Farm Alarm

I recently started reading Barbara Kingsolver's influential book, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" which talks about her family's experiment to live one year on only locally-sourced, organic foods. It was published in 2007, so I'm a bit late to the book party; it hasn't been a shocking eye-opener for me. I already know the good majority of what she's written.

That being said, this is the most depressing book I have ever read. Not in the "I am emotionally gripped and brought to tears" way, but in the "it feels as if there is no hope left for our world" way.

None of us like to face the truths that we find unpleasant, even if they're ones that we already knew. I like to live my everyday life and forget that food and farm issues exist. You can't worry every second of the day or you'd go crazy.

But damn you, Barbara, they do exist.

Here's what I've been reminded of up to page 118:

There are people who don't realize that food either comes out of the soil or from an animal.

Farm subsidies cause an excess in corn and soybeans, which are then either processed into sugars and fats which are added to our diet or dumped overseas, causing developing agricultural markets to crash and farms to fail.

Genetically modified organisms.

We use over twice as many calories to make and ship the food we eat when compared to how many calories the food provides us.

One can make the argument that our markets for seeds (and therefore the crops they produce) are literally monopolies. Monsanto supplies 90% of all soybean seeds and 80% of all corn seeds.

Marketers literally sit in strategy meetings, planning ways to put more processed sugar and fat in our diets and make us like it.

Genetic diversity in the world's domesticated food seed supply is declining so greatly, many scientists worry that we could not recover our food security if a major natural disaster occurred.

We don't care about taste. We only care about our food shipping well so that it looks good when it's sitting on the grocery shelf.

We give up our health and the future of our planet so that we can "economize" on food and buy unnecessary, luxury items instead.

And that's just what I could stand remembering in the few minutes I've been typing.

If it sounds a bit alarmist to you, good! I'm ringing the alarm bell for myself.

Who's going to wake us up?

We're the richest nation on earth, yet we have some of the worst food habits. You'd think we'd spend some of our enormous income on the freshest, tastiest food we could get our hands on. You'd think we'd be like greedy children hoarding that stuff that comes out of the ground or off the backs of animals.

But somewhere along the line we got used to exactly three food groups: fat, sugar, and salt. Maybe our animal nature is a bit to blame, but why do so many think these are the only three tastes worth tasting? Or the only three tastes that exist, for that matter?

Damn you, Barbara, now you've made me rant.

But it's true. We've got our priorities all mixed around.

If you don't believe me, go read the book for yourself. Then we can talk.