6.
Society Needs To Connect To Its Food Source
Before the onset of industrial revolution, all traditional societies were very connected to their food sources, and individual
wealth was measured in terms of livestock and land owned.
Contrast this way of life with the way of life in the 21st century. When the United States was founded in 1776, about 90 percent of the population was involved in agriculture and producing food. By the time Abraham Lincoln became president in 1860, the percentage had dropped to about 50%. Today, many years after the industrial revolution, that number is less than 1%.
Most of our society is no longer connected to our food sources, and very few people would even understand the concept that we are dependent upon higher forces of nature to supply our food, our “daily bread.” With a Darwinian evolutionary understanding of science and technology, our culture has come to depend on a very few wealthy companies to control the bulk of our food system.
The result of this concentrated power among such a small percentage of our population has been disastrous. The mass-produced foods are toxic and devoid of nutrients. Our poor health, both among the human population as well as the livestock population, has resulted in a very prosperous pharmaceutical industry. We no longer depend upon God for our ‘daily bread,’ but on Mosanto and Cargill. Most of us are not even aware of what the problem is, let alone what the solutions are.
wealth was measured in terms of livestock and land owned.
Contrast this way of life with the way of life in the 21st century. When the United States was founded in 1776, about 90 percent of the population was involved in agriculture and producing food. By the time Abraham Lincoln became president in 1860, the percentage had dropped to about 50%. Today, many years after the industrial revolution, that number is less than 1%.
Most of our society is no longer connected to our food sources, and very few people would even understand the concept that we are dependent upon higher forces of nature to supply our food, our “daily bread.” With a Darwinian evolutionary understanding of science and technology, our culture has come to depend on a very few wealthy companies to control the bulk of our food system.
The result of this concentrated power among such a small percentage of our population has been disastrous. The mass-produced foods are toxic and devoid of nutrients. Our poor health, both among the human population as well as the livestock population, has resulted in a very prosperous pharmaceutical industry. We no longer depend upon God for our ‘daily bread,’ but on Mosanto and Cargill. Most of us are not even aware of what the problem is, let alone what the solutions are.
Our eating has been secularized. It has been robbed of its poetry and beaten into the staccato uniformity of packaged snacks. We have insisted upon efficiency as the only criterion of our culinary aesthetic. As a direct result, our prey suffer needlessly, our planet is wilting under the pressures of our demands, our neighbors are strangers, we are unhealthy, and our place in the order of things is lost behind the incessant pace of our living.
We are in desperate need of reconnecting our eating with the sacred. This needn’t mean a complete return to the perspectives and practices of the past. It does necessarily mean a reevaluation of the fundamental principles by which we relate to our eating. Also, it definitely means to be aware of and to reconnect to our food source.
We are in desperate need of reconnecting our eating with the sacred. This needn’t mean a complete return to the perspectives and practices of the past. It does necessarily mean a reevaluation of the fundamental principles by which we relate to our eating. Also, it definitely means to be aware of and to reconnect to our food source.
“Imagine if we had a food system that actually produced wholesome food. Imagine if it produced that food in a way that restored the land. Imagine if we could eat every meal knowing these few simple things: What it is we’re eating. Where it came from. How it found its way to our table. And what it really cost. If that was the reality, then every meal would have the potential to be a perfect meal. We would not need to go hunting for our connection to our food and the web of life that produces it. We would no longer need any reminding that we eat by the grace of nature, not industry, and that what we’re eating is never anything more or less than the body of the world. I don’t want to have to forage every meal. Most people don’t want to learn to garden or hunt. But we can change the way we make and get our food so that it becomes food again—something that feeds our bodies and our souls. Imagine it: Every meal would connect us to the joy of living and the wonder of nature. Every meal would be like saying grace.”
~ Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
Spaghetti Trees
In 1957, the BBC television programme “Panorama” ran a famous hoax, showing Italians harvesting spaghetti from trees. A large number of people contacted the BBC wanting to know how to cultivate their own spaghetti trees!
This programme, narrated by distinguished broadcaster Richard Dimbleby, featured a family carrying out their annual spaghetti harvest.
This programme, narrated by distinguished broadcaster Richard Dimbleby, featured a family carrying out their annual spaghetti harvest.
Just a few companies control the whole world’s food supply. Not all of them are humanitarian organizations:
Nestlé is the world’s largest food and beverage company.
PepsiCo is the largest U.S.-based food and beverage company.
Unilever is an Anglo-Dutch company that owns many of the world’s consumer product brands in foods and beverages.
Kraft is apparently the world’s second largest food company, following its acquisition of Cadbury in 2010.
DuPont and Monsanto Company are the leading producers of pesticide, seeds, and other farming products.
Both Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill process grain into animal feed and a diverse group of products. ADM also provides agricultural storage and transportation services, while Cargill also operates a finance wing.
Bunge Limited is a global soybean exporter and is also involved in food processing, grain trading, and fertilizer.
Dole Food Company is the world’s largest fruit company. Chiquita Brands International, another U.S.-based fruit company, is the leading distributor of bananas in the United States. Sunkist Growers, Incorporated is a U.S.-based grower’s cooperative.
JBS S.A. is the world’s largest processor and marketer of chicken, beef, and pork. Smithfield Foods is the world’s largest pork processor and hog producer.
Sysco Corporation, mainly catering to North America, is one of the world’s largest food distributors.
General Mills is the world’s sixth biggest food manufacturing company.
Grupo Bimbo is one of the most important baking companies in brand and trademark positioning, sales, and production volume around the world.
It showed women carefully plucking strands of spaghetti from a tree and laying them in the sun to dry.
But some viewers failed to see the funny side of the broadcast. Others, however, were so intrigued they wanted to find out where they could purchase their very own spaghetti bush.
Mr Dimbleby explained how each year the end of March is a very anxious time for Spaghetti harvesters all over Europe as severe frost can impair the flavour of the spaghetti.
He also explained how each strand of spaghetti always grows to the same length thanks
to years of hard work by generations of growers.
Spaghetti Trees! This is an example of how much we are disconnected from our food source today. Another example can be the meat vending machines which are gaining popularity everywhere.
People are just forgetting that steak comes from a cow and a pork chop comes from a pig. Also they are forgetting that meat products cost something more than money: a life. At the very least, the blood on a ‘real’ butcher’s apron used to remind them of that.
But some viewers failed to see the funny side of the broadcast. Others, however, were so intrigued they wanted to find out where they could purchase their very own spaghetti bush.
Mr Dimbleby explained how each year the end of March is a very anxious time for Spaghetti harvesters all over Europe as severe frost can impair the flavour of the spaghetti.
He also explained how each strand of spaghetti always grows to the same length thanks
to years of hard work by generations of growers.
Spaghetti Trees! This is an example of how much we are disconnected from our food source today. Another example can be the meat vending machines which are gaining popularity everywhere.
People are just forgetting that steak comes from a cow and a pork chop comes from a pig. Also they are forgetting that meat products cost something more than money: a life. At the very least, the blood on a ‘real’ butcher’s apron used to remind them of that.
Several years ago I took my daughter and her friend to our allotments. As we left I dug up a couple of bunches of my prized organic carrots and offered one of them to my daughter's friend.
With a look of absolute disgust the young girl said, "My mommy doesn't get food from the dirt! She goes to Tescos!"
Still, at least she knew what a carrot was.
~Jennifer Hill, Bristol