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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMichael Pollan: “Our Food Is Dishonestly Priced”
http://billmoyers.com/2014/02/03/michael-pollan-our-food-is-dishonestly-priced/<snip>
I recently connected with Pollan to discuss equitable food pricing, farm worker rights and industrial agricultures role in casting the food movement as elitist. (What follows is a condensed and edited version of our conversation.) I began by asking Pollan about his evolving personal interest in the plight of food workers.
Ive been really paying more attention to it over time than I did at the beginning, he said. When I wrote my first book about the food system, The Omnivores Dilemma, I didnt talk in detail about labor. It was much more from the point of view of the eater than the person behind the counter.
But the food movement is all about connecting the dots, Pollan continued. Both the farm workers and the fast food workers are very important in the food system. I think Eric Schlosser did this better than anyone in Fast Food Nation (2001), where the focus was very much on food workers, slaughterhouse workers and farm workers. I think hes helped to sensitize a lot of people in the food movement who perhaps werent paying as much attention to this part of the puzzle as they should have been. You definitely find the interest spreading and accelerating as social inequality has gotten so much worse in the last few years.
Why, I wondered, is there this impression of the food movement as an elite venue? And why is it that the only people who can afford local, organic options are generally those who dont have to worry about their pay?
Although theres a kernel of truth in that image [of a foodie elite], he responded, its also a part of the rhetorical strategy used by the [agricultural] industry to fight the food movement: that its elitist; that this kind of food cant feed the world; that only industrial agriculture can get the job done and put lots of cheap meat in front of us. Its a bludgeon used in a very serious ideological battle.
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JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)But our society is not geared for that.
A French friend of mine bought her vegetables and fruits from small markets in small quantities and fresh every day.
We Americans buy in large supermarkets in large quantities and very often nearly spoiled.
And then, too many Americans and often for good reasons, eat in fast food places. I've worked in a couple of those places. The food is brought in frozen or as a mix and "cooked" or warmed up as you will. It isn't really food like you would eat if you bought the ingredients and cooked it yourself. It isn't as good. It isn't as nutritious. But tell a working mother who gets home sometime around 7 p.m. and needs to feed hungry kids, make sure they have done their homework and wash them up and get them into bed so that they will be alert in school the next day. It's so hard.
Just fixing the American diet won't work unless we fix some other aspects of our American lives.
yuiyoshida
(41,871 posts)There are few fast food places here, because THE CITY wanted our Restaurants and mom&pop stores to grow. Yes there are Supermarkets, but we also have Restaurants who will deliver a wide variety of real food, from Peking Duck to Spaghetti Marinara.. with reasonable prices. When I get paid, at the beginning of the month, I don't mind ordering BBQ Chicken wings, Chinese food, Japanese food, Thai food .. there are a ton of restaurants in the city that will deliver these wonderful foods! That includes seafood as well!
frwrfpos
(517 posts)Ive encouraged my girlfriend to start a vegetable garden and Ive started an herb garden inside. Its fairly easy to do both now in a limited space if you research.
BobbyBoring
(1,965 posts)I go to our local Food Lion daily to see what's marked down. Every day, there are steaks, ground beef, chicken, pork chops and roasts etc priced for quick sale.
Seems to me, if they were priced so people could afford them in the first place, this wouldn't be necessary.
WTF do I know??????????