Tag: food inc

  • Why Americans are Going Local

    Yesterday Kristen and I listened to an author, Andrew Potter, describe the American movement towards all things local and eco-friendly as conspicuous consumption.

    It felt like an elitist slap in the face.

    His book is called, The Authenticity Hoax. (I’ve not read it) You can see the transcript to the Marketplace segment, “The new holier than thou” here.

    Basically, the author claimed that the real reason why Americans are going to farmers markets, growing their own food, shopping at locally owned business, and otherwise supporting their local economy is really to show off our wealth publicly. The entire tone of the interview seemed to mock and misrepresent a major shift in public opinion. (For a more reasonable interpretation of the same movement, check out this link in Business Week.)

    I couldn’t help but wonder if the author was just a tool or if he was a corporate tool who didn’t understand how inverse relationships work? As people’s distrust in “global” increases, their trust in “local” increases proportionally.

    Some examples of inverse relationships in the going local trend

    1. We are social creatures. With access to worldwide communication, its a natural human reaction to seek out local connections. People going local is an inverse relationship to a global society.
    2. Micro-economics makes sense. It doesn’t take a PhD in economics to understand that if I choose going to a local eatery vs. McDonald’s more of my money stays in my community. People eating locally is an inverse relationship to a global economy.
    3. The general public is coming to understand that our food chain is under-regulated and unsafe. As I’ve written about before, thanks to some great documentaries the general public is now aware that corporations are more concerned with profit than public health. People growing their own food is an inverse relationship to a global, unregulated food supply chain.
    4. The food decision wheel is turning more quickly. Each time there is a flaw in the food chain it just emphasized what the general public is thinking already. Bad eggs leads to “I need to buy my eggs from a farmer I can trust.” Now that people understand that most of our corn products are genetically-modified, people are starting to look for products containing no corn product. Every bad news story about food spins the wheel a little faster for people and centrifugal force is tough to fight for long. People trusting local farmers is an inverse relationship to a distrust of mega-farmers.
    5. Conspicuous corruption leads to local consumption. Look at the case of “special foreclosure courts” being set up in Florida to supersede constitutional rights in favor of corporations making a quick buck. This isn’t some conspiracy theorist… it’s the New York Times! Apparently the 7th amendment isn’t the law when courts are busy? No one in their right mind would trust that the government will rule in favor of a common citizen right now. So, people are investing their money in local businesses and things they know they can understand and trust. People investing in local banks is an inverse relationship to our distrust of a global banking society and the governmental corruption it has inspired.

    What are other examples of inverse relationships that are leading more and more of us to go local?

    Do you think that the shift to local really is conspicuous consumption? Is this just yuppies finding new ways to show off?

  • The Future of Food

    Tonight I watched the film above, The Future of Food. You can watch the whole thing, for free, on Hulu. (Or here on my blog if you so chose) You can learn more about how corporations are trying to run [ruin] the food supply at The Future of Food website.

    Another great movie covering more of the food supply is Food, Inc.

    I’m not a conspiracy theorist. But in my lifetime I’ve witnessed major food related issues among so many people I know. Too many. For years I’ve heard about this stuff and thought– what a bunch of whacko’s. But the more you learn, the more those whacko’s make sense.

    As I wrote about a few weeks ago, Kristen and I are making a serious commitment to change both the food we eat and the way we get it. Our hope is to reduce our food waste by 25% by composting, buy most of our vegetables and fruit locally buy belonging to a CSA and shopping at a farmers market, and planting our own organic garden. (see the pictures of our garden)

    So far, we’ve kept those commitments. And it hasn’t been hard at all. We’ve enjoyed tons of our own fruit from the yard and last week we started an abundant harvest of fresh lettuce. Today, Paul and I went out and bought a few more veggies, so we have tomatoes, herbs, and jalepenos coming in the next couple months. (And our compost worms are hard at work 24 hours a day eating our food waste!)

    Our next steps involve increasing the percentage of food we buy from local producers, working out a local free range source of meats and fish, and finding a local bakery who is committed to non-GMO grains.

    Maybe this all sounds a bit nuts? The truth is, it’s a lot of fun! We love starting a garden. We love the discipline of spending less at the monster mega-supermarket. And we love seeing what sorts of crazy things appear in our CSA box each week. Even more crazy is that I don’t think its costing us any more money per month.

    There’s something so enjoyable about developing a more intimate connection between what we eat and the people who produce it.

    Oh faithful reader: What are steps you are taking to be more socially responsible about the food you eat?