I had heard good things about Salatin from a friend who had seen him in the film Food, Inc. And after hearing that we were going to watch it in class, I figured it would be cool to go see what he was all about. After a few minutes of Salatin's speech, I was totally engaged. Not only was he incredibly intelligent, Salatin was absolutely hilarious. He talked about how meals these days have become a grazing action, not sitting down together as a family for a home cooked meal. Also, he brought up how we are not aware of where our food is coming from, we do not ask questions, we just eat. One part of his speech I found very interesting was an experiment done by young elementary school students. The students rolled up white Wonder bread into a ball and placed it into a worm compost along with other candy and snack food. In another worm compost, they put hearty wheat bread, fruits and vegetables. After a couple weeks, the kids pulled out the composts again and looked. The food in the second compost were gone and only a few pieces remained but in the first compost all the food still remained. Salatin then said, "Now why would you eat something the worms won't even it." This was a funny story but it also held so much truth. Our culture today has become less and less focused on the food we consumer and more focused on every other aspect of our lives. He said the kitchen use to be the center of the home but now the bathrooms are bigger than the kitchens. Salatin raised so many excellent points; it really caused me to think more about the food I consume.
The culture we live in today has little focus on the food we consume. Someone once told me that when we look at the ingredients in food, we are not supposed to eat anything we cannot pronounce. And looking at the ingredients, there are many ingredients that I could not come close to saying. Why do we do this to ourselves? Salatin's message and his ministry in farming can be seen as an apocalyptic. He is holding up a mirror toward our eating habits and is showing us how disconnected we have become. The food empire has been manipulated to mass produce no matter the consequences, and we are just following those standards. But, there are ways we can break away from the food empire that has been created. We can buy locally, eat locally, and become aware and active.
1. What factors make the fight against the food empire so difficult?
2. How would you address those who say organic food is too expensive?
3. How does faith effect our choices in food?
I also attended Joel Salatin's lecture. I thought it was very interesting, especially now after seeing him in Food Inc. I agree with you about the distance we've established between ourselves and food. I remember always eating dinner with my family almost every night. As I got older, we started having quicker meals on the run. In our busy lives, we often forget about food and the importance it has. It's great that people like Joel are waking us up to this problem. Responding to your second question, Joel answered it this way. When people ask him that question, he points out the bottle of coke in their hand. We all splurge and spend on things we don't need. It's our choice to make intelligent and responsible decisions. It's definitely a hard choice, but it's a choice we need to seriously consider.
ReplyDeleteI think one of the main reasons it's so difficult to fight against the food empire is due to the illusion that we have no choice. We often buy these poor quality foods because they are the tastiest, the least expensive, or the most convenient, with little regard to their nutritional value or to how they were produced. It's not that why can't fight it, it's just that we find it far too difficult or inconvenient to do so.
ReplyDeleteGreat observations, Merin! It's interesting to see how American food life has changed drastically in just the last 60 years. I think you're absolutely correct to identify distance as a primary factor in this change.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that Patrick mentions the concept of taste. We were in a rush to get to Grand Rapids a couple of weeks ago for interim so we didn't have time to make homemade yogurt and granola for our breakfasts. We bought some yogurt and granola from the store and it was interesting to notice how our tastes have changed. The store-bought stuff tasted way too sweet and the texture of the yogurt felt like slime. This experience made me realize (again) how the food industry attempts to shape our imagination about what food should taste like. It's interesting to see that their responses to focus group testing seem to be taking the things we buy from the grocery store further and further away from real food.
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