It seems like we've been all inching our discussion towards the food industry for a couple weeks, and now that it's time, I don't even know where to start.
After watching Food Inc., visiting my family's abandoned farm, and reflecting on the things I already knew about our food culture, I just keep returning to one question: How in the world did all of this become okay? Michael Pollen asks a similar question: "How this peculiar state of affairs came to seem sensible is a question I spent my day at Poky trying to answer" (949). It is absolutely mind blowing how our food system has become so convoluted and, in a way over-complicated.
On of my first exposures to this food stuff was Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. In this nonfiction book, Kingsolver and her family up and move from Tuscon, AZ because they are tired of having their food imported. Luckily for the Kingsolver crew, they own some land in WV (I think) and decide to live off of their own land and the neighboring farmer's markets. Although it's been about 3 years since I've read this great book, one of Kingsolver's arguments has vividly stuck with me. After exposing some aspects of industrial farming like those we've read about and watched this week, she says it's no wonder that kids don't like vegetables. By the time they get to our table, they are corrupted blobs of green goop (my words, not hers.) She even discusses how so many people are grossed out by the idea of soil/dirt being on their produce. It seems that our dirty system does everything possible to keep up an appearance of clean, almost sterile food. Is this because the consumer wants it this way?
Along these same lines, Schneider and Slow Food have an interesting perspective of the relationship between food and culture. Slow Food's definition of food as "a thoroughly cultural product linked to issues of quality, sustainability, biodiversity, and social justice" (385) really makes me wonder what our food says about us. The connection they make between food and social justice is really interesting and I wish I had read this earlier. I had my English 151 class read an essay about the role corporations play in American obesity; it touched on the concentration of fast food areas in poor neighborhoods and the masked nutritional and ecological risks involved with corporate/industrial food production. My students persistently argued that corporations don't shove the food down the throats of the obese. Am I wrong in (perhaps frustratedly) assuming that this is the typical perspective of American eaters--thinking that we have more control over what we eat than we really do? I'm thinking particularly of the scene in Food Inc. where they show several common products with genetically modified ingredients.
And finally, our texts also mention the connection between the consumer and the food market. Last week we talked about the role of the public--what can we really do? But it seems like we really do play a significant role in the food industry. I like how Food Inc. characterized our spending as a form of voting. If we stop buying processed food from Wal-Mart and go for the organic stuff, they'll sell more organic stuff. They'll become our Organic Supercenter. But really, is this any better? Is there such thing as a "good, clean, and fair" corporation? This is an honest question. If you had to choose between eating organic from a huge corporation or eating locally, what would you choose?
I'd also like to share part of The Persuaders from PBS. It's a film about the advertising industry. This French guy, Clotaire Rapaille, does some crazy market research for Fortune 500 companies and breaks "codes" that help them more effectively advertise to consumers. The clip is 20 minutes long, but fast forward to about 8:00 and watch for about one or two minutes. His discussion on American cheese (and his hand in the American SUV industry) is really telling. There's also some funny/interesting market research about white bread at the very beginning.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
[French acent]--"Sometimes the people who want to do good, not do good."
ReplyDeleteGeeve the reptile what it wants. Interesting because it's an animal metaphor for deep-seated desire codes. I've seen other stuff about how consumption is not rational and it rings true (he said rationalistically).
Thinking back to Food Inc. At the beginning we hear Pollan's voice tell us about the fake bounty of the supermarket. We are shown packages of industrial product with pastoral images--Farmer John Sausage etc. This stuff works, in part, because it strikes some deep chord (the Mac boot up chord).
OK, so it's totally fake, a manipulation, and an arguably dangerous one. But I wonder--if this desire has some basis in other than manufactured desire or shallow reference to a pastoral trope, then maybe that desire could point to the real deal once you know that, as Moopheus says, "It's just a fantasy."
I have had students whose parents are rich say that they buy organic because it's a symbol of affluence, part of an elite code. Pollan keeps drawing our attention back to the idea that "real" food was what we all ate prior to industrialization of the food system--Organics, what you grandparents called "food." (or maybe now your great grandparents!
I am concerned, with Craig, that slower, realer food not stay in this elite code realm. But the French marketing guru would say "Geeve them what they want."
Love the dead cheese and plastic bad as casket, fridge as morgue!
Sam,
ReplyDeleteI'm interested in the actual flavor of slow food. I've had organic stuff and the usual fair and, although I've not done a taste test, I can't say I notice a huge difference. Maybe I just need to get local stuff and compare it to the store stuff and see what's up.
As to your students' reaction, I think that's typical nowadays. I don't think most students give a crap about anything except partying, getting an easy, well paying job, and some form of security in their family (wife, husband, kids).
To be blunt, it's damn hard to inspire students and get them motivated to learn. My teaching is getting better every year I teach, but I wonder how long I can stay ahead of the curve....
Rock
Great (scary) clip. I am working on losing my inner reptile. Let me just say, Wal-Mart is evil. Big surprise right? My wife and I haven't shopped there in years. We've never set foot in the one here in Athens. Whether they become organic or not, they will continue to exploit and homogenize everything with which they come into contact. I am not saying that they could never change, or that the infrastructure could not someday be a model of organic local goodness where decent wages are paid to dignified workers, but it isn't going to be any time soon. Hopefully that tipping point of change we were talking about in class happens and enough of the right people can make a difference in our marketplace. To be a part of that, everyone stay away from MalWart!
ReplyDeleteSam,
ReplyDeleteI’m not trying to romanticize things here, but what about moral responsibility? How does Clotaire Rapaille feel about helping these big companies “deceive” more customers? How can we make these companies more socially responsible corporations? Can a corporation be held morally responsible for anything? Do moral obligations take precedence over profit? I think that the moral and the ethical angle should be more investigated in the food dilemma.
I like your question about food when you say, "Is this because the consumer wants it this way?" I guess we want what we pay for. I think that was the point at the end of the documentary with the Iowa farmer--we ask for it and we shall receive, we shall make changes.
ReplyDeleteNice use of Pollan too in the references to the Pokey. The city of livestock is a useful parallel to the filthy cities of the early industrial revolution. The re-constituted fat and feed/feces that they are giving the animals there is powerful examination of our ethos.
Maybe organic needs to go underground, fight that elite connotation--DIY organic, rather than commodified organic. Something was amiss with the do-no-wrong portrayal of Stonyfield Farms in Food Inc.
I feel the same about the portrayal of Stonyfield, although I kind of liked the CEO. Kenner had to do it this way, I think, because he needed access to some industrial food producers and wanted to cover the move to big organic. Still . . .
ReplyDelete