Define: food (Read 975 times)

Pollan's latest. I apologize if you find it controversial. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12policy-t.html

Good article. And stop apologizing

I was wondering when this would be posted! I was going to, but thought I'd leave it to Trent. The only thing I don't much like is the suggestion that food aid dollars be used to coerce health food choices. I agree that discouraging non-food (previously known as junk food) calories requires a structural solution, but I think coercive tactics against the most vulnerable are the wrong way to go about it. I'd prefer to see a complete revamping of what foods are subsidized so that soy oil and HFCS aren't the cheapest calories and some policy incentives to be sure that fresh, whole foods are easily available in all neighborhoods to fight the grocery store red-lining and fast food proliferation that exists in urban areas. (and in rural areas, weirdly, though that's discussed less.) Sign me up to help dig up the South Lawn!

The government already regulates the food we put on the table through subsidies. If you want to deregulate the food industry, fine. But you need then to stop paying for the overproduction of commodity crops that reduce health. Enjoy that quarter pounder, for sure. Pollan does not suggest you do otherwise. But that cheap burger you get in the store is cheap because it is already being subsidized by tax dollars. Why do you support that handout? Ensure safe food? Sure, agreed. But highly processed foods kill more people than e coli does, by many orders of magnitude.

I agree with ending all farm subsidies. It is nothing but corporate welfare. Let the free market decide how much the food costs. We should also eliminate government subsidies on bio-fuel to prevent an artificial shortage of corn. I am not sure I would use the term elite to describe food grown on small farms, but it is certainly more expensive than mass produced food. It is not backwards, it is economy of scale. It is cheaper to make and therefore cheaper to buy. Without mass production of goods, our quality of life would not be nearly as good.

Go through that whole article one more time, it is only false economy with all the inherehent subsidies for mass production MTA - or what Trent said

I am not sure I would use the term elite to describe food grown on small farms, but it is certainly more expensive than mass produced food. It is not backwards, it is economy of scale. It is cheaper to make and therefore cheaper to buy. Without mass production of goods, our quality of life would not be nearly as good.

More expensive for whom? And how are you adding up the social costs? Do health costs fit into your analysis? I don't think anyone knows the answer, but I do think it's important that we have more experimentation with different models of food production. I have a similar sort of question about you claim that mass produced food helps "our quality of life." Who is included in this "our"? Surely not animals. Not small farmers. Not the campesinos in Paraguay who were booted off their land by big agro. Not the city-dwellers who were inundated by the landless peasants. Not the millions of obese children sucking corn syrup. Not future generations who depend upon our ethical choices for sustainability. The quality of life question has to be decided differentially, according to the various affected groups. You're trying to fit this problem back in the same old box: government vs. free market. liberal vs. conservative. You want to transform this problem into an ideological debate where the answers are already known, and sides are already drawn. These categories are old and outdated. No one knows the answers in advance. We need intelligent experiments with a multitude of solutions to know how to grow food more intelligently: some governmental, some market based, some based on gumption and personal responsibility. The problem of food never goes away, but its conditions and possiblities are transformed. The tendency to fall back on vague concepts like "free market" or "government" to "solve" the problem is a way of avoiding the issue entirely--and worse, polarizing the possibility of intelligent exchange between interested parties. Pollan's analysis is just the sort we need because he identifies the new conditions of the problem of food and hypothetically suggests a few provisional and practical ways to perhaps begin working on these conditions. It's not about ideology. It's about practice.

Pollan's analysis is just the sort we need because he identifies the new conditions of the problem of food and hypothetically suggests a few provisional and practical ways to perhaps begin working on these conditions. It's not about ideology. It's about practice.

I agree with Jeff. That said, I just found a bug in my organic greens (and yes, I washed them). I didn't eat him. I did eat his distant cousin Sunday night during my run. Seriously, I've become so discouraged by our food situation that I now refrain from shopping at the chain grocery store in my neighborhood. I just find it so depressing and difficult even staying on the outer aisles to get some healthy food. In the dairy section there is this bright-colored kid's "yogurt" full of sugar. In the fruit and veggies section there is fake fruit leather. My kids ask for, these things thinking "whoa, Mom might actually say yes to this because it's yogurt or fruit leather. Then we go through the whole, "but this isn't the real good stuff" routine and have to read the labels. I'd like to see some of Pollan's ideas embraced. In CA we are voting on prop 2http://www.yesonprop2.com/ . If you ask me, they've made a big mistake in not promoting it more as a long term health and safety issue for humans. Rather, they have posed it a animal rights issue.