During training we all look forward to the lunch break. Some of us are looking forward to the first sip of their beer, others to the delicious meal or sandwich that will be waiting for them. You can say, practicing Aikido makes you hungry. (Especially if you know Panini-Eindhoven makes special sensei sandwiches! Seriously, you should try it) But what struck us was this project of making a sandwich from scratch. An insane project! Soooo much trouble for a sandwich… wait a minute, we eat a sandwich every day!?!

All that made us think why this is a good project:
– you learn that good things need time to grow
– you start caring for your food
– you start eating with more attention and appreciation

These are also the reasons that, when we have a kids activity at our dojo, our students learn to make their own food. This varies from a salad to a pizza with vegies. Ofcourse it’s also a lot of fun too!

Another bright insight comes from a man in L.A. He is an Urban Gardener. If you can spare 10 minutes take a look at this video from Ted Talk. One of our favorite quotes comes from him: ‘Growing your own food is like growing your own money’.