A few Sundays ago I watched 60 Minutes and caught a segment highlighting the work of Alice Waters, the "mother of slow food." I was inspired by Waters' love of food and her passionate belief that everyone is entitled to good food.
I couldn't agree more!
I was also impressed that Waters works with grocery store chains and food distributors to increase access to locally grown food in communities across the nation.
Fantabulous!
But when challenged about a common critique of organic food...that it is expensive as hell...Waters' responded...
"We make decisions everyday about what we're going to eat," ... "And some people want to buy Nike shoes - two pairs, and other people want to eat Bronx grapes, and nourish themselves. I pay a little extra, but this is what I want to do."
Blink.
Oh my.
I wish my diet was only limited by the decision of whether to purchase new shoes or to nourish myself with Bronx grapes.
The reality is that my diet has more to do with to eat or not to eat than to shop or to nourish and I know I'm not alone.
When I started teaching life skill classes at a transitional housing shelter for homeless pregnant teens in St. Louis Missouri, I quickly realized that many of my students could teach a master class on making a dollar stretch. A good place to witness their resourcefulness was in the kitchen - trust me, making $160 in food assistance last a month takes serious skill.
With the help of a nutritionist residents came up with quick, healthy and affordable meals that could be frozen and heated up later. They eventually put all their recipes together in a cookbook that I still use today.
What they didn't do was weigh their nutrition against the joy of shoe shopping.
What concerns me about Waters viewpoint is that she is a very influential person who is helping to shape public policy. As I said before, her genuine affection for food and belief that healthy food is a right is inspiring.
Promoting healthy food is a must-try recipe, but folks should skip that extra tablespoon of privilege if they want it to nourish the masses...
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Yeah, if I bought organic I wouldn't be able to feed my family through the month. On the rare occasions when organic stuff is on sale where it brings it down to the price of conventional stuff, I jump for it, but most of the time I'm the person buying the generic conventional product at the bargain-basement store, because that's what gets the food on the table.
It's pretty disappointing to hear someone like Alice Waters, whose work with local and organic stuff I absolutely love, showing their privilege that much. Seriously, eating one meal at her restaurant with my partner would use most if not all of our monthly grocery budget.
Thank you for posting this Sharkfu. This has been something I've passionate about lately. As one of three children in a single parent home, I noticed that we couldn't always eat the especially nutritious items. It always bothered me as I watched the Today Show or read a dieting book and all the items they mentioned were expensive cuts of meat or fish and fresh produce. It bothered me further when the unhealthy foods these sources mentioned were the same foods found in our pantry.
This isn't to say that my family ate unhealthily. On the contrary, we ate lean ground meat and pasta most of my life. Even the "fried" foods were only oven fried. And we could always afford carrots and celery. I was just always bothered by the media's representation of what is "healthy" usually meant privileged.
Organics aside, the whole "Slow Food" movement smacks of privilege to me also. For single parents that have to work all day and drop/off pick up kids and then cook meals on top of that, Slow Food is not really an option.
I agree.
On the other hand, I'm inclined to think (hope) that she was talking about people who show their privilege in a way that irks me even more: those who say they can't afford organic food but would never even consider buying non-brand clothes or shopping for food at discount stores (let alone not shopping).
Those people exist. And personally, I think it's a good thing if their double standards/privilege blindness are made visible...
apologies for the double-post.
I would hope the same, but Waters has often said rather privileged stuff in the same vein when asked about the expense. When truthfully, there is no reason for it to be so expensive, it's the Whole Foods culture that still utilizes agribusiness distribution instead of local that drives the price up. Whereas community garden's and similar enterprises can produce locally and more cheaply.
I agree.
On the other hand, I'm inclined to think (hope) that she was talking about people who show their privilege in a way that irks me just as much, if not more: those who say they can't afford organic food but would never even consider buying non-brand clothes or shopping for food at discount stores (let alone not shopping).
Those people exist. And personally, I think it's a good thing if their double standards/privilege blindness are made visible...
I hate that because my family's lost half their income (due to my dad having a stroke), they no longer can afford buying fresh produce, let alone anything that is organic. The entire pantry is full of prepackaged products that aren't a good source of nutrition. They've also had to go to a service similar to the food pantry and they don't really give you a lot of options as far as eating healthy/getting the necessary nutritional value. Not that they're ungrateful, but it is frustrating.
That is frustrating. Does the pantry stock frozen stuff? Frozen veggies are almost always better than canned, I think. In any case, they are cheap, $1 a box when I buy them on sale. Although personally I always find fresh, conventionally grown produce the best value (where I shop a gigantic head of collards that can feed four to six is $2, and a pound of carrots is $.75).
Last night, for instance, I made a basic dinner that would feed me and my boyfriend lunch for a few days: A pound of pasta ($1), a diced one-pound eggplant ($1.50), a 28-oz. can of tomatoes ($1.25), olive oil ($.50? eggplant soaks up a lot of oil) and some garlic, parsley and dried pepper flakes (a few cents). The whole thing was quick -- by the time the pasta was done, so was everything else -- and cost around $.50 a meal. It took about ten minutes longer to prepare than it would to microwave some Chef Boyardee, but it cost less and was far better-tasting and healthier.
Cooking with fresh ingredients can take a lot of time or money. But once you have a few basics down (for instance bean soup, tomato sauce and tofu-vegetable sautes), it's surprisingly fast and affordable. Of course, cooks like Alice Waters don't necessarily want to stress that you can happily live off of variations of the same three easy recipes -- or, hell, not use recipes -- because then you might not buy her gorgeous books.
I agree...this has been addressed in many of the food-issues blogs lately. Her goals of organic and local are great...but not always practical.
Mark Bittman (of the NYT) wrote a good column recently that points out that one can eat "healthy" without necessarily eating organic or fresh. Just cutting back on meat and animal products (not eliminating entirely, reducing), can improve health and is better for the environment, and cheaper as well.
Bittman is such a good resource for the slow/local/sustainable/whatever food movement, precisly because he's candid, all for simplifying cooking, enthusiastic and aware of price concerns. I really appreciate his blog and his Times column, and I wish more of the big foodie personalities were like him.
Thank you for saying this. Not everyone has the option to eat optimally. (Although I'm not entirely convinced that organic food is necessarily the best thing you can eat, but that's a topic for another discussion.)
I also hate it when people turn how good your nutrition is into some kind of a weird moral issue...(see fat shaming). Um, some people can't afford to eat perfect food without exception!
I agree with much of what you write, Sharkfu, but I don't think Alice Waters is suggesting this to be viable for everyone, even if she does think it to be ideal. In reading her comments, I took them to mean that if you have the money to spend on organic food, that she believes you should. Some people use their disposable income to buy expensive brand-name shoes; Waters chooses to use her disposable income to purchase more expensive organic foods she believes to be healthier for her. Waters' comment might have been unfortunately phrased (she is a quite blunt and dour woman and could use some lessons in humor and sensitivity), but her basic point is that if you can afford organic food and live in an area where it is available, you should make it a priority.
Alice Waters may be verge on elitest, but I don't think that she's necessarily vilifying people who can't eat as she does for various socio-economic reasons. Waters encourages people to take what steps they can to improve their diets in a sustainable way. The White House kitchen garden is one such example, as is her promotion of edible schoolyards in underserved communities. Not everyone has access to green spaces in which to plant vegetables or the time to do so, but some do and she believes you should take advantage of what resources you do have.
Even if Waters is a pretentious elitest, I think we need radicals like her keep us questioning: Why are processed foods and pesticide-laden produce much more expensive than simple foods that are grown organically. Why does the U.S. government subsidize high fructose corn syrup (which benefits the meat, dairy and fast food industries) and not healthier vegetables, fruits and nuts? Why is agribusiness raking in the profits at the expense of the health of a disproportionate number of poor Americans? Ultimately, Waters' point is that all people deserve to eat healthy foods and that if we make it a collective effort, everyone benefits.
Why are processed foods and pesticide-laden produce much more expensive than simple foods that are grown organically. Why does the U.S. government subsidize high fructose corn syrup (which benefits the meat, dairy and fast food industries) and not healthier vegetables, fruits and nuts? Why is agribusiness raking in the profits at the expense of the health of a disproportionate number of poor Americans?
Yes, this!
In college I was a member of a lot of food activism groups, and I think this is something the whole movement is struggling with. I admire Alice Waters, and I admire much of the Slow Food philosophy, but it's become such a marketed commodity that it's going to be reduced to a trend and fade out.
Also, don't even get me started on "organic" because the word has been jumped on by so many large quasi-factory-esque farms that it practically means nothing anymore, and a lot of smaller farms with organic principles can't afford to get certified/afford to feed their animals 100% organic feed and still give them a healthy, varied diet. The way "organic" foods are marketed by companies like Safeway drive me nuts. On simple products like canned beans, they use more vibrant photographs on the organic variety to make them visually appear healthier. But I highly doubt that "organic" according to Safeway's supplier means the same thing that it does to us.
But, yes, buying local, sustainable produce is ideal, but the movement's focus on convincing yuppies doesn't help anyone nor does $30 cookbooks that offer recipes that not even someone who bakes their own bread every week would take the trouble to make (well, that's speaking for me) and usually lack healthy vegetarian/vegan options. They really don't. It really frustrates me. I feel like the movement is at an impasse, and there's a few segments who want to focus on how we can make food affordable and still make sure farmers get a living wage. But there are certain segments of Slow Food (even on my college campus) who were more interested in food as a trendy, luxury item that tasted really good if you could afford to buy it. But the problem IS that our society, as of right now, still considers fresh produce a luxury as opposed to a necessity, and so they don't quite see the outrage in not everyone being able to afford it. It's privilege; it's gross.
I'm a fan of people like Chef Ann Cooper, who directly works within school systems to try and reform the school lunch system. She was part of the Chez Panisse Foundation's project in Berkeley, and I've heard that she's also trying to do some work in Harlem and other lower-income areas. I also know of several Farmer's Markets right now that are trying out work-exchange programs (not so great for busy families though :( ), accepting food stamps, or other ways of making their produce more available. I'm really hoping that more members of the movement start realizing that its very success depends on finding strategies to make food affordable.
Not to mention that organic produce is not more nutritious than conventionally grown produce, nor does it have significantly less pesticide residue. It does have significantly higher e. coli concentrations, though. So there ya go.
Do you have any sources for these claims?
As an undergrad I had friends at Washington State University where they did the study that established that organic apples has slightly higher levels of several vitamins and phyto-chemicals than conventionally grown. Has this been disproven, or does it only apply to apples?
Also, a number of studies have shown that pesticide residue is lower in organically grown food than in conventional. This isn't to say that there's never any residue in organic foods, or that all organic foods are created equal.
I am amazed every day by the wonders of genetic food modification. Need I mention that 'golden rice' has spared Bangladesh from constant famine?
I like a lot about Alice Waters and the slow movement, but I dislike a lot more, and it's certainly nothing new about this movement. I like farmers markets and making food from scratch, and food in general. I'm totally a "foodie" and a food snob in some ways. But I HATE how inaccessible and elitist these people can be. Ms Waters is against any frozen veggies, which are actually quite healthy (since they are frozen at peak freshness, often more nutritious than "fresh" produce) and sooo much cheaper and more accessible to people. These people have never had to struggle to put food on the table for their families, and they can't seem to be bothered to even TRY to wrap their heads around how hard this is for sooo many people. Even the people who can afford decent food don't have the time to do EVERYTHING from scratch like Ms Waters would deem appropriate.
Alice Waters owns a $ 150 a plate restaurant in an upscale neighborhood in the East Bay. She lives in a beautiful mansion with not one but TWO wood fired brick ovens in her kitchen.
She has no idea of what it's like to be poor - or even to be a middle income working class person.
When she speaks about food and diet, she's talking about her class and it's dietary needs and eating habits.
She thinks about people like us the same way she thinks about the people who deliver the firewood to her house, and the people who wash the dishes and take out the garbage at her restaurant - we're barely human and our wants, needs and desires are irrelevant.
Consequently, I totally ignore Alice Waters' advice on nutrition, because I know it's intended for people in her tax bracket.
I work full time in a dual income household, and even *I* can't afford to eat organically and locally most of the time. The majority of my money goes to bills, debts, and school... NOT designer clothes.
She thinks about people like us the same way she thinks about the people who deliver the firewood to her house, and the people who wash the dishes and take out the garbage at her restaurant - we're barely human and our wants, needs and desires are irrelevant.
Huh? Criticize her privilege all you want, but I hardly think you know what Alice Waters is thinking about "people like us," for chrissakes.
I can make a reasonable assumption - based on her public statements.
Oh, and Alice Waters also said we should TRIPLE the federal school lunch budget from $9 billion to $27 billion (she says a childs lunch should cost at least $5 per kid!!). I'm all for increasing healthy food in schools, and I know it will cost more money, but this kind of suggestion shows how completely disconnected from reality this woman is.
Holy cow. My shopping decisions are usually "Can I buy that gallon of store-brand milk or do we have to eat our bulk Cheerios dry this week?" or "Hmm, I'm feeling really weak and need iron, should I buy some red meat and go without any fruit for the month?"
I can usually buy local, though, and I love when they make that an option because local is usually affordable, too.
Organic food is so stupid. It's such a waste of money, their pesticides are just as dangerous as the chemical ones but kill less of the bacteria, their practices are not sustainable and not better for the environment. You want to help the environment, buy only from farmers you can meet in person and ask about their practices. Don't worry about organic labels (and I say this as an ecologist).
I'm sure Ms. Waters would love my fiance's old roommate, who thought it was a good idea to only eat organic, and put eating organic over less important things like paying rent and getting health insurance. Organic food's so good for her she's now homeless and has permanent health problems because she didn't get preventative care.
I will never buy anything labeled "organic" unless it's cheaper than the non-organic or I'm at the farmstand myself.
That was really stupid. So someone you know (or vaguely know, or maybe never met at all), who was bad with money and happened to eat organic food ended up homeless and with health problems... and this was all directly caused by organic food.
Seriously?
Well, in her case it was (and her general insistence that she not compromise ANY quality to accomodate her lack of income/severe debt). I was actually pointing out the ridiculousness of Ms. Waters suggesting that we do exactly what my acquaintance did-- sacrifice all else for good food. Obviously it is not the fault of the industry or anything, but her own, and the fault of the philosophy that says organic is superior to all else even when you cannot afford it.
I think that blaming this woman's homelessness on organic food is somewhat ridiculous. I know bipolar people who have spent all their money on random stuff like sex toys in one evening. The problem isn't the sex toys...it's whatever compulsive behavior led her to organic food. (I mean, not paying rent and going into huge debt over organic food? That's not organic food's fault, that's this girl being irresponsible and possibly having some sort of mental health issue)
Organic food is so stupid. It's such a waste of money, their pesticides are just as dangerous as the chemical ones but kill less of the bacteria, their practices are not sustainable and not better for the environment. You want to help the environment, buy only from farmers you can meet in person and ask about their practices. Don't worry about organic labels (and I say this as an ecologist).
The sweeping generalizations involved here are breathtaking. You may see organic farming as a monolithic thing, but, as with any business, there's a wide range of practices among organic farmers. And in many ways, small local family farms are more sustainable (in every way except financially) than the agribusinesses that are now co-opting the label "organic." So I think a few distinctions need to be made here. And the fact remains that conventional agriculture uses a staggering amount of oil and contributes to our economic and foreign relation issues that stem from oil usage.
I agree that small, local, sustainable farming is best. That's what I buy when I can afford it, and I encourage others to buy it. And small, local organic farmers are fine too, since they don't tend to charge much more than the conventional small, local farmers. Indeed, in my post I noted support for them, and for sustainable farming in general. My objection is to the "organic" food that is labeled as such, the stuff you buy in normal stores and in cities instead of at a farm stand.
That said, most organic food you buy in stores, and would actually be labeled as such, uses the exact same non-sustainable and environmentally unfriendly methods as big conventional farms. The only difference is instead of using a modern pesticide tested for safety, they use an old-fashioned "natural" pesticide that either is less effective or is equally effective but more dangerous to humans. They use the same amounts of oil, the same amounts of land, the same amounts of soil nutrients. Often the oil usage is higher because they're shipping it in from Californian farms rather than using the local non-organic farmers.
I would prefer to see the advent of three different labels for food. Non of them the world "organic," because all food is organic, technically, and I have no idea why they use that word... No, I prefer the terms "local," "sustainable," and "traditional" to apply to those who do not use GMO, any pesticides or artificial fertilizers. I object to the way the application organic label deceives and cheats the public by presenting itself as better in any way, when in fact it is basically the same practices with a slightly different color paint. And as a result of that, I warn everyone off organic food bought from a store. Save your money for a farmstand or a fishmarket. Better for you, better for the environment, and usually worth the cost, unlike most organic food.
I'm totally in agreement with you one the labeling issue.
From my understanding the chemicals used in conventional agriculture are mostly oil-based, so that, combined with travel, is what makes the oil issue so serious. The organic farmers I know (two cousins in MN, I know - giant sample size) don't use oil-based products, but they're small family farms. I have no idea what the factory farms get away with calling organic. I'm afraid to even research it.
I tend to think of the standardization of the "organic" labelling under gov't organizations as a typical governmental clusterfuck where the big agribusiness corporations were able to get a stranglehold on the issues and decision-making processes which managed to, once again, give them the advantage while fucking over small sustainable farms. The ensuing lip service just pissed me off and made me that more cynical.
Yeah, but I was under the impression (from some seminars on sustainability, our school is investing heavily in that) that the oil-based pesticides aren't that big of a factor-- the amounts used are nowhere near the real offenders, the farm equipment, shipping, and processing, which also release greenhouse gases. You can sustainably farm using oil-based products but not once you add in processing/shipping/heavy machinery that's usually diesel. Besides, most pesticides that are approved for organic farms are absolutely horrible for the environment-- not as politically charged as oil, but often with much worse consequences. While there are some good ones available (and of course, traditional fertilizers like manure) they are not nearly as cheap.
The part that annoys me most is that small sustainable farms could be cost-effective and financially sustainable if it were not for government programs that specifically favor large factory farms. Luckily some areas are fighting back-- my state university specifically buys local and sustainable for their dining halls, when they can, which has been a big help to the area farmers (many of whom are alumni).
The NPK petroleum derived fertilizers are god-awful for the soil and more dangerous in an immediate sense for the ground-water.
The only real sustainable way to farm is to create some bio-diversity, miles and miles of corn or soybeans just isn't natural. It's not really a coincidence that animals feed on plants and plants feed on animal waste.
You can plant marigolds alongside many crops which repel a lot of pests. Chives and garlic deter aphids. Keep some chickens around and they'll eat a lot of grubs and other insects, keeping crops healthy, helping feed chickens, and making them and their eggs taste better. Of course in polycultural farming someone will actually have to pick the crops instead of mowing them down with a huge machine.
So there are disadvantages.
And it seems to me that the increased labor cost in sustainable farming can be counterbalanced by not having to buy the giant tractors and implements or pay big bucks for the chemicals or ship the produce halfway across the world. If you took the government subsidies out of the picture, farms like this could really compete with the big factory farms.
My grandpa was a totally organic/sustainable farmer just by virtue of being too cheap to pay for new equipment/chemicals. Maybe we just need more Scotch-Irish (in economic mindset, not ethnicity) running farms. But he had also inherited generations worth of knowledge on how to run a farm efficiently, rotate crops, repair implements and machinery himself, etc. Need fertilizer? Grow a winter crop of green manure. Supplement that with some animal manure and a sensible crop rotation/grazing schedule and you're doing sustainable farming old-school style.
But I think that that type of farming involved having a relationship (of sorts) with the soil and the animals in that you viewed yourself as the nurturer of the soil and livestock. The current model is more consumer-oriented. The obsession is always with maximizing the bushels per acre, and anything that will increase that is good. Who gives a fuck about the soil or the livestock when maximizing profits is the only concern?
Besides the fact that hand labor on farms is a lot physically harder than machine aided labor, the cold hard fact is, the machines reduce unit labor costs, no matter how poorly the workers are paid.
That's why mechanized American corn farms can charge less for their corn than their hand labor based Mexican competitors.
So no, going back to horse drawn plows and hand weeding with garden hoes is not the answer - unless you want to bay ten bucks for an ear of corn!
I didn't realize I was advocating for going back to horse drawn plows, but OK.
If you actually read my earlier comments you would know that the model I was referring to did use machinery, but did not require the huge machinery that's so common now. Small family farms can be very productive and totally sustainable except for the fact that they're competing against factory farms that get giant subsidies in comparison to them. My uncle lost almost all of his subsidies when he cut back to a dairy herd of 50. It's all he can handle by himself and it still pays the bills. But the factory farm down the road keeps adding on, because their subsidies increase more than incrementally (higher percentages) as the farm gets bigger.
And gov't subsidies are actually the reasons why farmers in south and central america cannot compete with U.S. produce import prices. We violate our trade agreements with them by giving subsidies that basically amount to protectionism and destroy the market for their produce, and then spray Roundup on them from military helicopters when they grow the only crop they can make money on. Yay Plan Columbia! Good ol' American values at work.
I think its a little condescending to throw around the term "privilege" so much. Clearly she wasn't referring to the fact that there are impoverished people for whom eating healthy, organic food is too expensive an option. Instead she was saying that many people (rich, middle & poor alike) spend money on things they want rather than on things that are healthy. I don't even buy into the whole local, organic thing at all & I saw that.
Let's take a positive message for what it is, and let's stop being so darn sa-ditty.
Sa-ditty? Really? Seems like a condescending way to ignore the bigger point. She made a sweeping generalization as if the choices are food or shoes and people are too dumb to choose food. If she didn't intend such a broad statement, perhaps she shouldn't have made it--but it is a spring board to discuss how these movements tend to ignore those who aren't privileged enough to get to choose nikes first.
In the same way Lisa Simpson once said something about thinking "outside the barnyard" about the animal kingdom, it really bugs me that our society in general does not think outside the grocery store about food. Healthy food does not have to be expensive, so I hate that people advocating this don't dispel that misconception.
While I do acknowledge that I have some expendable income and can sometimes shop at a health food store, considering it an investment in my longterm health, etc. there are many ways to eat good food without going to Whole Foods.
Last year, I bought a packet of tomato seeds from the Dollar Store and planted two of the seeds (the others will still be usable for several years!). From those two seeds (less than a penny each) I get 6 or 7 tomatos per week, and recently had a big batch that allowed me to can 4 jars of homemade spaghetti sauce. All this was just using homemade compost and regular waterings, and besides the cost of the water and gas to heat my stove for the sauce, it was all free.
As for the rest of my produce, I split a share in a local CSA with a friend. We get a weekly bag full of fresh, organic, and local produce (easily enough to have some every day of the week, and make every lunch or dinner, with some inexpensive rice, beans or pasta, it's easy) for $9 per week.
I wish more people knew about these options or that they were publicized more than they are. I know not everyone will have access to a local farm (although there are more than you think- google CSA searches!) but many more people could be growing their own or buying from local farmers than are currently.
Bebekah says:
Can you come to my house and bless the tomatoes? This photo is representative of about a third of the crop that we got from these plants lovingly watered, fed, and plucked of caterpillars.
Do you live in Arizona? It appears so from your link's URL. If you're in the east valley of phx I'd be happy to help you, share my tomatoes or seeds, or just compare details of how and where you planted them, etc. Happy to help if I can!
CSAs are fantastic! And sharing one is a great idea, since (in my experience) there's nearly always one thing that either I or someone in my family doesn't like.
Growing veggies is great as long as you have the room and the time...and if you don't have a black thumb like me. But people who do garden often end up a lot of extra to give away, so if you can't grown things, you can always befriend a gardener! ;)
I don't have a lot of time to shop around, so I make due with the grocery store and farmers market. Farmers markets are usually inexpensive and they take WIC, and maybe foodstamps, I'm not sure. (At least that is how it is in CA...)
What's a CSA?
Community-supported agrigulture:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community-supported_agriculture
Community supported agriclture are local farms that sell memberships to local residents in what they harvest. This provides you with fresh, local, usually organic produce, and also supports these local small businesses. Good for everyone involved!
My CSA also sells work shares, making it very amazingly affordable. For 12 hours of work, spread out over the growing season, I get a 50% cost reduction. They schedule families with children at the same time so a couple of workers can be in charge of watching the kids play in a nearby field (where everyone can look up and see them). Also, they have herbs in waist-high raised beds so workers who need to sit or are in wheelchairs can reach them easier.
There is also a "free" option (I believe it is 24 hours or work). Each share comes with a week's worth of produce for my family of 4, in addition to a week's worth of eggs. Plus, my kids see how much work goes into the food they eat and are more willing to try new things.
Let me clarify, it's a weekly pickup of produce and a dozen eggs throughout the growing season, not just one week's worth.
Probably too late replying for you to see this, but that is a really great way to do it! People can contribute to reduce the cost; it is very true that some people have more time than money to offer, and others prefer to offer more money in order to spend less time laboring for the food. This seems like a really fair system and a way for the farmers to get some much-needed assistance as well. I like it!
Yeah, CSA! The Common Ground CSA org in New York accepts EFT benefits and operates on a sliding scale, too. And the produce is awwesome.
Alice Waters lives and works in one of the garden spots of the planet. Eating bountifully on locally produced food is EASY if you're living next to the fishing grounds of a a rich continental shelf in a mediterranean climate where you can grow just about anything you want.
Growing food organically is not automatically better. Chesepeake Bay, one of the most important estuary systems in America is being killed, in no small part due to the organic farming practices of Amish farms in Pennsylvania.
Food isn't simple, even simple food.
What about locally grown food in, say Southern Arizona?
There's no way that local food production could possibly cope with the needs of the existing population.
Unless her solution is 'Everybody Move to Berkeley' Water's prescription is untenable beyond the upper 10% of the population.
Well, I think that plays into the bigger ecological picture. As we think about the sustainability issues facing our generation, we have the chance to radically re-think where we live. It may have been a great idea to plunk a town in the middle of the desert 100 years ago when we didn't demand much in terms of nutrition and creature comforts, or even 50 years ago when we envisioned a futuristic utopia of bio-domes and weather control, but that futuristic vision is not materializing. Maybe everybody can't live in Berkeley, but we can place greater emphasis on living within our ecological means, which includes making tough choices about where to build and how to deal with existing settlements in places that aren't so sustainable.
Sadly it's not as easy around here as you may think. The proliferation of yuppies and high living costs and (sub)urbanization has made it so that even CSA's are expensive to buy into, and people think shopping at Whole Foods is the same as shopping at a Farmer's Market. People like Waters who have the space to even grow a garden are lucky. :\
seriously. i was all about local (phoenix/tucson/southern az) stuff, until i remembered that, well, that would be corn only. or agave.
i understand that waters was trying to make the point about priorities, and i will admit to privately wondering WHY, GOD, WHY! when i hear other parents whining about food or gas prices when they just got out of a new SUV and slid on their prada sunglasses. there are plenty of those people, not just the very upper classes. i see this sort of behavior literally every day, and i am ***far*** from wealthy. so i'm willing to let her off the hook on this comment, though i concur with many of the posters here that it most certainly is time for the slow foodies to come up with actual, tenable solutions to make quality food and the time to prepare it accessible to everyone regardless of class, lest they become merely another trendy niche lacking in any real power to affect societal change.
personally, i hold my grocery bill down ***bigtime*** by shopping at my local trader joe's or sunflower market, typically avoiding meats and fish, and making lots of rice/pasta dishes with plenty of vegetables (probably about half are organic) mixed in. it's amazing how much less i spend leading a mostly vegetarian diet.
Well, indoor greenhouses are workable, when there is a sufficient water table.
Also, sometimes it's not ideal, simply better. Maybe shipping from Cali to Arizona isn't as good as walking down the street but it is a lot better than shipping from Argentina, you know? Local means closer rather than farther, it doesn't have to mean grown in your backyard.
Organic food is all well and good, but personally I am far more concerned with feeding the highest number of hungry people with the smallest use of land. I worry about the ability to grow enough food organically. This just shows again the ignorance and privilege of "slow food" advocates... I work full time in a dual-income household, and even I can't afford to shop at Whole Foods. Doesn't that say something?
Evil corporations nonwithstanding, GM crops have been a blessing for many hungry regions of the world (golden rice for Bangladesh, anyone?)
I've learned that organic farming can grow just as much on one acre of land as what is usually done now. However, it might take more manual labour and so more people need to be hired and paid. It could require growing more than one crop on an area of land. It requires someone who actually knows about the soil and how to make it healthy without fertilizer. I do think we have plenty of land if we use it properly. There are many urban gardening initiatives starting to make use of city land. What about all the flat rooftops that could grow vegetables? (And of course if we ate less meat, less land would be used).
For the reasons in my last post, I worry about the ability to continue to grow food as we do now.
You're thinking of sustainable farming. That is not the same thing as organic. Sustainable farming is a method that enables maximum sustainable yield, and actually would be more cost-effective if not for farm subsidies. Organic is a label that applies only to how the pesticides and fertilizers were manufactured (if they are derived from living sources or made out of nonorganic chemicals).
actually would be more cost-effective if not for farm subsidies
Yes, this. God this thread is touching on so many things that I've researched and have ended up pissing me off!
I think we need to start talking about true cost accounting. If we really looked at how much things cost before gov't subsidies and giant shipping bills, local sustainable farming would win out in the price war. It's amazing to me that more people aren't talking about this! Why does our gov't spend so much time exhorting people to adopt a sustainable lifestyle when it's generally not in their best economic interest due to artificial economic trends caused by the gov'ts own policies?
*smashes head against desk*
Yes, this makes no sense. If there is money to subsidize, why not subsidize sustainable farming? For some reason, food is not thought of as political as easily as other topics are. I haven't heard of movements to actually change what the government does in terms of food.
There are movements, but it's a tricky area to be an activist in. Food disparagement laws make it very easy for producers to slap you with a costly lawsuit that most protesters couldn't afford to defend against (see Oprah's experience with the beef producers and the activists in the UK who were sued by McDonald's).
And this is one area where the lobbyists for certain groups like cattle growers, the edible oil industry, etc are extremely influential.
Finally, you have regulatory agencies (FDA, USDA) that are completely saturated by "experts" from the industry, who generally still have a huge stake in their former companies. Critics often refer to the "revolving door" between regulatory agencies and the industries they're supposed to regulate, because people really do move effortlessly and frequently between the two.
So there are activists in this field, but it feels like a losing battle. Add to that the fact that it's hard to get people fired up about it. It's just not one of the "sexy" issues like sweatshop labor or trafficking, so you meet with a lot of apathy and indifference.
I don't think those two goals are necessarily conflicting ones... as others (and your Green Revolution example have pointed out) they sometimes are, but that doesn't mean we can't strive for both where they are compatible.
Less meat and less processed foods are necessary for a sustainable lifestyle no matter where.
To clarify: I mean in general. Although I'm a vegetarian I'm *not* saying that people should be forced to eat less meat. But I do believe that something's wrong if meat and processed foods are more affordable than cereals/vegetables or fresh foods in general. People should have access to healthy meat, but subsidies shouldn't go into the overproduction of unhealthy meat (there are horrific effects of exporting surplus chicken meat to Africa). More people should have more choice over their diets. Because everyone does deserve good food.
Agreed. Ideally we would have only one serving of lean meat a day, and the rest of our protein needs would be met by beans. It used to be that being poor was synonymous with eating bean-based dishes. Now it's synonymous with Big Macs. There is something truly wrong with our society and government when the poor are eating Big Macs and beans are not affordable.
Something I think doesn't get brought up often enough in food conversations is how much oil is used to produce food. One study found more oil is used because of the foods Americans eat than the cars they drive. Organic and/or local food is not necessarily about being healthier but rather being more sustainable. It's not only food miles but the oil that makes fertilizer and runs tractors. I recommend learning about what Cuba had to do in the early 1990s when they could no longer import enough oil and how their agriculture was affected. It's quite interesting.
I get the price issue though. I have enough money to eat healthy especially since I can get non-organic milk only $1/litre of milk. Though I have read that nowadays a smaller proportion of income is spent on food than ever before. I think it'd be great to have a minimum wage that allows everyone to at least think about buying a couple things that are organic.
Organic is not more sustainable. Individual organic farmers may be, but organic pesticides and fertilizers are equally bad or worse for the environment than conventional ones and the practices that make food qualify for the label do not, in themselves, use less oil.
Local produce, of course, is always best, and less-processed is good because factories don't use up oil making it. And if you know the farm itself and their practices, you can make your own decision. But "organic" doesn't automatically mean better for the environment, not by a long shot
Then maybe we need a new way of labeling. Perhaps organic as it is officially defined is not more sustainable but there certainly are much more sustainable ways of farming than what is typically done now. Yes, local is great because you can talk to the farmer.
Would you please provide some links to support your claims that organic food production is less sustainable and equally bad or worse than conventional farming for the environment?
I've worked on organic farms and know quite a few organic farmers. It's true that labeling restrictions have weakened, and that "organic" on a label of some highly-processed products is not incredibly meaningful, but the vitriol you have for organic farming seems a little misplaced.
Michael Pollan's "Botany of Desire" is a great resource. The problem with "organic" farming is that there are two sorts. There is the large agribusiness sorts (like Whole Foods) who basically run things the same as we used to but with different pesticide inputs, these are labeled organic by the FDA but they basically betray everything the organic food movement was about in the first place. And then there is "real organic" food, which is produced entirely differently, sustainably, with crop diversity and helpful bugs instead of pesticides, which doesn't ship it's food all over the place but is eaten in the same community it's grown in.
I'm pretty sure this is what Brianna is talking about.
Yes, that is what I mean.
Really, I object to the label "organic food" and what it means, and what they gouge us for. Whatever the intent, "organic" has come to mean absolutely nothing except that the pesticides used are derived loosely from living things. If I see "organic" written on a chalkboard at a small non-chain store over a basket of apples, I can feel pretty confident that they mean the sustainable,local, good kind of organic. But if I see it on a neatly printed colorful label on orange juice in Market Basket, I know it's probably a large chain, not sustainable, and shipped great distances.
If I am going to be charged more for something, I want to know it's actually better. I want my labels to mean something. I don't like that large organic farms are gouging people for their food when it is not better in any way and in some cases it's worse.
I was fascinated by this article on the topic.
My friend is an unemployed mother of four currently preparing for a hysterectomy. In spite of these obstacles, she makes some of the most beautiful, healthy, and delicious Italian dinners I've ever had the pleasure of eating. I profusely thank the Aldi grocery store every time she brings me leftovers!And somehow I doubt that these meals, for her, involved a choice between a new pair of trainers and some fancy-pants grapes.
This just shows, once again, the painful ignorance of the foodies and, by proxy, the priveleged elite. Evil corporations aside, I would prefer any fucking day of the week to feed the most people with the smallest amount of land possible. Save everybody growing their own food, organic vegetables for everybody is simply not practical.
Ms. Water, you make me sick.
I really want that cookbook. :)
Let's talk about advertising, too, because it gets left out of a lot of these conversations.
As has been brought up here before, ads have a tremendous effect not just on what people buy, but how people see the world. More and more, on their very personalities. Is that chilling yet? It is to me.
So look at food ads. What gets advertised? Most of the time, crap. Non-nutritious foodlike crap that's overpriced to boot (got to add some to the end price to account for all that marketing!) Hell, even high fructose corn syrup has ads out now.
While this is going on, all the healthy food efforts in the world are just that much more uphill battles.
And then there's the whole "child-friendly" meme that makes me want to puke. Children got along for years eating basically what adults did. Until now, where we have big corporations teaching us that food isn't suitable for kids unless it's processed, sugared, greased, dyed blue, and endorsed by cartoon characters.
OMG! The crap they put in "child friendly" foods is horrifying. You're telling me that adding a ton of high fructose corn syrup and artificial coloring will make my kids eat yogurt? They already eat the yogurt that's flavored only by fruit and concentrated fruit juice just fine, since they don't know the difference. And where the fuck did this idea come from that giving them "fruit snacks" that are basically flavored, colored hydrogenated oil shaped into their favorite cartoon character is good for them??? Hydrogenated oil is terrible and should be completely avoided. Every kid I know is perfectly happy with a baggie of mixed nuts and dried fruits, which can be bought bulk at the coop for the same price per unit as the fancy "fruit" snacks.
Whew, rant over.
Thank you, thank you, Bebekah, roseored and everybody else who mentioned farmers' markets and CSAs! Alice Waters is making me tear my hair with this extremely misguided remark. Whole Foods is deeply impractical for almost everyone, but it's definitely not the only option. It's a disservice to consumers and to the movement itself for people like Waters to act this clueless.
The Boston nonprofit I work for does youth development through sustainable agriculture, and we grow tons of organic produce every year -- sixty percent is sold at farmers' markets and through two CSAs (getting a share is the best job perk ever, and the only way I can eat vegetables!) and forty percent is donated to hunger relief organizations. At our farmers' markets we take EBT (electronic benefit transfer, aka food stamps), WIC coupons, and Senior Farmers' Market Nutrition Program coupons for vegetables that are already sold at below market prices. We've also been working to help other farmers' markets throughout Greater Boston accept EBT, so if you're in Boston, use EBT, WIC and SFMNP! I know that at least some New York farmers' markets take food stamps, too. I'm not sure about everywhere else, but it makes sense, yes? Encouragingly, more and more governmental funding is flowing into nutrition assistance programs through the Farm Bill and the stimulus package.
I know that it's impossible for everyone to eat local food for geographic reasons, but I'm sold on farmers' markets and CSAs. It directly addresses many of the problems of concern here -- you know the people you're getting your food from, your food is fresher, they're better for the environment, they help take down agribusiness, they revitalize neighborhoods and help destroy "food deserts", they're wonderful!
Raised-bed gardens are also wonderful -- maximum safe, personalized food production in very little space and for very little expense once the garden is built. Don't get me started. :)
Nutrition security is a gigantic female empowerment issue. I'm so glad you're talking about it here!
And Alice Waters, just be quiet.
I'm a little surprised that no one's brought up the role race plays in this topic -- not only are the bulk of the "slow food" movement participants privileged, they're also white. "Food deserts," on the other hand, those areas where there are huge physical and economic barriers to accessing healthy food, disproportionally affect black communities and immigrant communities. I don't have a citation for this at the moment, but a nationwide study showed that there were three times as many supermarkets in predominantly white neighborhoods as in predominantly black neighborhoods. Anyone who's part of the slow/real/sustainable/organic/humane food movement can't be clueless about this. From Alice Water's other writing, I don't think she is. So why is she acting like it?
This reminded me of the coverage Diane Sawyer gave to urban poverty. The families profiled didn't have enough to eat and few fresh vegetables. As the cameras panned over the inner city-scape, I noted the empty lots filled with weeds and trash. What about giving a tax break to owners of such lots to allow community gardens? What if OSH and Lowe's and Home Depot provided materials? What if people like Ms. Waters donated their time and ability to publicize such projects? What if farmers taught the city kids how to garden and preserve the excess produce? What if the city planted fruit trees and also allowed for some chickens to be raised for their eggs? What if the home improvement stores also donated paint and supplies to beautify the surrounding neighborhood? What if schools included these activities in their curriculum and also used some of the produce in cooking classes? This would involve every subject taught, from Math to Social Studies to Health to Science, following the connections.
I think that members of the community would feel more hopeful, have more energy from the good food, a sense of pride in being able to produce their own food and change the look of their surroundings, and be encouraged in their respective battles with poverty.
(I say this as a former single parent who lived on welfare and foodstamps for several years in substandard housing, witnessing the despair in my neighborhood.)
Yes yes yes yes yes!
(wow, this topic has really got me un-lurking.)
The Food Project, my organization, does/facilitates almost all these things (except the tax breaks, which we sadly have no power over) and you're right -- it's deeply revitalizing to every aspect of the community. This idea is spreading, too -- projects like this have started up in some form in NYC, Detroit, Austin, Clarksville TN, and lots of other places.
I would love that. I'd love if my apartment complex, which has some land, could set up a little community garden too. I think one worry might be defending the garden from thieves; I can't grow tomatoes here, I know, because the high school kids and the homeless living nearby would take all of them (obviously the homeless need them more than me, but I feel less inclined to put in the effort if I have no reward).
I don't know if you could get enough light for fruit trees in an inner city, but certainly chickens, maybe rabbits, and lots of fresh veggies could be grown in a city lot. It wouldn't completely replace store-bought food but if the yield was good and you had canning/preserving lessons...
What if farmers taught the city kids how to garden and preserve the excess produce?
Added Value Farm in Red Hook, Brooklyn, does this and a lot more. Check out its Web site.
I prefer to eat sustainable produce and buy local when I can (if you're fortunate enough to live rural, going direct to the farmers can save a lot of the cost of sustainable food.)
But.
Here's the big but. Even if you have the /ability/ to do that (which a lot of urban people don't, especially if they don't have cars, because there aren't bus lines running to farms so very much), it takes time.
Time, and energy.
This is the Other Big Bugaboo of the slow food movement, of course. It adds a lot of work to the process of feeding the family - work which is almost always /still/ the domain of women.
My sweetie is as feminist a guy as I've ever met, but he gets lost in a grocery store. He can't cook, and he can't do dishes - they always wind up smeared with food particles. For pure self defense - and because I, personally, enjoy cooking - I'm going to wind up with almost all the cooking chores when we're finally living together. (This June FINALLY it's been too damn LONG.) I'll be trying to teach him, but - here's one of our challenges together - he's far too used to being coddled to females who are willing to throw their hands up at his helplessness and take care of him.
More time going to different sources for food. More time preparing less processed food. More time, more energy, more effort, more expectation, and if you don't do it, you're not a good mother and you don't love your family enough; don't you care about their health?
"This is the Other Big Bugaboo of the slow food movement, of course. It adds a lot of work to the process of feeding the family - work which is almost always /still/ the domain of women."
THIS!!! I'd "Like" this comment a thousand times if I could...
I couldn't help but jump in here:
I know Alice Waters a little bit (I went to school with her daughter for 10 years) and that woman is so hypocritical it's obscene.
She claims to be helping Berkeley school children by helping them grow food for their school lunches, but the program doesn't exist in all Berkeley schools. Care to guess which ones actually get the lions share of "help"??
She claims to have invented "slow food" or "California cuisine," but she's only doing what the French and Italians and Greeks (and others with traditional food cultures) have been doing for centuries: Eating what grows nearby, when it's fresh, prepared in a way that makes it taste the best it can.
In the 80's she went to France to introduce them to the concept, and was thoroughly laughed at.
As to her most resent comments, yes, this woman heaves her privilege and condescension around with a shovel.
Go to any discount food supermarket and see how many big 4x4, beemers and mercs are parked outside. These are the people she is talking about.
Weird. Where I'm at, the beemers, mercs, and gas-guzzling 4x4s are mostly outside of Whole Foods.
I'm very happy that someone brought up "food deserts..." I used to work as an assistant teacher on Chicago's Far South Side. My kids ate nothing but Chee-tos, Mountain Dew, and Lunchables for lunch; there wasn't a grocery store for miles in any direction. I wasn't even allowed to bring in fruit for snacks (I wanted to bring in jackfruits and durians from Chinatown for our social studies unit on Southeast Asia) because our school had a safety protocol where you couldn't bring in any food for everybody that wasn't pre-packaged.
I can't help but assume that access to food and availability of quality nutrition has at least some role to play in CPS's appalling performance rates and high school graduation rates (I think the current number is 1 in 3?)
Chicago Foundation for Women: Women and Children Last: Life in Chicago Food Deserts
Watering Chicago's Food Deserts
...I hear that the city council is trying to create economic incentives to bring in Dominicks' and Wal-Marts, and I'm hopeful for the idea of community gardening in areas that have fallen out of use.
(Apologies for the length of this post.)
So, poor students of color do poorly in school because they don't eat health food?
Ever thought that, maybe, just maybe, a little thing like 400 years of institutional racism - which continues to this day - might be the problem?
I guess not - it's those damned Cheetos, that's the cause!
Logic, don't you love it?
As for "community gardens" - here in New York, they've been a major obstacle to the construction of affordable housing.
Honestly, speaking as a life long resident of a poor inner city community, we need housing a whole hell of a lot more than so called "community gardens"
Hence the use of the words "some role," Greg. Nutritious food is good for the brain and for growth and development.
Lack of access to nutritious food is just one obstacle that lower-income families on the South Side and elsewhere have to face, and I was simply focusing on the topic of discussion rather than the myriad interconnecting factors seen in other posts on this site.
Also, may it be stated that I never once said my students were black?
Exactly this. Lack of access to food is one of the ways in which the institutional racism is reflected. When your minorities-heavy areas are deprived of access to /any/ fresh food, let alone farm fresh food, it helps to continue the cycle. (And then people saying "Well, they could have chosen to eat better!" makes it worse.)
Acknowledging the role of this particular problem opens an avenue with which to help break down the system of oppression - both minority and poor in general - more effective than thinking Generic Positive Anti-Racism Thoughts.
I could so use some of those recipes. I have to cook on my own for the next three months. Gluten-free + low mobility due to chronic pain = dull diet. :(
I would love to buy that cook book and I bet a lot of other people would, too! I bet if you published it (maybe on lulu?) you could raise money for the shelter you mentioned.
I have been so educated by this thread. I just love that I can just be struggling to fall asleep, come onto feministing and just LEARN.
I don't think I have anything to contribute. But I will be looking at my food just a little bit more differently.
For anyone still checking in on this thread who is interested in seeing this: I just was introducted to this documentary about Monsanto, the gigantic multi-national corporation that created Round-Up and genetically modified soybeans, etc.
It touches on so many other issues as well that would be of interest to this group: the poor, minority residents near their leaky factory who die of greatly increased cancer rates, the increased suicides and poverty of Indian farmers who are forced to grow defective and expensive genetically modified cotton seeds, etc. It is eye-opening and appalling.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6262083407501596844
To me, it seems worthy of its own post. Well, for starters.