To Change Our World, We Need to Change Ourseleves.

Patel brings to our attention a very compelling argument in regards to the food system and draws our focus on ways that it can be fixed. But before we can become superman and solve all the worlds problems we must take a step back and see EXACTLY what the problem is. Food - a basic need of human survival - could be seen as the exact opposite. The food system have contributed to aspects of diet-related diseases which in retro spec could be planting a time-bomb in our younger society (299).  This is happening because consumers are disconnected from the production of food and what we are putting into our mouths that we believe to be "enjoyable."

The food market is not only harming our environment but it is harming our bodies as well. Patel puts great emphasis on the government when it comes to the health of the local communities. Patel states in Stuffed in Starved that "governments have gone to great lengths not to hear the demands of both the consumers...We've already seen that in the US, for instance, over 90 per cent of consumers want labels on the food if it is genetically modified" (303). Not only does this prove to destroy the physical community but it is also creating "biological horrors" in accordance to Patel. Lets take the example of Mad Cow Disease. In order to boost the protein content of the animal food (aka to fatten the cow even more) meat and bonemeal were added to cattle feed. These so called "proteins" were what caused Mad Cow - it may have started with one cow but spread into a world wide epidemic that became unstoppable. When the infectious proteins were recycled back into the cow feed it entered the food chain and the cycle continued, with more animals eating more and more infected beef-based food. (305) This is all due to the fact the people in communities are not well informed consumers when it comes to the food market, as well as the government not looking more into the products that are being sold in the food market.

 

Lets take a look at another problem that falls under a consumers ignorance to the suffering that follows every mouthful of food that we enjoy eating. Patel makes a good comparison when saying just like everything else everything and everyone has its vulnerabilities. In the food market its vulnerabilities could be something along the lines of any oil-shortage. We are so dependent on the markets around us that if they fall a state of panic is revoked. Patel goes on to give an example of something similar to this phenomenon that happened in 2000 when the UK haulage industry blocked access to six of the eight major oil refining facilities. Fuel stations were closed, traffic was cut by 40 per cent, and within hours food was running out. A quarter of UK trucks are carrying food, and the average British family drives 136 miles a year to buy it.  I could see this becoming a weee bit of a problem.

 

 

So how do we stop this? What is the solution? Well, the answer simply lies in the next section of this chapter with one sub-heading blaring the words ... IT'S JUST WE, OURSELVES, AND US. There are ways that every person can reshape the dynamic of the food system, and they indeed need to do this.  Patel puts it in very motivation terms when saying, "there are ways of getting back what the food system has taken from us: dignity in refusing to accept what we are told we must want, and how we must work and live; control over our lives, bodies and self-image; the knowledge no matter where a child is born, she will be able to eat healthy ... " (307). Yes, that is very striking in all its ways so what do we do? We look at a vision known as Food Sovereignty. In the video below Patel tells us the simple definition of Food Sovereignty and the ways to go about it. He tells the audience to turn to  Wikipedia for a good definition. That is weird, yes. But let me tell you this, Wikipedia and I have became very close through out my college years. Wikipedia defines Food Sovereignty as:

 

Food sovereignty", a term coined by members of Via Campesina in 1996, asserts the right of people to define their own food systems. Advocates of food sovereignty put the individuals who produce, distribute and consume food at the center of decisions on food systems and policies, rather than the corporations and market institutions they believe have come to dominate the global food system.

 

 

It aims to reduce the abuse of the powerless from the powerful wherever in the food systems. One way in doing this is by looking at women farmers (which Patel also explains in the video below) and opening the doors to a new social change. Women farmers grow 60-80 per cent of the food in the Global South, yet they own less than 2 per cent of the land. This is an example of a huge weakness in the food market that needs to be fixed. This happens by those people who hold the most power BUT the most powerful people on the planet but have created something universal weak. This weakness is putting not only individuals at harm but also the globe. When trying to dismantle and reclaim control the world of the food market it requires everyone, starting with women and their rights (309).

 

Patel lists 3 ways to change ourselves and by doing this we can change the world. They are difficult challenges but are fundamentally needed if there is to be any progress made.

 

 

1. Transform our tastes - We are so use to eating the foods contained with the most sugars, starches, and salts - that my friend needs to be stopped now. By changing the way we eat could become in a sense a psychological behavior that produces a cultural invitation, in which reclaiming sovereignty in our taste will result in savoring food far more richly and deeply than we have ever before.

 

2. Eat locally and seasonally - Food that does not have to be treated for long distance travels not only tastes better but it also costs less. This does mean less fewer vegetables in the winter, but since we are going to transform our taste we our open to try broader range of foods. 

 

 

3.  Eat agro ecologically - Otherwise known as "organic." Which has now taken off in its own epidemic, where the food system can easily bend its production to accommodate foods with few pesticides in them.

 

 



 

 

Not one person has all the answers. And it is not going to take one person to start this revolution - but this chapter that Patel writes directs the audience in a direction that might better shape the future and gives us a little insight into wisdom that might push humanity to do just that. If we want something done we need to do it ourselves. Kind of like when you are told to chase a dream - you can not listen to those who say you will not succeed, or those who will try to hold you back. Anything that you want, that you demand, YOU need to go and fight for yourself. Then you will see who stands with you or against you. 

 

 



What can we do now?

As I read through the conclusion of Stuffed and Starved I cannot help but sit and think how depressingly true all of this is. The scarcity of water, energy and various natural resources. The abundance of poop and disease infesting our living areas. It’s absolutely ridiculous! All of these problems not only effect individual communities, but the communities who rely on their resources from a far.

 

Like we have previously discussed in class, I do firmly believe there are ways in which we can positively improve these problematic situations but it’s not going to be done overnight. And it is going to take more work than many of us can imagine.

Patel puts this transformation of the food and agriculture industries into ten fundamental changes (all of which we have previously touched upon)…

1.      Transforming our tastes

2.      Eat locally and seasonally

3.       Eat agroecologically

4.       Support locally owned businesses

5.       All workers have the right to dignity

6.      Profound and comprehensive rural change

7.       Living wages for all

8.       Support for a sustainable agriculture of food

9.       Snapping the food systems bottleneck

10.   Owning and providing restitutions for the injustices of the past and the present

 

What can we do now? As college students? On a daily basis?

My opinion is we can begin with numbers 1, 2 and 4of the fundamental changes listed above. We are broke college students who don’t have the time or money to change our entire diet. Yet, we can begin transforming our tastes and what we think we like and need to eat. We can take back over the choices that we have and not subside to the tastes we have been conditioned to like by the food industry. We can also start learning how to eat locally and seasonally. Although many of us eat on campus meal plans or in greek houses we can become aware of our options and how to gain access to locally grown foods and what it means to eat seasonally. Once we leave Hanover each of us will need to know where to obtain those local and seasonal foods. One way we can eat locally is by supporting locally owned businesses. Not only is the food cheaper, but it helps economically promote the community you’re living in.

Apocolypse Now

Imagine the Apocalypse is coming and you KNOW it. You have all the evidence, the proof, even the date when everything is going to hell...and no one will listen. You broadcast it to anyone who will listen, you get your story put on the news and radio, movies are made about your claim, you even get to talk to Congress MULTIPLE times and yet, no one acts. The world continues just as before, heading right for destruction. That is where we are friends, and here I am making another plea that will go unheard.

 

 

Just as Sheldon, Raj, Leonard, and Howard were oblivious to the amazing opportunities around them, we also have our heads looking down just keeping on the path we have always walked, ignoring the problems at hand, which include but are not limited to,

 

1. We're running out of water folks. Yeah, that liquid stuff we need to survive? Evaporating quicker than Usain Bolt with his butt on fire. 

2. It takes just as much energy to support our "green energy" initiatives as they produce. What's negative 5 plus positive 5? Zilch. Nada. Nothing. Not exactly progress.
3. Natural Resources are finite, not infinite. The problem with finite things? They eventually are gone. Forever.

4. There is ALOT of crap. No I do not mean the hot, steaming, rank pile of toxic waste pouring out of capital hill these days, I mean actual poop. There is a dead zone the size of New Jersey in Mexico.

 

 

5. Harsher and harsher diseases are coming out of the food we eat. From mad cow disease to bird flue, diseases caused by companies taking short-cuts to produce their product at cheaper cost to them are continuing to become scarier and scarier.

 

 

 

 

WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO??????!!!!!! you might ask. Never fear, there is hope dear friends.

1. Transform our Tastes: That's right, we're going to have to change. I know, I know, but do not shoot the messenger! We have to actually make the demand for bad food go down. We have to make the effort to like healthy things, make THAT the money maker.

2. Eat Locally and Seasonally: Yes, this means what you think it means. You know that watermelon you want in December? That corn on the cob you want in January? Gone. And instead of having pineapples coming in 5,000 miles from Hawaii, eat from the farmers stand 50 miles down the road.

3. EAT ORGANIC!!! You've heard about it, now do it!

4.

 



Support local businesses! Yes Wal*Mart makes the most sense for ease and comfort, but too much ease and comfort and its all over. Is it not worth the effort to travel a bit to help end the walk down the path where all the food goes away and we all cease to exist? Thought so.

5. Treat All Workers Fairly: Just because people are doing jobs we would not do does not mean we get to look down on them. We have to be better and demand that people are treated with dignity and respect.

6. REAL rural change. These areas are often stereotyped as "behind the times". There is a reason for that. Even though rural areas are some of the poorest areas, they are not being helped. 2+2=5 right?

7. An Actual Living Wage for EVERYONE: What? Equality? Martin Luther King had a dream, we've done ok with it so far, how about we extend it out?

8. A Long-Lasting Architecture: This is a bit hard to imagine, but yes, architecture and the buildings around us need a change as well. People adapt to the infrastructure around them, change the infrastructure, change the people.

9. Break the System's Bottleneck: FIGHT THE POWER!!! Yes, we have reached that moment; monopolies must be broken, power companies must be held accountable, a day of reckoning must come.

10. Making Good on the Injustices of the Past and Present: Change is great, and it is veeeeery much needed, but that does not erase what has and is occurring. Restitution must be paid for the evil and the bad that has been done. If we act now real positive change can happen and old would will scar and heal, but only if those who have been screwed over for so long are finally paid back for their suffering.

#firstworldprobs

With technology advancing each day, the first world and third worlds move further apart. Daily life can be hard in anyone's shoes at times, but I started to reflect on my life and all of the "problems" I have.

1. "I have nothing to wear!"

#firstworldprobs

2. "This building doesn't have WiFi?!"
#firstworldprobs

3. Having a flip phone.

(Almost worse than no phone.)
#firstworldprobs

4. "How do I reheat leftovers without a microwave?"
#firstworldprobs

5. "You only have an iPhone 4 charger?"
#firstworldprobs

6. The closest Starbucks is 5 miles.
#firstworldprobs

7. There's nothing to eat.

#firstworldprobs

8.

#firstworldprobs

9.

#firstworldprobs

10. This blog crashed three times and I had to re-find pictures on Google.
#firstworldprobs

So, as you can tell, these seem ridiculous when considering that some people in the world can't even get sanitary water to drink. Yet, I have to admit that I have had personal experience with all of these "problems". Consider what you have. Be grateful. Maybe help with the real problems in the world instead of complaining about yours.

P.S. Feel free to leave your #firstworldprobs in the comments below!

"Freedom" to choose

This chapter of Stuffed and Starved covered a lot of interesting information.  Instead of summarizing everything and rambling on for a long time I've decided to focus on one aspect that I thought was really cool.  I'm going to focus on CHOICES...or our lack thereof.

Patel said it quite clearly on the first page of Chapter 9 from Stuffed and Starved..."We don't really choose our food - our food chooses us."  You might find yourself questioning this simple statement, "we don't really choose our food."  If we don't choose our food, then who does?  No one is making me pick the Marie Calender's microwaveable dinner over the Healthy choice.  No one is forcing me to eat Tostito's scoops chips instead of On the Border chips....or are they?  Why am I drawn to some brands over others?  Why am I willing to pay I slightly higher price for a product that is basically the same as a cheaper product.  It really does come down to the littlest things.  For some reason ( I'm lazy) I prefer a chip that is already the perfect shape for scooping up dip, and I'm willing to pay more for it.  So you could say that convenience plays a large role in what we "choose" to consume. 

Patel makes the argument that our choices have already been made for us by our environment, our customs and our everyday routine.  He says, "Choice is the word we're left with to describe our plucking one box rather than another off the shelves, and it's the word we're taught to use."  So yes, we do have some say in our final purchase, but really, we're just choosing between the items that have already been chosen for us.  I thought of an analogy that I thought explained it well.  When I was a little kid my mom would pick out my outfits for me.  When I got a little older I was super psyched to finally be able to pick out my own outfits.  If you think about it though, my mom is the one who purchased all of my clothes and I was only able to choose my day's outfit from the clothes she had already deemed appropriate and bought.  I thought I was making my own choices (and on some level I guess I was) but my choices were limited to what my mom had chosen before me. 

I found an interesting video online that's all about the psychology of supermarkets and how they influence our "choices". 

Mindfulness or One Way to Find Happiness in Your Life Today

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?

“Bullies Poisoning The ‘Hood Get Splattered!”

The variety of Wal-Mart is hard to beat.

Wal-Mart - a supermarket where the shopping experience of the customer is governed by specific and carefully crafted music, colors, smells, lighting, and store setup. Wal-Mart - a supermarket chain that continues to thrive despite extreme mistreatment of workers, a history of sexism, and a predilection for stamping out all competition, big or small. Wal-Mart is a place of accommodation, an all-in-one store where customers can buy various items ranging, for example, from carrots to clothes, from apples to air freshener.

Imagine, though, that it is time to go grocery shopping. Imagine that you have three children who are hungry, who need to be fed. You live in inner city Detroit, where there is no Wal-Mart, or any other supermarket for that matter, within the proximity of a walk or a bus ride. You do not own a vehicle. Where do you go in order to buy food for your family?

The lack of variety in a convenience store, on the other hand, is glaring.

You live in a food desert, an area in which it is quite difficult to access fresh food and produce without a car. And, according to Raj Patel in Stuffed and Starved, in urban areas like Detroit, the people who are most often denied access to supermarkets are people of color. This is referred to as supermarket redlining - the segregation of neighborhoods of people of color which denies them access to supermarkets and, in effect, healthy food options.


We have not yet answered our question, though. If you are a mother in a redlined, food desert in Detroit, where do you go to obtain food for your family? The convenience store, of course! Okay, so you walk to the convenience store and what do you find? Highly processed and fat-saturated foods. For a more profound look into the ways that convenience stores are negatively impacting inner cities, check out this video:

Pretty deep stuff, huh? Many citizens in your city of Detroit have taken notice of their precarious food situation. Don’t take my word for it, though. Listen, yourself, to the Detroit Voices.

In conjunction with the Detroit Voices project, the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network is also working to implement programs which will help break the bonds between citizens and convenience stores. The Network is establishing “D-Town Farms”, a “summer urban ag internship program”, an “annual harvest festival”, and a lecture series on healthy eating. To see more of what the Network is doing to achieve positive change in Detroit, visit their website: http://detroitblackfoodsecurity.org/. It’s pretty visionary.

Don't we all deserve options like this?

While Wal-Mart and big-box supermarkets are not the answer to solving the food crisis which seems to be occurring in inner cities across the United States, take a moment (as you more than likely are not a mother living in Detroit) and be thankful that you, surely, have access to fresh produce. Be thankful that you are able to drive to the supermarket and buy groceries to feed your family. Although a move away from chains such as Wal-Mart would serve us well, appreciate that you have the capability to eat more than only chips, donuts, and hot dogs which
are sold at the Circle K or the Speedway down the street.

At the same time, though, don’t be afraid to follow in the footsteps of those in Detroit who refuse to settle for the status quo. Visit http://detroitfoodmap.com/ for inspiration. Be the change.

~Carly