FRESH FOOD FROM FARM TO TABLE—
Hindy Weber Champions Holistic Farming
“When you take care of the Earth a little bit, it always gives back so much in return,” Hindy Weber says. That was her realization when she moved from Manila to the province of Laguna with her family. They settled there, built a farmhouse, and started growing their own food in their backyard. And because they made sure their land is well taken care of, it provided them vegetables too many it reached a point of oversupply.
It wasn’t her intention to put up a business; the core concept of Holy Carabao Holistic Farms simply sprung from Hindy being a mindful mother who wanted to give her family better food.
With Holy Carabao grounded on the farm-to-family idea, Hindy says, “For me, the value that I think I gave the industry at that time was really bridging the gap directly to the consumer, to the family, to the mothers, to the people who are buying the food—as opposed to just growing food as a business and then just delivering tons and tons to a supermarket where you’re disconnected to who is really buying your food.”
KNOW YOUR FARMERS
The conscious effort to eat mindfully should stem from knowing where your food comes from. You deserve to know how the vegetables were grown, how the animals were raised, and who exactly grows your food.
Holy Carabao prides itself in supporting farmers’ livelihood and in paying them more than fair wages, because theirs are the hands that bring food to our tables. “Why should farmers get less than doctors, right? They’re
helping you from getting sick, the doctors come after the fact already,” Hindy points out.
Farmers play such a big role in ecology, and one way by which Hindy brings people closer to the farmers is through their educational farm tours. “We have field trips. We have families coming over,” she shares. “We don’t just talk about ‘you don’t use chemicals, or this is how you grow lettuce.’ We start from the basics which is, first and foremost, soil health, soil regeneration, earth stewardship. You can’t want to eat clean, you can’t think of being healthy without that.”
A field trip on the surface, but it’s actually a mission to plant a seed in the minds of the parents and the kids about making better choices.
INTERCONNECTEDNESS
Not everyone can be farmers, but each one of us can help make a difference by being more aware of the things we buy or consume. We are dependent on the planet and its resources, and the planet depends on us to stay healthy.
This interconnectedness also relates to building communities geared towards the greater good. Realizing they could offer families more by building a small network of farms, Hindy and her partner invested in small farms around the country; Holy Carabao has the task of bringing their goods to the market, because they don’t have the means for that.
If you consider the long and arduous journey food has to go through to get to your family's table, it makes you think how more respect should be accorded to it. Making sure you make the most of it just makes sense. Refrigeration brand Sub-Zero understands the importance of fresh food, and how it impacts lives. It prides itself in being at the forefront of food preservation. It is manufactured with advanced technologies such as its NASAinspired Air Purification System that can filter not just viruses, odor, and bacteria from the refrigerator, but ethylene gas as well. Ethylene is a gas naturally emitted by food that causes other types of food to easily spoil. Apples, for example, produce high amounts of ethylene gas. When you put it in a paper bag with spinach, which is naturally sensitive to ethylene, you’ll notice the spinach spoil faster because of the ethylene gas emitted by the apples.
Hindy acknowledges the fact that modern-day conveniences are great innovations, but she also stresses the importance of being reminded that
“human beings are dependent on a healthy living planet.” Keeping this fact in mind should make us “more conscious, more compassionate, and more responsible” with our decisions.
Attesting to why fresh food matters exactly, Hindy says, “We can change the world if we just eat clean and eat from the land, and that involves fresh food. It begins with our approach to eating.”
To get started with a healthy lifestyle change, Hindy shares her learning from author Michael Pollan: “He said that if there’s one diet we should all do now more than any diet, it’s to cook at home. The moment you start cooking at home, automatically, you’ll choose better food. Cooking at home even just once a week can make a difference.”
“When you take care of the Earth a little bit, it always gives back so much in return”