One thing that is really cool about and about food in general is that you often don't think about the season your in when you eat. It doesn't matter if theres 15 inchs of snow outside my window I can still just go down to the grocery store and buy whatever from wherever. In these chapters she details more personal experiences about her family and how they are handling eating locally, its really cool. She also mentions how you don't usually think about it, but during June all your seeds are in the ground and finding home grown crops isn't easy.
One thing that definitely caught my attention was the additional piece by Steven Hopp about paying the price for low prices. This is so true and one major reason my many people don't buy from local farmers markets or organic products because they are more expensive. This is why we have this major food transportation industry and why it's doing so well. In all these chapters she explains how her family loves to make their own food and how you can make it enjoyable. And shes right on the money when she brings it up and makes you think about how cooking is becoming a lost art. We just zap a frozen dinner in the microwave and call it good. Overall I enjoy this book because it is relatable and kind of a cool topic to think about.
I agree with Sam that Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is easy to relate to. We all have the ability to buy any type of food at the grocery store no matter what season it is. Weather does not play a huge factor because everything can be transported to every corner of the country, be on the shelves of a super market, and then into the cabinets of our houses all within a few days. Unlike the Kingsolver family I don’t have to wait until the summer to be able to eat fresh fruit. I also agree with Sam that the reason a lot of people don’t buy local foods from farmers markets is because of the price. At big businesses you could get the same type of food for half the price, but it probably won’t be as good or as good for you. As a college student I am a person who buys all my food at the local Hannaford’s. Not because I want to but because it is a lot less expensive than going to the local farmers markets and right now I am broke.
ReplyDeleteSam,
ReplyDeleteI agree on the seasonal nostalgia of our generation, although I knew planting took place at a certain time of year I was unaware that planting for the season was insistent of being planted in June. Recognizing that we are fotunate enough to be able to walk to a local convenient or grocery store to purchase a variety of goods brings me to my first question which is, how do you think the instant-gratification or immediate consumption ability of our society has impacted patience? The fact that modern food production derails the virtue of patience culturally alters our social perspective of value. We see a pack of gum for 79 cents, an we go for it, but we rarely stop to think of the Central and Southern American countries access to chicle (the natural latex) that is used to make the gum, nor the health affects of the artificial flavoring, and we rarely stop to consider that when there is a lack of chicle for the product many companies shall substitute it for rubber. More to the point we don't appreciate what it is the product, more than likely because we do not know what is in the product. (Take Cheetos for example, they made a lovely, handy, satisfying snack for years, come to find out their nutritious worth is about that of poison, plus tax.) In regards to food, we want it now, we want it cheap and we want it to taste good. But what do these requirements and demands really attribute to our health. It seems that people have forgotten that our bodies require food to live, adn the quality of food will reflect the conditions of our lifestyles. Recognizing the ignorant attitudes we transcend to our food selection, my question is, how do you think our food production has regressed our; understanding of patience and gratitude as well as demoting the idea of culturally significant food products?
Another point I would like to explore, is the "well-doing" of our "major food transportation industry", I would have to strongly disagree with these characteristics, if it is the same food industry we are both consuming. The problem with "free-trade" is even if the exchange is "free" the process has many externatlities that are left "unpaid" by the corporations that regulate the transportation. I encourage you to explore the energy wasted by the kilo-calorie in trade production. As industrialization manipulates people into trading crops that could easily be grown, it also seeks to exploit, specialize and ultimately take advantage of inferior* countries involved in the transaction. The costs and inefficient rewards to global transport results in a pile of wasted energy to say the very least.
One comment I would like to make is in regards to using a microwave to prepare our meals. Mircrowaves are a hazard in and of themselves, but such as cell phones they have become a daily escapade and thus we have decided to embrace their radiation. I would like to focus on the food designed to be prepared in a microwave. My question is how beneficial can this food pan out to be?
The lost art of cooking is indeed a sad reality, but it is within our decisions that these art forms are sacrificed. We have not only lost our intimate relationship with the production adn origin of our food, but also the way in which it is prepared. Since food remains a critical characteristic in defining a society's culture, how are we to be defined if we continue to regard food with apathy, buy (literally buy) into capitalist-engineered consumption patterns and continueously forgo our gratitude and appreciation for the very product that ensures our lives? If we aren't motivated to protect our health from corporate control, what vital element of human life shall we be motivated to defend?