This day, we read more from Patel's Stuffed and Starved. Patel discussed in this chapter the shocking idea that the food that you and I pick up off the shelves is actually much less a matter of choice than we would expect.
There are plenty of factors that go into dictating what we can have for dinner. One of the first determinants of what was for dinner was war; the siege was a war-time tactic that effectively starved the competition. Embargoes are another way of restricting trade, and thereby controlling the food available for one country or another. Many means of controlling our modern-day food supply, you may or may not have guessed, are a direct result of money, and politics. Money and politics- for you conspiracy theorists, or sociology majors- are the bread and butter of the elites.
Our consumption, Patel argues, has been routinized in a way that is, to use the words of famed sociological theorist, Karl Marx, "external to and coercive upon us," meaning that it is - to some degree- outside of our control, and controlling us.
Fortunately for all of us, there are people out there still fighting for our freedom from forces of social control present in the food market, and elsewhere. The Slow Food movement is an international social movement designed to alter the way we think about, and enjoy our food. Its name is derived as an opposition to the Fast Food that we commonly resort to in our busy lives. One piece of advice of the Slow Food movement is for us all to slow down, and to enjoy locally grown food.
I think this piece of advice can be helpful in many, many of our daily activities. Our lives are so routinized that, I think, it's often difficult for us to find enjoyment in little things, such as eating lunch and dinner. By the time we return home, as one friend of mine put it, "I am so exhausted, that I just want to watch television, and not have to think."
So, my challenge to myself, and to us all is to slow down! Slow....down.... Take time to find the small pleasures in life that are hidden right in front of our noses. What a wonder, what a pleasure it is to enjoy many tastes, sounds, smells, and sights. Take for example, the refreshing blessing of watching a bit of light shine off of a green leaf - have you ever noticed that? Let's go out into the world with new eyes, noses, ears, and skin, and taste buds, and experience the wonders of the world in a new way that is counter to our "hurry up and wait" existence. Enjoy these small wonders, and I hope that you too will feel what it feels like to be blessed in every second of every day.
Perhaps this is one way to combat many of the social problems in our society. We need to slow down, and look at the world around us with new eyes, and start asking ourselves deep and important questions about why things are the way they are, and what we can do to change them. Patel has done a good job by analyzing the food system in the world. What else can you think of that can change the world in a small way that may eventually cause big, important, and good changes?
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