food = power
Eating is the most political act you make each day. Where do your dollars go? The choices you make shape economies in ways that we can not imagine, the ripples are beyond our scope to fully acknowledge and consider each time we step up to the cash register and unload our basket.
But know this – the choice to eat local foods is powerful. The decision to distance yourself, even just a little bit, from this industrial agriculture, agribusiness, commodity specualtion, tax subsidized food charade has an effect on your community and the global economy. Your choices change the world we live in.
In food there is power and if you choose to give some of that power back to your neighbor it will strengthen your community. The dollars will stay in the community. You wield dollars and power in a way no government agency or lobby group could ever dream possible when you look at your choices and take responsibility for the effect you have.
Consider the externalities – all the things you don’t think about when you buy a burger from a fast food place. Where did the meat come from? How was it raised? What sort of resources did this require? What was the animal fed? Has that cow ever eaten a blade of grass? Was it’s feed subsidized? How much petroleum was required to grow, harvest, process, and transport that feed? The land the facility was on, is it subsidized? What sort of waste does that factory farm produce? How do they get rid of it? The people who work there, what are their lives like? What does the air smell like in that town? Where were those animals processed? How far away is it from the feedlot? How did they get there? What does that facility look like and smell like? Where do the waste products from this factory go? The people who work there, what is it like for them? How much are they paid? Someone had to make the burgers, freeze them and package them to be sent to each of the distribution centers where individual locations receive their stock from. I have more questions but I feel like this has gone on long enough.
How does that burger taste? With all these steps along the way, how is it that the burger only costs a dollar or two? How can I get answers to any of my questions? Thankfully, Michael Pollan took the time to look into this and give us a picture of our fast food burger in The Omnivore’s Dilemma.
If I go to a local restaurant that serves a hamburger made with local beef, everything becomes smaller. My dollars are going back to a farmer who might pay taxes in the same county as I do – they live in the same state at the very least. I could call that farmer up and see their operations. They will tell me where their cow is processed. These are things I know about my food because I have asked these questions. I already know, because I have taken the time to see the facility and what that operation looks like.
The chicken I eat – it is killed by the farmer who raises them and walks through the back door of Bloomingfoods to deliver the product. He has told me how he raises his birds. He has welcomed staff out to his farm to see him kill birds. Can you say that about tyson?
One meal at a time we can change the world we live in. I believe this and I make choices that I believe will change the world. I do this because I believe in the power I wield as an individual. Imagine if we all believed. I do it because it matters to me. I do it because I want something worthwhile to be left for my kid. . . I do it because I have seen it change things and when I see that happen in the world around me it helps me to see that there is a better way.
When someone sits down and tells me “Knowing you has changed how I think about food and the way that I eat.” This is a powerful thing. It happens to me over and over again. There is something to this. There is something powerful about our relationship with food. We can make this choice – to live healthier, to create beautiful communities where people eat great food and do meaningful work and respect the planet. We can make this choice and in a life with so much uncertainty, please know that there is power in this.
Food is the stuff of life, be concious of the choices you make, because it matters.
