Now that I’ve finished reading The
Omnivore’s Dilemma, I’m going to respond to a section that my paper does not
reference but that I find particularly interesting: the industrialization of
organic food. To me, it is one of the ultimate ironies of the food industry
that the counter-culture of organic is increasingly becoming its enemy, the
very antithesis of its values and the entire reason it exists. It’s almost as
though nothing is safe – if every alternative food process that becomes popular
is soon jumped on by a pack of capitalist wolves and industrialized, how do we
ever get to the new place we were hoping to get to? I felt almost a little
personally affronted reading the section on Big Organic and Whole Foods. When I
go to Whole Foods, it’s a treat. It means I have a little extra spending money,
and I’m going to use it to better myself through my nutrition, or so I believe.
As it turns out, the food I get there is hardly different from the food I’m
usually getting at Aldi. What gives, honestly? It got me thinking, is the only
place where I can feel truly good about purchasing food a farm like Polyface? And
if so, how realistic is it to have a sustainable farm like that available
everywhere? I pretended for a minute that I did have access to a Polyface-like
farm. One of the biggest issues that I would have to get used to is eating
seasonally. I like what I like, and I like it year round. I think it would take
me a very long time to get used to eating only what is available during that
time of the year. That sparked another chain of thought, if not everything is
available year round, are some things not available at all? I’m not talking
about items they couldn’t possibly produce, like bananas and vanilla. I was
wondering about products like cream cheese, yogurt, cheese, etc., products that
are made from animal byproduct. I tried to look on the Polyface website to see
if they have a list of products they sell, but because they don’t ship items
anywhere, there is no such list. Upon further research, I discovered a
“sustainable grocery store” close to the Polyface farm that provides many of
these products. I suppose for a full menu of sustainable whole foods to become
more readily available, there would have to be more farms like Polyface. The
idea of being easily able to feed our bodies with food instead of chemicals and
food-like products sort of excites me, and I know there’s a long way to go, but
after reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma, I feel a little more ready to take on the
challenge.
2 comments:
I had a similar experience while reading this section of Omnivore's Dilemma, a few months prior to this class i had begun making a conscious effort to try and eat with the greater good of the earth in mind. That included seeking out organic, free range, grass fed, and certified human food, to name a few. I though I was doing my little part in making the world a better place but after reading the "Big Organic" section I realized how futile my efforts were. I began looking into the regulations and standards of these labels and realized they did not match up with what i had in mind. "Free Range" as it turns out does not mean idillic rolling pastures filled with happy chickens, but rather a small pen in which chickens only get a few hours a day to poke around in. In addition most free range chickens don't get to enjoy this small freedom until they are a few months old (to avoid them contracting disease). Once they are old enough they only have a few weeks to move freely in the pen before they are brought to slaughter. Its incredibly disheartening to realize that these labels mean very little.
I alsohad a similar experience reading this part of the Omnivore's Dilemma. I am a cynic and a skeptic and have long felt that eating organic can be likened to a fad diet, because, in the end, it is largely not doing what those who partake in it think that it does.
Something that had a real impact on me was learning that organic farmers can spray whatever they want on their crops up until 30 days before harvest. Big Organic is just as regulated, mediated, and full of "trickery" as other types of farming -- the type of farming we've learned to dislike. The standards and rules are full of loopholes and "go arounds" for large companies to exploit, leaving small town organic farmers in the dust. Like Paige said, it is sad that the labels seem to be meaningless.
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