Taking Down the Corporate Food System Is Simple

[marmar]

via AlterNet:



Taking Down the Corporate Food System Is Simple

By Joel Salatin, Public Affairs Books. Posted June 20, 2009.

The new book Food Inc. explains the most realistic and effective approach to transforming a system that is slowly but surely killing us.



Excerpted by permission from "Declare Your Independence" by Joel Salatin, part of the book Food, Inc., available now from PublicAffairs. Copyright 2009.

Perhaps the most empowering concept in any paradigm-challenging movement is simply opting out. The opt-out strategy can humble the mightiest forces because it declares to one and all, "You do not control me."

The time has come for people who are ready to challenge the paradigm of factory-produced food and to return to a more natural, wholesome and sustainable way of eating (and living) to make that declaration to the powers that be, in business and government, that established the existing system and continue to prop it up. It's time to opt out and simply start eating better -- right here, right now.

Impractical? Idealistic? Utopian? Not really. As I'll explain, it's actually the most realistic and effective approach to transforming a system that is slowly but surely killing us.

What happened to food?

First, why am I taking a position that many well-intentioned people might consider alarmist or extreme? Let me explain.

At the risk of stating the obvious, the unprecedented variety of bar-coded packages in today's supermarket really does not mean that our generation enjoys better food options than our predecessors. These packages, by and large, having passed through the food-inspection fraternity, the industrial food fraternity and the lethargic cheap-food-purchasing consumer fraternity, represent an incredibly narrow choice. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/environment/140477/taking_down_the_corporate_food_system_is_simple/

[zeemike]

1. Tune in, turn on, and drop out

Was the motto of the hippies in the 60s and 70s. And they had something there.
Dropping out of the industrial food system is not that hard and does not require you to turn on, just stop eating their shit food.
Learn to cook from scrach...it is not that hard...and buy local as much as possible.

[bread_and_roses]

3. sorry, but "not that hard" is flat out wrong

it is indeed hard. it requires a major investment in time, energy, and money. and i've been a "natural/whole/real/organic/cook from scratch" proponent since the late 60's. there's no way it's easy - agribusiness and the processed food corps have seen to that. it is about impossible if you're poor. If you don't have a car. If you're a working parent.

and while i am a whole and local food proponent, i am also a safe food proponent, and find the article a little too blithe about the safety of unregulated food.

[zeemike]

6. Simplify, simplify, simplify.

That is what makes it easy.
Learn to enjoy having a meal of homemade whole wheat bread and some veggies or beans and rice. It is actually a very satisfying meal.
Make the time by cutting back on the time you spend watching TV, or otherwise entertain yourself.
And besides it does not take that much time to make food from scrach...I bake my own bread and it takes about 15min to make the doe and then I am free while the doe rises, then another 10min to get it in the oven and out on the table...is that too much for what you get for it?
You can do that twice a weak and have all the good wholesome bread you can eat.
And beans and rice take about an hour to cook...but you don't stand over the stove while that is happening...you can watch TV if you like.
And one can live pretty cheaply with a bag of beans and rice and flower. And if you supplement it with fruits and veggies you will have a healthy diet.
There are dozens of ways to simplify and we should learn them for the sake of our health as well as economy.

[bread_and_roses]

8. my, my. what a smug little screed

i happen to know how to bake bread, having been doing it for about 35 years, as well as home-made english muffins, pita, and various and sundry other breads. I started with natural and home-made back when Adelle Davis was about the only resource out there. however, that's not the point. Your little homily reeks of "this is what i do/think so it must be suitable for everyone else."

How dare you presume to choose for others how much tv they should watch, or how much time they should spend cooking? Or tell a working mother who's just spent nine hours at work plus two hours getting the child/ren to and from day care and arrives home at 6:30 pm with hungry kids that she should spend an hour cooking beans and rice before she feeds them - presuming they'll eat it, which once they go to school or a friend's house becomes highly unlikely. Or maybe she should beat them or send them to bed hungry because they don't like beans much? Or a poor woman with no oven and no baking pans to bake bread?

And i hate to tell you, but while the probable environmental catastrophe we're creating will mean that most everyone will be grateful for even beans and rice, we're not there yet, and until we are, people are unlikely to choose your spartan diet in large numbers.

It is, in my book, a cardinal elitist sin to tell others what they "should" do to solve problems as isolated individuals rather than look to systems' reform to creat an environment where sustainable balance with nature and other humans is possible.

[zeemike]

9. Well excuse me.!

Didn't think I was telling anyone how to live their life.
Thought I was on topic here about how to cheat the industrial food industry and live better.
So just ignore what I said and do things like you want...my posts was not for you.
Did not intend to put your drawers in a twist.

[bread_and_roses]

11. if i misread your intent, i am happy to apologize

if you were describing your own choices, not dictating to others, i have no quarell at all with you. peace.

[cprise]

15. Yours is the screed, I'm afraid

...and without a lick of constructive advice outside of "look to systems' reform" in a ridiculous run-on sentence. Systems reform isn't going to happen at all unless the entire culture learns to seek out and move in a better direction.

Not that many basic meals take even an hour to make, but most good home cooks will use that hour to make 2 or 3 meals worth of food (which means planning for leftovers) so that other days only require a reheat.

I also take exception to this rhetorical trick: Evoking "a poor woman with no oven and no baking pans" along with "...people are unlikely to choose your spartan diet in large numbers" because they're not desperate enough to make your single point that home cooking advocacy is "elitist". You want us to think that people are both deprived and spoiled at the same time which is one of the hallmarks of a speaker arguing in bad faith.

[XemaSab]

7. I was the child of a poor working single parent

and we had fresh food almost every night.

Sometimes it was simple stuff, like eggs, rice, and mushrooms or french toast, but usually it was more elaborate, and I don't recall EVER eating anything that came out of a box other than sides such as pilaf. :shrug:

And this was in the 'hood, so the vegetable selection wasn't that great. :shrug:

If you think scratch cooking is too hard, you're doing it wrong.

[bread_and_roses]

10. your parent is/was admirable, but you are over-simplifying what i said

which was something like "natural/whole/organic/from scratch." One can cook hamburger "from scratch" every single night easily enough (that's an EXAMPLE - not saying that's what your parent did) without meeting the criteria of the article. The meat is unlikely to be local, much less organic, or free-range. The fresh broccoli is probably from california, the oranges from florida, the chicken and pork from factory farms.

I know how to cook. I know how to cook "natural and healthy" and even local (much harder). It's expensive. The time involved is not only in the cooking, but in traveling to obtain the ingredients. In my part of the world, with long cold winters, the energy required for extensive cooking becomes a factor for low-income cooks.

and sinner that i am, i've passed up the farmers' market and opted for a bag of frozen vegitables because everyone was hungry, or i was really tired, or the child had dance that night, or a school project was due and time was short.

until we have viable, sustainable systems that make it possible for most people to live in balance with nature without spending every waking hour at it (which would include, btw, working far less hours than we do now) - or catastrophe - we are not going to see many people changing their food habits.

[XemaSab]

12. Where am I supposed to get my broccoli from

if not from California? :D

[bread_and_roses]

2. Maybe the book has something to say, but this article doesn't

I read it this AM and went "huh?"

And I agree completely with the description of the problem, but this article really doesn't offer much.

[izquierdista]

4. Mmmmm, unpastuerized

Food.....borne.....illness....mmmmmmmmmm!

[TreasonousBastard]

5. Sure it's simple if you get...

300,000,000 people to go along with you and give up the convenience they're used to.

So simple you wonder why it hasn't been done already.

[tinrobot]

13. You can pry the Big Macs from my cold, dead hands!

Not something I would say... but I'm sure that's the attitude of many.

[guardian]

14. hands off my pop tarts too. n/t