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Be honest. Do you have an exercise bike that you use as a clothes hanger?

I grew up with one of those permanently parked in a corner of my parent’s bedroom and swore I’d never buy one.

I’ve kept that promise to myself.

Instead, I bought a rowing machine.

It’s too low to the ground to use as a clothes hanger, so the thing has no practical use whatsoever.

Well, that’s not entirely true. My grandson Sean likes to sit on it and glide back and forth. But, use it for exercise? Not me.

When Aaron Newton of Concord, co-author of “A Nation of Farmers: Defeating the Food Crisis on American Soil,” spoke at an Oct. 13 meeting of the Rockingham County Local Foods Coalition, he noted that Americans spent $6 billion on exercise equipment and $12 billion on gym memberships last year while saying they didn’t want to grow a garden because it was too much work.

“I’ve got an exercise plan for you,” he said. “But it’s going to require a mentality shift. Gardening is laborious but not backbreaking.”

For those who say they have no time to garden, he countered with the fact that we in the United States lead the world in time spent watching television, averaging three hours per day. “If you just give up one episode of a show like ‘Law and Order’ every day, that would give you seven hours a week to garden,” he said. “You can grow a lot of food in seven hours a week.”

Newton said he wasn’t there to preach, but he was there to make a point about how important it is to grow your own food.

Exercise and better nutrition aren’t the only benefits to growing your own food, he said. “People don’t need to arrange special quality time with their families if they garden together and cook together.”

His 3-year-old daughter raised her first produce this year: two pumpkins. When she saw her parents grind one for baby food, she was proud she had grown something that would feed her little sister.

Newton advocates what he calls a “bulls-eye diet,” at the center of which is home-grown food.

The next ring of the bulls-eye is food from your neighborhood. He gave an example of how he gardens in the sunny backyard of an elderly neighbor and shares the produce with her.

He also recommends that neighbors grow different fruit trees and share harvests.

The next ring of his bulls-eye is local, then regional, then from your own state, then national.

The outermost ring is everywhere else in the world.

 Newton said locally grown foods will solve many environmental problems, add to food security, improve our health, strengthen communities and local economies, and help stop global warming.

The movement toward local food is gaining momentum, but people also have to learn how to cook, store and preserve fresh vegetables.

Newton said the Cooperative Extension Service in Cabarrus County offered two courses on canning this year and they filled up within two days. So they offered four more, and they also immediately filled.  

“We need to change food in America from the inside out,” he said, “… become part of the project of changing how we eat in America.”

Joni Carter lives in the Bethany community. Contact her at writetojonicarter@gmail.com