Raise your hand if you can remember a time when we didn’t talk so much about food, but rather spent more time preparing or growing it?
It’s true, isn’t it? Omnivore’s Dilemma author Michael Pollan tells us not to eat anything our grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food. While I have not strayed much from cooking and gardening, the world has moved on to frozen dinners and individual servings of oatmeal and yogurt in a tube and it reminds me of the cartoon the Jetson’s or an episode of Star Trek.
If you haven’t ever really thought about food from the standpoint of industrialization of the food system you may never have noticed, myself included, what has happened to our food and who really controls what we eat.
Sunday, Nov. 27’s 60 Minutes had a segment on food flavoring and the nice people who spend their days seeking ways to entice you eat their products, drink soda pop and chew gum. Even with several pressing questions from Morley Safer, the representative interviewed would not admit to the possibility that this practice makes food addictive and potentially adds to America’s obesity issues.
We are eating more and more foods that contain no real food; no natural nutrients and artificial flavoring, preservatives… you have heard this before. Okay, maybe you haven’t?
Before I began working in local foods, I had no idea that people didn’t cook or garden. The art of cooking has faded to microwaving a bag of mashed potatoes. Some of my college students claim they are really good – really? What’s so difficult about scrubbing some potatoes, cutting them in pieces, simmering a pot of water with potatoes for 20 minutes and then mashing them with butter and salt? You know, eating the real deal, no bag to throw away and less sodium. Apparently, we don’t have time to cook anymore, even the simplest of things. Yet, video games, the Internet and television viewing seem to be holding their own hour or four of fun every evening.
As a result, we have lost our taste for things that are good and wholesome and near to the earth. Instead, scientists, marketers, wholesalers, large companies who own access to our daily bread continue to come up with ways and means and flavors that keep us consuming food that doesn’t do us any favors. Hmmm… flavors without favors, could be a country western theme song.
“Local food” was coined to begin the process of moving away from our industrialized, super-sized food system and back to what our grandparents knew was good food.
While it seems a simple task, it’s rather overwhelming at times. The work that needs to be done to change the way we eat begins with us.
Small bites. While I may have thrown a whole bunch of information or ideas out there on the table, I’m asking you to only do this. Think about it. Look around you as you walk through the grocery store and admire the options for dinner tonight. Read a few labels; roll the word “local” around in your head. It’s more than just food – but we will investigate more in future newspapers. Until then, please feel free to email me at spidersue@msn.com. Ask me some questions. I will do my best to answer them. In the meantime, eat some real food today, preferably from farmers.
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