The Eat Generation

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http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16139

 

The Eat Generation

 

Ali Macalady, Grist Magazine

June 10, 2003Viewed on June 11, 2003

 

In 2001, Eric Schlosser published " Fast Food Nation " -- an expose of America's

increasingly consolidated and industrialized food system, and how that system

contributes to a whole range of societal ills, from obesity and resistance to

antibiotics to urban sprawl, habitat destruction, and poor labor conditions. The

book was a smashing success -- 66 weeks and running on the New York Times

bestseller list -- and it captured the nation's attention in a way no book about

food has since Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, the 1906 classic about the Chicago

meatpacking industry.

 

In a new afterword to " Fast Food Nation " 's paperback edition, Schlosser says the

reason his book struck a nerve didn't have much to do with his prose, or even

his politics, but rather with his timing. " Not just in the United States, but

throughout western Europe, people are beginning to question the massive,

homogenizing systems that produce, distribute, and market their food. " Indeed

food -- the most fundamental bond between people and the environment -- is

becoming a nexus for outrage and activism on issues ranging from globalization

and trade to land use and conservation.

 

Two new books are riding the same wave of interest in food that launched " Fast

Food Nation " to bestseller status. Marion Nestle's Safe Food: Bacteria,

Biotechnology, and Bioterrorism chronicles a recent rise in food-borne illness

and consumer distrust of food companies such as Monsanto, and describes the

downside of an increasingly homogenized food marketplace.

 

Despite repeated claims by industry and government that our food system is safe

and our regulations sufficient to protect us, Nestle describes how oversight by

federal agencies and voluntary measures by companies failed to prevent a number

of food-borne crises: among others, deadly outbreaks of E. coli, salmonella, and

other food pathogens; the rapid spread of mad cow disease in Britain and the

demise of that nation's beef industry; the appearance of genetically modified

StarLink corn in tacos and nacho chips before the corn was certified for human

consumption; and the contamination of ancient Mexican corn varieties by

transgenic genes.

 

Drawing on her experience as a professor of nutrition and an advisor to the U.S.

Food and Drug Administration, Nestle offers a lucid explanation of the science

behind controversial food technologies and deadly food pathogens, and steers

readers through a dizzying maze of PR wars, corporate strategies, and regulatory

bureaucracies. Ultimately, she blames the recent food debacles on the rising

influence of industry over government and consumers alike, and on a scattershot

approach to regulation: Fully 35 different laws and 12 separate government

agencies oversee food safety and consumer choice, and many of the agencies have

conflicting responsibilities and mandates.

 

" The consequences of this system are famously absurd, " writes Nestle. " The USDA,

for example, oversees the production of hot dogs in pastry dough; the FDA

regulates hot dogs in rolls. The USDA regulates corn dogs; the FDA regulates

bagel dogs. The USDA regulates pepperoni pizza; the FDA regulates cheese pizza. "

 

As the food industry becomes more globalized and entirely new technologies and

diseases appear with increasing frequency, Nestle argues, the best hope for

preventing future scandals and outbreaks is to create a single agency

responsible for all aspects of food, from production to consumption. Without

this kind of change, Nestle warns, looming threats such as bioterrorism and the

development of resistance to antibiotics by a range of pathogens -- including

weapons-grade anthrax -- could become a disastrous reality.

 

Nestle also makes the case for a regulatory system that acknowledges not only

the science-based risk of different foods, but also the values-based concerns of

consumers. Risk analysis of food safety should go beyond a cost-benefit analysis

of sickness versus profit to address questions such as: Is biotechnology really

the best way to alleviate world hunger? What are the environmental and societal

consequences of certain food-production methods? Who decides what kind of

choices consumers have in the marketplace? As a start, Nestle says, government

and industry alike should embrace a transparent labeling system that would build

trust in food producers and in government while allowing consumers to express

their values through food choices.

 

The Pleasure Principle

 

While Nestle focuses on regulatory remedies to the ills of food homogenization,

another new book about food describes a different tactic. In The Pleasures of

Slow Food: Celebrating Authentic Traditions, Flavors, and Recipes, Corby Kummer

writes about the rise of the Slow Food movement, which has grown from modest

Italian roots to become the leading grassroots critique of fast food and

fast-paced lifestyles across Europe and North America.

 

The movement's premise is simple: Food is central to human happiness, and

celebrating food's production and consumption in a slow and deliberate way can

fill stomachs, revive communities and regional cultures, and help maintain

biodiversity. And while some of the movement's methods are quirky -- one of its

major projects is the Ark of Taste, a registry of rare food varieties replete

with Presidia, or what Kummer calls " mini-SWAT teams, " poised to help artisans

promote endangered foods -- Kummer contends that Slow Food is working.

 

Through numerous restaurant and wine guides, the organization's convivia (local

chapters), and the Ark of Taste, the Slow Food movement is spreading the word

about local and handmade foods and providing a forum for eating them. The

movement links eating good food with education about the power of local cuisine

to enhance ties within communities and to maintain cultural and biological

legacies. Indeed, Slow Food's recognition of the inherent relationship between

food and a myriad of other social and environmental issues stands in sharp

contrast to the industrialized food system, which strives to separate societal

values from food production and looks to technology and standardization to solve

problems of food safety and security.

 

With its focus on pleasure and taste, some have dismissed Slow Food as an

elitist group that promotes exclusive foods for the pleasure of a few. But

Kummer strives to portray Slow Food as a movement with a much more proletarian

outlook. For instance, his rendition of the story of Carlo Petrini, Slow Food's

Italian founder, locates the roots of Slow Food squarely in the lap of the

working class. Petrini started his career as a labor activist interested in

promoting the needs of blue-collar workers in the Piedmont, Italy's most

industrial region. In order to create a gathering place and a forum for

community activists, he and a few friends opened a small restaurant devoted to

serving good, local food at low prices. The restaurant launched Petrini into a

career as a commentator on the politics, philosophy, and history of food, and as

an advocate for small-scale farmers and food producers struggling to stay in

business.

 

Kummer also profiles 11 of the small-scale producers and chefs who embody the

values of Petrini and the Slow Food movement. Michael O'Leary, a tattooed

sailor, is one of the few working fishers left in Longboat Key, Fla., once a

thriving fishing community but now an island dominated by resorts and wealthy

retirees. O'Leary spends long hours on his fishing boat pulling up local stone

crabs -- a tasty relative of blue crabs -- and selling them to restaurants and

markets along the coast.

 

In New Hampshire, Stephen Wood's cottage cider industry allows him to preserve

remnants of what was once a breathtaking diversity of U.S. apple varieties. Wood

grows at least five kinds of heirloom New England apples to make his cider, and

in doing so helps shore up the variety and consumer choice that has been eroded

by a fruit market increasingly dominated by the few apple types resilient enough

to withstand being shipped across the globe.

 

As an added bonus, " The Pleasures of Slow Food " also includes 40 traditional

recipes from around the world. The book's structure -- a history of the

movement, profiles of its disciples, and recipes to enjoy -- reflects the

outlook of the Slow Food movement itself by helping readers celebrate the

production and enjoyment of food that is good for people, communities, and the

environment.

 

Both " Food Safety " and " The Pleasures of Slow Food " will become great resources

for anyone interested in shifting the control of food from multinational

corporations with billion-dollar bottom lines to consumers and small-scale

producers. Nestle has written a book that untangles the science and politics

behind food issues such as genetically modified crops and mad cow disease, and

in doing so has provided a much-needed roadmap for consumers trying to navigate

food-safety issues in the news -- or in the supermarket. Meanwhile, " The

Pleasures of Slow Food " presents the public with a new ethic to counter the

fast-food system. By embracing Slow Food, consumers can help create a robust and

local food system -- one that could help eliminate food-safety issues before

they begin, invigorate rural economies dominated by factory farms, and restore

food's role in connecting people to the natural environment.

 

Ali Macalady lives, writes, and eats in New Haven, Conn.

 

 

 

© 2003 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.

 

 

 

 

 

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