Some Food Thoughts
July 27, 2010 – 4:16 pmThe idea that the local/organic/sustainable food movement represents a form of elitism could not be further from the truth. While this topic could fill an entire book, I though I’d make a short and succinct case as to why this is ludicrous.
For me, there are three tenants at the heart of this growing movement. The first is to put our food dollars back into farmers’ pockets, as opposed to the pockets of the corporate giants of industrial agriculture (Monsanto, Cargill, Archer-Daniels-Midland). The second is to stop the inefficiency of using more energy (fossil fuel) calories in the production of our food than actual food calories created, and to stop dousing our farmland with synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. The third is to treat the animals that we eat with a certain measure of respect and humaneness, which includes letting these animals live the way they were evolved to live. This includes the apparently difficult-to-understand notion of letting a cow graze on grass, rather than pumping it full of corn.
A large consequence of ensuring the above is that, yes, your food will cost more, though now you will actually be paying a price for your food proportional to the costs it took to produce it.
Often, farmers are getting paid less per bushel of corn than it cost to grow it. Another example is that for every $1 of corn sweetener produced, the farmer only gets $0.04. Our food dollars are flowing to the “producers” of value-added products like the chicken nugget, instead of to the growers (the farmers).
The farmers that I have met and whose farms I have also visited are the hardest working people you will ever come across. To complain about paying a FAIR price for your eggs, produce, poultry, beef, etc., and then turning and blowing $60 on a night of drinking, or even more on the newest iPhone/other gadget is the height of chutzpah.
Naturally there are families out there for whom the increased cost of local/organic/sustainable food represents quite the burden, but I would argue that most of the people I have spoken to on this topic do not fall into this category.
The problem as I see it is a lack of basic knowledge of where one’s food comes from. I challenge anyone to take this first step of tracking or at least trying to track the food they eat on a daily basis, and to examine the consequences of eating meat and produce grown using industrial methods.
Just start there. And then please tell me what’s elitist about local/organic/sustainable.
One Response to “Some Food Thoughts”
Well said, brother. For the last couple months, I’ve been eating a lot of local food. This marks the first time in my life that I have not only tried to eat organic food that is good for my body but also tried to really make sure that I buy many products from local sources. I love meeting farmers at farmer’s markets and talking to them not only about their food practices but also about their personal lives. They are real people who treat real animals with real respect and grow real plant-based food (not pesticide-ridden and genetically modified frankenfood).
Those that know me are well aware that I am not elitist by any measure. I just feel like it is time for all of us including me to stop feeding the corporate machine who hurts small farmer’s businesses, people’ bodies, and other animals’ well being. It is unbelievable how much animals are treated inhumanely on corporate factory farms.
Individuals in the US do not spend nearly as much as other nations do on purchasing food items. I am one person who is definitely willing to pay more money on healthy food to live more sustainably with the earth and to live a longer and healthier life. Future living organisms on Earth depend on us making this decision … agreed? Agreed.
By Derek on Oct 21, 2010