More Food for Thought

I found a lot to like in the three pieces we read for today, Schlosser, Kenner and Lappe respectively. The three authors all focused on more humanitarian efforts to solve what some might think is just a problem of where our food comes from. Despite some incendiary satirical tactics I may have employed in earlier posts may have suggested, I do really have at least a modicum of faith left in humanity. Especially when authors like Eric Schlosser, who have "made it" in the literary world, can still take the time not only to denounce the Industrial Food Machine's corporate greed and the political elite that defend it, but to remind readers that it is up to each one of us to look out for one another. Schlosser states that "bringing healthy food into public schools...creat[ing] a health care system that looks after everybody...rais[ing] wages.." (16) are all efforts to clean up our dinner plates of chemicals and sad dead animals. We need to look at this issue from an expanded and thoughtful point of view and "eliminate some of the factors that keep the price of [food] artificially low...[thereby improving] the health of consumers, livestock and the land" (16). This is excellent advice, though it may sound a bit too easy, dare I say utopian, for some.

That is where Anne Lappe comes in with a tangible solution. Small-scale, organically sustainable farms. Indeed, if more people grew their own crops/cattle organically, we could have a much healthier biosphere. She states that "converting 10,000 medium-sized farms to organic would store as much as carbon in the soil as we would save in emissions if we took one million cars off the road" (115). Though this doesn't seem like an awful lot, the nature of business is expansion. If we started with 10,000 farms becoming less reliant on a centralized system of huge factory farms, the trend would undoubtably spread. We all have to eat. We have simply been trained by corporations to do it their way, cheaply and like machines.

Corporations, of course, won't be keen on the idea. Kenner blew my mind with his discussion of "veggie libel" laws challenging enough to take media moguls like the ever-infallible Oprah to the bank. This is quite a damning set of circumstances wherein a victim of the food industry cannot speak of its ills without millions of dollars being spent in legal fees. What if your car exploded and killed your family but you couldn't report your choice of another brand of car to the media? It's odd that the food system should have to answer to different sets of rules than other forms of consumer products in America. Anyone have thoughts on this?

I think it is laudable that these three authors are attempting to open up the discourse to all aspects of human interaction and stressing that if we are equitable to one another in health care, farming, education, etc. we can hope to change the way we eat. Eating is essential. It is a wonder it is so hard to get people to do it right. Perhaps citing figures of diseases like obesity and heart attacks while providing tangible solutions is a great way to start.