An apple a day keeps the doctor away. If that saying bears some truth, food technologist Corine Fleuren helps people grow their own preventive medicine.

Ever feel like you’re caught up in a rat race? Ever dream of leaving your office for a vineyard? Finding your inner animal, inner child or inner self. Fleuren wants you to look for something else in there. Your inner farmer. Because the distance between production and purchase of fruit makes us feel disconnected - having lost all passion for fresh food.

Bridging that gap - or rather closing it altogether - can only be done by learning about the intermediate process. Learning by doing, preferably. Research shows that people who grow their own fruit also eat more fruit. And there certainly is room for growth in this area. On average we still consume only about half of the vegetables and fruits we are advised to.

With home grown food comes connection, exercise and education. Teaching your children where the milk comes from, a cow on your balcony may be somewhat impractical. But farming principles should be in everyones basic toolkit. If you indeed are what you eat, then finding your inner self is about knowing what you consume.

Between the marketing indoctrination of large enterprises and the hassle of amateur agriculture, those aspirations can easily be set aside as theoretical utopia. That’s where Fleuren combines her big idea with a practical way to start living this ideal tomorrow. Or even today.

Her easy-to-take-care-of mini apple tree needs no pruning, no spraying and little watering. Farming on a square meter, in gardens and on balconies. Do it yourself and get connected. Step out of the rat race, if only for a few moments. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll live like that God in France after all.