’s Mercy Hospital, the Kansas City Metropolitan Transportation Hub, Truman Medical Center, and the Department of Motor Vehicles.  Site accommodations and donations by a local purveyor have been invaluable as have the efforts of so many willing volunteers and organizers.  Most of all, we thank those who do and will partake.

Now, on an even more earnest note.  Food Day does not merely cull from the small pool of foodies, grub pundits, locavores, vegetarianism, lifer organizers, health freaks and so forth.  Food Day is not a limited campaign replete with superficial goals and vapid aims.  Food Day does not insinuate that you reject your diet entirely only to embrace the strictures of vegan life.  Not at all, as it’s about good food and choices.

Food Day should be an inspiring event, and the tent accepts all — vegetarians, carnivores, omnivores alike.  Food Day is a celebration of healthy, affordable, and sustainable food, and represents a campaign for better food policies.  All that we humbly ask is to strive for good, real meals at your table — at homes, restaurants, cafeterias, or businesses — whether communally or alone.  Serve some kindness on your plates and avoid that fast food nation.  Join hands and reduce obesity, heart disease and diabetes rates while eating well.  Become more informed and cognizant of your food choices, ever so slightly or even more and become active.

Each of us must, by necessity, eat and drink almost daily. So, why ever make the art of cooking and eating so unwholesome?

Above all, please remember our children…meanwhile, munch on an apple.

Gordon Rock is a member of the Food Day KC Planning Committee and writer whose recipes and ruminations can be found at www.alaycook.com.