Divided We Eat
My breakfast is often a cappuccino – espresso mixed with organic milk, and two slices of Dutch Parrano on homemade bread with butter. I am a food snob. My nutritionist neighbor takes a protein shake whilst her 5-year old son has quinoa porridge sweetened with applesauce lace with kale flakes.
Alexander Ferguson, my neighbor’s friend, spends much time daily thinking about, shopping for, and preparing food. The Fergusons, known as locavores, believe that eating organic and local produce contributes to the family health, existential happiness of farmers and farm animals, and survival of the planet. Alexander regards Michael Pollan author of The Omnivores’s Dilemma as her hero. The community n Park Slope, Brooklyn is accommodative of every kind of foodies. The Fergusons spend about $1,000 a month, or 20 percent of their income, on food compared to 13 percent (inclusive restaurants and takeouts) of the average American. Alexandra admits that their approach is out of reach for people affected by food insecurity.
Alexandra concedes that food choice is always an emotive issue whenever she visits her husband’s family in Tennessee, who are reluctant on spending extra on organic food. Recent data by the U.S. Department of Agriculture show that more than 50 million Americans, or 17 percent of the population, live in “food insecure” households. About 1.4 million people in New York City are food insecure, 257,000 of them in Brooklyn.
In hard times, food security clearly distinguishes between the haves and have-nots in America. Dinner is the definitive marker of social status in modern America, where most nutritious foods are luxury goods affordable only by a few as demonstrated by epidemiologist Adam Drewnowski. Over the past three years, the number of Americans on food stamps has risen by 58.5 percent. Widening income gap has resulted in acute increase in obesity among the poor, making American one of the most obese countries.
Introduction part: “Our National Eating Disorder” Pollan, Michael.
This book strives to answer the seemingly simple question of “what should we have for dinner?” It progressively shows the complexity of this subject as confusion and anxiety has replaced our native wisdom about eating, necessitating expert help from nutritionists and investigative journalists.
Personally, the disappearance of bread – an ancient and venerable staple of American dinner table – in the fall of 2002 marked the highlight of the situation. Americans changed their way of eating as the nation was engulfed by ‘carbophobia.’ A media storm of diet books, timely magazine article, and scientific studies made Americans to turn to high-protein, low-carb diets, ending the nutritional orthodoxy of since the 1970s against red meat. The new nutritional wisdom saw the extinct of bread and pasta from supermarket shelves and restaurant menus, bankrupting bakeries and noodle firms and diets. The violent shift in eating habits exposed America’s weak traditions about food and eating due to seasonal national “dietary goals” or government “food pyramid.” This ‘nutritional wisdom’ is responsible for high level obesity in America. Unlike the “French Paradox”, the American paradox is a notably unhealthy people obsessed with eating healthily.
As espoused by writers like Rousseau, Brillat-Savarin, and Paul Rozin, the omnivore’s dilemma is a precise tool for understanding our present troubles surrounding food, particularly what to eat for dinner. Anthropologists explain that we evolved big and intricate brains to cope with our omnivore’s dilemma. We have a sort of Manichaean perspective of food where we classify ‘the good things to eat from the bad.’ Our culture codifies the rules of wise eating in an elaborate structure of taboos, rituals, recipes, manners, and culinary traditions that keep us from having to reenact the omnivore’s dilemma at every meal. The lack of a steadying culture of food in America (due to many different immigrant populations of varying food cultures) leaves us especially vulnerable to the blandishments of the food scientist and the marketer, for whom the omnivore’s dilemma is not so much a dilemma as an opportunity.
The Locavore’s Dilemma: Why Pineapples Shouldn’t Be Grown in North Dakota
The idea of purchasing purely local foods stressed upon by American state governments violates the economic principle of comparative advantage which has sustained free trade for almost 200 years. The principle won economist Paul Krugman the Nobel Prize in economics and greater understanding of it would effectively end the current impetus for buying local foods. While we are opposed to consumers opting to purchase local food, we are disturbed by the state or federal policy agenda on local foods and the outright silence of agricultural economist pertaining to its adverse consequences.
First, it is argued that buying local foods is beneficial for the local economy. This is in total disregard of the fact that local foods are relatively more expensive than same quality non-local food. Asking us to buy local food equals wealth destruction by avoiding things we otherwise would enjoy. Locavores stress on exporting without importing, only possible if exports are given free i.e. foreign aid. The balance-of-payments in a steady-state equilibrium requires that local consumption equals income from local sales, thus imports equaling exports over the long run. The ‘keep the dollars local” idea is not an argument about quality.
Second, buying local is said to be good for the environment. However, extensive literature review attests that it is impossible to categorically establish whether or not non-local food systems emit more greenhouse gases than local food systems. Minimal natural resource use entails producing food products in the least-cost location, not necessarily local. Consumer’s free choices in markets inspire wiser allocation of resources.
Third, local is touted ad fresher and tastier. This is flawed as daily fresh menu items are flown in to best Midwestern seafood restaurants, and we can have live Maine lobster delivered with the click of the mouse.
Lastly, local food is presumed healthier and need to be served in school. However, improved nutrition is possible by seeking more nutritious food regardless of its origin. Schools have fixed budget and must trade-off between larger quantity more-nutritious non-local foods and smaller quantity more-nutritious local foods.
What Would the World Be Like Without Animals for Food, Fiber, and Labor? Are We Morally Obligated To Do Without Them?
Animal right and animal liberation theorists argued for moral standing and noninterference rights of nonhuman animals, thus humans need to stop using animals for food, labour, fiber, and research. They suggest a combined food production system including crops and pastures harvested by large herbivores for human food so as to kill fewer animals compared to a vegan-crop model. It is my position that animals do have moral standing, and we have moral obligation to appreciate their unique species-specific attributes and treat them according to their physical and behavioral needs.
Singer (1975) using a utilitarian approach concluded that contemporary animal agriculture inflicts much pain and suffering on animals, thus we should seek to maximize the benefits and minimize harm to animals. Reagan (1983) using the rights-based approach conclude that animals do have noninterference rights, thus ought to be liberated and humans to become vegetarians. However, there are weaknesses of the AR-animal liberation conclusion that render it impractical to stop using animals for food, fiber, and labor.
Without animals we would be hungry, cold, and tired especially for people in impoverished countries who need to continue using animals for these purposes. Thus, application of universal utopian moral theory relating to animal use is unrealistic.
The vegan model is flawed because intensive agriculture of food crops kills relatively more animals of the field compared to extensive agriculture producing crops such as pasture that can be converted to human food by large herbivores.
From the pragmatism point of view, application of ethical vegetarianism is highly problematic due to Wise’s (2004) noted obstacles (physical, economical, political, religious, legal, psychological), and also cultural obstacle. It is difficult and unethical to convince some traditional people of the world to stop use of animals. Finally, the argument that we are morally obligated to be vegetarian equates to forcing Christianity, Islam, or Judaism on every person in the world, which is totally wrong.
