transforming the food system will not be like changing to compact flourescent light bulbs

I have been writing for some time to continue and respond to the ideas I brought up in my last post. I have realized, rather slowly, that everything I want to say is truly impossible to say in one post. So, expect this issue to be returned to in the near future. For now, I find I desperately want to provide some sort of solution. Because I criticized the food system so much in the last post, I would like to point out some possible paths that may lead to the light. Or at least, to something a little better. So, here it goes.

In the midst of the surprisingly vibrant dialogue (encouraged by the likes of Barbara Kingsolver and Michael Pollan) about food, several different philosophies and practices toward making and eating food have abounded. There are “localvores”, CSA shareholders, organic produce mongers, fair-trade buffs, vegetarians, vegans, and slow foodies. Each has very particular ideas and reasons about why they eat the way they do. Initially, I want to say that this is truly a great thing. I do believe that growing, preparing, and eating food is a deeply ethical issue. It is wonderful to be out and overhear random conversations from strangers about realizing that finding broccoli at the farmer’s market is something that will only happen in the spring and fall. People developing a better and closer understanding of their food and realizing the ethical implications of their food choices is indeed a very awesome thing. However, I think we need to deal with some other baggage that has sneaked onto the food bandwagon. The simple fact that this whole food “thing” has been termed a “fad” is, I think, unsettling and implies its inevitable temporariness. Blue jeans that fit your bum and puff out round your ankles are a fad. Diets – South Beach, Jenny Craig, Slim Fast – have all proven to be fads. Is this food thing just another form of the diet craze? Part of me fears it could be treated as such. Making significant choices about where food comes from, how it is grown, and how it is eaten should not be something that suffers the fate of a fad. I can’t even imagine viewing food as a fad. Food is the miracle that has, through some rather incredible biological developments and cycles, grown from the earth to provide for us tasty and delightful nourishment of all kinds of variety.

Is it good?

One thing that has sneaked onto the bandwagon a little too loudly for my comfort is this idea that if the food is “local,” or “organic,” or carries whatever kind of seemingly morally preferable label then it must be a “good thing.” This I feel is a rather tricky issue. Something that is grown or prepared in a way that coincides with certain moral outlines is of course a little better than something that isn’t. However, it must be understood that the grower or producer of the food could simply be seeking to do what is listed as necessary for something to earn a particular label. Labels such as “organic,” “cage-free,” and “vegetarian” match systematic regulations; those labels may have little to do with the morals that inspired those regulations. Those labels also typically indicate a larger profit margin since people are willing to pay higher prices with the belief that they can vote with their dollar to change farming practices and food policies. But, what exactly is that so called “vote” with your dollar actually supporting? It is supporting those food producers that follow the base minimum in order to earn a label. It is supporting food producers that have the time, money and people power to invest in completing reams of paper work and deal with bureaucrats and red tape. This is not a typical function of a small farm. In fact most farms that I know of that are sincerely invested in working to create a food system that generates little to no waste and has a small to invisible carbon footprint are not labeled as anything. Their operations go far beyond the base line requirements for “organic” or whatever other approved labels there might be. Regulations by no means indicate attitude or ethics of those that happen to follow the regulations. Therefore, I feel it faulty to believe that food that sells itself as “organic” or what have you is, in its own being as a food item, “good.” I think we are too quick to seek out moral superiority in our grocery carts, thus feeling rather satisfied with ourselves for having sacrificed an extra dollar or two to pop “organic” and “cage-free” items into our plastic bags, or even our “this is not a plastic bag” tote bags. It all depends on how smug we want to feel.

What needs to happen is a better investigation behind the label. This is why I have trouble understanding why we always look to politicians in our organizing. Call this representative, push for this law and then change will come. This is a little aside, but I don’t think regulations as such really create true change. It’s a start and it’s definitely helpful, but it’s no where near enough. As a first grader in Mrs. Snapp’s first grade, I don’t recall thinking the list of rules by the chalkboard as something that encouraged me to be more respectful of other human beings. I viewed it as the list of things not to do so I wouldn’t have to put my head down. Laws might be able to inspire or alter attitudes or push the view that those views are unpopular, but it seems a little unlikely. Laws and courts are of words; our daily lives of eating and making food are of action and decision. Perhaps we don’t need to investigate the label, but rather we need to simply investigate the food. Question the items we buy. But what exactly should we be looking for…

Homemaking

Well, do we know what we are looking for? Do we know how to grow spinach, what season it grows, or even how to cook it? We may not because we don’t know and don’t have many skills when it comes to growing or preparing food. For the most part, skills in how to keep a house have been lost in the midst of modernization and the passing of family members who had those skills. In several periods of our history, people, even people with full time jobs and children, had to grow their food and preserve it for the winter. During the Great Depression, women gathered in community kitchens to learn preserving skills to stock up food for the family in an affordable way. Victory Gardens abounded in front lawns during World War II as a way to provide another source of food during periods of rationing. While I hear many people calling for more local food, I don’t hear as many voices calling for people to sacrifice their beautiful green lawns for a vegetable garden. As an apartment dweller I sadly do not have land where I can grow food. Instead, I spend time volunteering at a local organic farm. In return for my work I often receive a bag of tasty goodies. In addition, as people push for others to eat locally, there is not much of an effort to teach others how to eat year round by preserving food through canning, freezing, and drying. I myself am currently suffering from a lack of satisfactory food options since I did not set aside enough food for the winter. I recently purchased a book to learn more about the processes of canning, so I hope by next winter to make my way at least part way into the winter months with stored food. It is sad to see basic knowledge and skills in homemaking fade from the American way of life. In addition, if we are familiar with processes of growing food, we can make informed decisions about how we want the food we eat to be raised. But I feel something more valuable could happen as people try to gain more knowledge and skills. I have found through my own efforts to learn about growing food that I have fostered some friendships that I deeply cherish. I have learned from the experience and skill of others, made connections with other generations, and learned some of the wisdom they have to offer. I find this interaction invaluable. In fact, these kinds of interactions are part of what draws me to the work of growing and preparing food. Passing on skills of homemaking is quite possibly one of the best gifts anyone can give. It gives the recipient the opportunity to foster their own home, shape and nurture it with care so that it may grow and flourish.

Permaculture: An Honest Name

For food to make any significant changes, a better understanding of what it would mean to truly grow food in a sustainable way needs to be established. I think a good guideline for this sort of discussion is the idea of permaculture. Permaculture, in a very basic sense, is a way of approaching the design of an entire land area (the natural and built environments) that is efficient, productive, creates no waste, and nurtures the environment. Permaculture encourages several environmentally beneficial practices which are not typically followed in farming – conventional or organic. In an ideal permatulre system the soil is not tilled (assists the organic life of the soil, prevents erosion and leeching of nutrients, less work), water catchment systems are established so that outside water use is limited (graywater recycling, swales, dams, and rainwater catchment barrels), farm and wild animals are used as much as possible for labor which they would naturally be doing (chickens to scratch up soil, predatory animals to fight pests, manure for nutrient content, etc.), and the growing grounds are sheet mulched (layers of nutrients, newspapers, and mulch) to provide tons of nutrients, hold water, and keep aerated), and areas are established as restored natural habitat for wild animals (encourages predators to pests, better for overall environment). There are many other elements that can be in place in a permaculture system, but the above list gives an idea of the benefits to this sort of approach to growing food. While there are several beneficial practices to learn from permaculture, I find the mindset encouraged by permaculture the most insightful. In setting up a permaculture design, you have to think of the land and everything in and on it, animate and inanimate, as one whole system that gives and takes. Permaculture has more to do with the connections between all the elements than the elements themselves. It is quite an ingenious and really a necessary way to look at living on the land and growing food. I strongly recommend picking up some books (Bill Mollison and David Jacke are a good place to start) and begin learning. Ok, enough of the technical stuff.

What I think is important about permaculture is that it truly stands for a clear concept, unlike so many of the titles such as "green," "organic," and "sustainable" that are thrown around so much that they begin to lose any meaning or value. Permaculture as a term represents a series of design principles. In fact the term permaculture is copyrighted, a fact I found quite odd when I received my certificate in the subject. However, now I begin to see some value in this because the word must always be used with its true meaning and intent intact. The term is supposed to be used by those trained in what and how to do permaculture. This ensures a kind of safety net around the term ensuring that it is not watered down or used inaccurately.

In Conclusion...

In essence, for true change in the food system there must be an alteration in the entire approach to growing food and the lifestyle we live. The change must be both systematic and personal. I think activists are prone to the “five easy steps to change everything” approach. The problem is that this sort of approach makes it so easy for the general status quo to continue with only some of the minor details being altered. Today as I was reading Hannah Arendt she was emphasizing the point that in classical times extraordinary action and courage and was looked upon with the most respect. Those that stood out in their public action were considered honorable. She then discussed that in modern times with the rise of the masses and our reliance on things such as statistics, we tend to follow trends of action among the majority. The behaviors of the status quo are remembered in modern times, not the extraordinary actions of the individual. I found her point very insightful. Looking at the doings of humans as action rather than behaviors creates a huge shift in the role of human responsibility. In fact, I think the entire ethical role of the human shifts. There are two individuals I have known in my life that I feel break the surface and have the courage to take actions of great significance, though the actions in and of them selves are quite simple. These actions, though perhaps not the ideal Arendt speaks of, do provide those who witness them with lessons and inspiration. I think these sorts of people provide a stronger and more inspiring force than is imagined. Will they change the world? I am not sure…and I am not sure that is their intent. I think their intent is to live in strict accordance to their beliefs and ethics. Perhaps that is the departure point, the complete connection between ideas (vita contemplativa) and deeds (vita activa).

the grocery store

Upon my decision to never set foot into a large chain grocery store I have been thinking about how bizarre and curious the dominant view of purchasing food is. It seems that typically once a week someone in the household has to run errands. The errands include trips, made as short and convenient as possible, to assorted destinations to the surrounding environs armed with a list and a car. The car is what necessitated the invention of the shopping cart. When people had a trunk to fill with food, the amount of food purchased at the store grew beyond the limits of the basket and into the ridiculous bounty of the grocery cart.

The purchaser thinks mostly in terms of what will last for a week or two so the person can avoid having to run more errands (errands are run, never walked; apparently if you want to walk you should get a dog). Therefore, the things that are purchased at the store are often in one of the following states: frozen, canned, or jarred, and all will last for an indefinite period of time. Even milk, with its ultra-pasteurization, will last for about two months from the day it’s bought (mind you, it’s been stored for about four months before hitting the shelves).

These items taste horrible, could easily be prepared from fresh or stored ingredients within the home, and contain harmful chemicals and preservatives that negate most nutritional value of the food eaten. For the most part shoppers purchase things that are fast and easy to prepare, since most people work 40 or more hours a week and view cooking as yet another chore in a seemingly endless list of errands and chores. These fast and easy meals are often individually packaged, packaged in a layer of plastic which is contained in a cardboard box. The shopper does not have to worry about this excessive packaging since the room in the trunk is ample and trash is taken away each week. There is no cue to consider the amount of energy consumed needlessly in the production of a mass market food item. No cue to look at the ingredients, after all if we all are dieting than all that matters is the fat percentages, right? Even the grocery store itself, the very environment where the shopper is present, is not something to be reconsidered for most. After all, all the big box stores are nearly the same. Just the status quo supermarket. Rows and rows of food items (not real food necessarily, but food products in boxes and bags marketed like new computer devices), frozen food sections made up of three aisles, many (oh, probably 16) check-out lines with scanners and registers, and open refrigerator cases lining the walls.

Quite possibly the only thing that will make the shopper pause, and only very few shoppers at that, is whether or not the food purchased is organic. It could be a frozen dinner contained in feet of plastic and cardboard packaging with ingredients grown in Peru and South Africa and unknown preservatives and flavors. But, it says organic and has a nice image of a peaceful, green farm on its packaging. Then the shopper can walk away with his or her plastic (maybe paper?) bags of their “groceries” (not food, per se) to their car and drive all two miles back home satisfied to have paid a little extra for organic, because after all don’t we vote with our dollars? After all, isn’t this the better thing to do?

I suppose, in a way it is a little better. Organic is indeed a good choice. Avoiding chemicals that are detrimental to the health of the eater, farmers who use the chemicals, and the earth is of course a choice that is in my view necessary and good.

But, what else is happening in this trip to the grocery store? Waste is everywhere. The car used to get to the grocery store uses petroleum both in gasoline and in its very construction. The store consumes tons of energy and typically uses gross amounts of land for the preposterous size of the store itself and the concrete parking lot that surrounds it (planted with small trees, often unhealthy and with short life spans). The store is more often than not a chain store. The workers are paid minimum wage and are in a situation where there is little or no opportunity to learn or exhibit skill regarding food. Even butchers would be more accurately called meat slicers. Most of the food in the grocery store barely resembles real food. The food with any real ingredients (let’s say carrots, or bananas, or beef) are so full of pesticides, preservatives, and hormones that speed up, fatten, ward off insects and disease in the most harmful and unnatural way to all living things involved in the process – eater, farmer, and plant or animal. The only beneficiary in the process is the petro-chemical industry that manufactures most pesticides (yes, another petroleum derivative. Amazing how much relies on a waning natural resource), the drug companies that prevent the death of all industry raised animals who are deathly ill from being fed grains and kept in unnatural habitats, and the food manufacturers who pump out food as if it were an assembly line factory pumping out products, brimming with marketing strategies. This stuff isn’t food. It more likely resembles a Tyco plastic toy than a meal.

And finally, there is the context of buying this “food.” It is bought as a commodity. It is even worse than shopping for Christmas. The highest quality of work that has gone into this food is the efforts toward marketing the item – designing the package, writing the catchy ad and jingle, getting a celebrity, and making people reliant on the convenience of preparation rather than their own skills in the kitchen (is there any left?). Most of the people that have touched the food item (has it even been touched or does it only know machines?) know little to nothing about the food – does it taste good, how to prepare it, during which season does it grow. This makes me wonder why the family psychologists even care if the family sits down to one dinner a week together? Can this rightly be called a dinner? Is this the kind of thing that should be shared with loved ones?

So, I am sure you are asking, what is the alternative? Well, the alternative is not enough. An alternative is something that tends to be unconventional, choosing one thing instead of the other. It’s a back-up plan, another option. Well, the other option that we have been encouraged to take is driving a Prius to Whole Foods and buying a box of Kashi. This is not sufficient. This is not enough. It is not an alternative because it does not allow enough of an opting out. Too many of the same systems are in place and being replicated. An alternative is not enough. We don’t need a back-up plan, we need an entirely new system.

This has been quite a lot for one entry, so I will return to this in my next entry. Expect more, shortly. In the meantime, keep warm and enjoy your Sunday night.

some thoughts on political action: private and public

During a significant portion of the last few years of my life, I believed very passionately in pursuing a life where I dedicated my efforts to making significant change in the world. However, I have also felt somehow displaced when around people that worked in the “lefty” fields of organizing and social change. However, I still held onto to my beliefs. Of late, I feel I have shifted, perhaps a better word is focused my views toward this kind of work.

Previously I probably would have described the pinnacle of my “organizing” life was being field organizer for Turn Your Back on Bush. It was a large action, national in scope. I helped hundreds of people make their way to Washington DC to participate in this demonstration. I talked to press. It was all very glamorous and big. At the end, I walked around the monuments of DC and cried as I felt like I had reached a little closer to their meaning. I had enjoyed the freedoms those founders spoke of. I felt like I wanted to launch myself into that kind of work. What I at the time had viewed as making a big difference may well have been an enchantment with the five minutes of fame from media attention. I don’t think I did make a big difference that day. I do think I exercised my freedom of self-expression and gave others a vehicle to express their own thoughts in a public forum. This is important and valuable, but not enough to change Bush’s policy. At the time I felt my action was necessary. I felt I had to do it because the current circumstances required an immediate and loud response. I viewed this sort of public action as a way to make a visible, media captured event which would lend volume to my beliefs. The problem with seeking volume is often the means to find it. Organizations and political factions go to great lengths to gain volume and thus gain access to other people’s ears and grant them to opportunity to win that person’s support. In political organizing this is messaging. The right made an art of it during the Bush era and in response left organizing groups adapted these methods. So therefore the viewed necessity of a particular action allows for the excuse to follow even the tools of the master’s house.

Several events and circumstances have led me away from this line of work and way of thinking. For one, as an organizer for TYBOB and in other similar positions I have worked up to 85 hours a week. The work is endless. There is always something else to be done. However, isn’t this worth it since it’s for the “cause.” I suppose to some people this sort of unending work is worth it. However, I am married. I need to spend time with my husband. I want to nurture a home for our family. In order to do that I want to be there to prepare dinner, share meals with him, and enjoy my time with him. I want to be able to spend time with friends, inviting them over for a party or long lunch. I want to do these things because all humans deserve these things. But there is more to these kinds of actions. All things, even making dinner for two, can be a political act. The very reason I wanted to be someone that worked for social change was because I wanted to act against systems of injustice, consumerism, corruption, and inhumanity. Is it not inhumane to be unable to eat dinner with your family? The values I believe in are not high and lofty values that are accessible only in books of law. These are basic concepts of how we should live our daily lives. If I work 80 hours a week against the war and then return home to eat a microwave dinner on the couch while watching TV with my husband, am I not in a small way replicating and even contributing to the very evils I fight against? To eat food rife with petrochemicals and shipped with petroleum while not communicating with my husband but preferring to just passively consume something a large corporation thought might be a hit this season with 20 something females. I might as well place my own signature on a declaration of war, become a corrupt business man, and divorce my husband.

The conclusion that I have for now come to is that actions without speakers are indeed just as valuable. To participate in smaller, simpler actions which directly and consistently embody one’s values is indeed a worthwhile goal. Instead of placing my attention on a job working for social justice, I am aiming for a simpler job, but one that I find truly ethical and sound. I seek this simpler job so that I might have time. Time is something I value so highly because time provides me the opportunity to pursue my values through the lifestyle I choose. By having time to seek out local businesses, walk, cook my meals from scratch, make Christmas ornaments, bake bread, and spend time with my husband, I am able to live out my beliefs in a very simple and basic way. I find it more pleasant, because I am able to feel that I am more consistent and balanced between my beliefs and my actions.

Some might feel this sort of small life is too small and there is no hope for making a difference. I suppose this could be true. However, I find in my life when people approached me with pamphlets or told me to support a cause I usually walked the other way. Though I myself was an organizer, I never found the organizing worked on me and I more often than not found it annoying and intrusive. My path was different. I found myself inspired most by people who lived in total accordance with what they believed. The most inspiring people to me were the nuns who ran and taught at my high school. Though I disagreed with them on many issues, I still found their lifestyle and approach to their beliefs deeply influential on my own way of thinking.

The previous point brings me back to why I moved away from ideas of organizing. I have spent some years working in some form in the field of education. Again and again I have been trained and I have witnessed that people are most likely to learn from a demonstration or modeling than from someone just speaking and telling them what to think. A reenactment of history, doing a scientific experiment, providing an example English paper are all better ways of teaching than just telling the information. The same I feel is true in the realm of trying to enact change. Modeling behaviors is much more effective than just preaching them. Showing people how to live with minimal environmental impact, how to support local businesses, or whatever makes each of these things more accessible. I am not sure how accessible it is to a broad audience to do a public demonstration. I think it is important to be able to do a demonstration, but I think the public act is abused. It is rife with its own systems and expectations. It is something for the reporter, the demonstrator, and perhaps the police. It seems it rarely reaches out of that realm. So I am not sure the true value in public demonstrations is in effecting change. I think there is value at times in feeling the freedom to speak in public about a belief. But this is perhaps more on a personal level. The sad reality of our current ideas about public demonstrations is that they are not places of dialogue. People from different factions do not mingle together and talk through the issues. If that were the case than I would say these actions are indeed effective and necessary. I am not sure what I think about the role of public action. As it is commonly approached I do not find it very useful. I am not sure what kind of actions I would find more useful. For the time being, I find living a simple life in total accordance with your beliefs is about the most honest, ethical, and complete way of carrying out a public demonstration.