The Importance of Getting Down and Dirty

As the keepers of the earth, we have failed miserably.  We have burned, slashed, desiccated, degraded, polluted, robbed, the earth’s most precious resource—our dirt. We have conveniently forgotten we are only as healthy as the soil that holds our water, grows our food, and nourishes our trees. But there’s no better reminder of our essential, life-affirming relationship to dirt than the eponymous movie Dirt! on GaiamTV. Narrated by Jamie Lee Curtis, Dirt! manages to entertain as it engages while avoiding preachiness. Microbe-slayers beware: you may come away with a new respect for dirt.

With its array of wonderful experts, stirring footage, and charming graphics, Dirt! points out the global just underfoot. In fact, despite it being a dismal day in February, watching the film gave me the strong urge to go into my backyard, check on  the state of my compost, put my hands in our dirt, and—if no one else was looking—even take a nibble.  The nibble part may sound far-fetched, but Gary Vaynerchuk, host of Wine Library TV, suggests taking a lick of dirt to illustrate how different it can taste from place to place. Vaynerchuck is all about a truly visceral experience of terroire, the French word for the taste that the local environment imbues into the food it grows.