So what comes next?
The solution to industrial food is not, and cannot be, to turn back the clock to a pastoral, agrarian past. Technology and science got us into this mess, and technology and science will get us out.
The old industrial food system would have us buying most of our food at the supermarket, a majority of which would be packaged, canned or pre-prepared foods. We would go to restaurants, which would involve incredibly processed industrial ingredients made compulsively appealing to our basest cravings with massive amounts of low-quality fat, sugar and salt.
The foundational enabler of this system is a pact of ignorance -- We won't demand to know what's in the food, and food processors will do everything in their power to prevent such knowledge from getting out.
The post-industrial food system will be driven by transparency and knowledge about our food and what's in it. Driven by the growing legions of foodies -- locavores, slow foodists, urban farmers, organic foodists, farmers market enthusiasts, real-food fundamentalists, gourmands, Food Network fans and all the rest -- people will increasingly refuse to buy "ignorance food." If you won't tell us what's in it, we won't buy it.
The Internet will spread knowledge of new and traditional food processing and cooking methods from all over the world. Technology will bring us a world of new cooking and food-related apps, kitchen equipment, and supplies. The Internet will make good food stuff made anywhere available everywhere.
Shoppers will stop buying at industrial-food supermarkets, and start embracing the new range of food sources. Above all, more people will buy directly from producers via the Internet. They'll join co-ops and buy into livestock shares for meat and raw milk. They'll turn to the small specialty stores popping up everywhere that make high-quality bread, or specialize in single ingredients, like olive oil. They'll frequent farmer's markets in such numbers that the size and number of markets will just keep growing.
As food awareness grows, people will stop growing lawns and shrubs around their homes, and start planting fruit trees and vegetable gardens.
You'll see a transition by the massive food corporations toward healthier fare. Industrial food processors will start innovating in ways to mass-produce healthy food, not just cheap food.
All this will be driven by science information. As researchers continue to understand the central role of news areas of health, including gut flora, epigenetics, endocrine disrupters and the role of diet in predisposing people to cancer, heart disease, diabetes and more, it will become common knowledge that today's toxic industrial food is wrecking lives by the millions.
Post-industrial food will someday become the mainstream approach to food. But today, it's only a growing fringe movement.
In 1960, Americans were among the biggest smokers of cigarettes. After a massive cultural shift in attitudes about tobacco, the United States has earned a global reputation as being among the most anti-cigarette.
We believe the same thing will happen with food. Right now, America leads the world in the embrace of toxic industrial junk food, and we lead the world in the lifestyle diseases that go with it. But a cultural movement has begun that will reverse this trend. America will become the nation that leads the world away from garbage food.
That's our prediction anyway. What do you think?
(Pictured is a loaf of bread from the deliciously post-industrial Tartine Bakery.)
I hope so!
ReplyDeleteIn your dreams. This vision is brought to you by the same dreamers that envision wireless connectivity, everywhere; streaming movies, etc. Sounds great on paper but crushed to irrelevance by real world costs (or porporate greed, take your choice).
ReplyDeleteUhm, anonymous, you realize that wireless connectivity everywhere pretty much exists and you can stream movies all you want, right? And costs don't make something irrelevant, they may relegate them to unobtainable, but not irrelevant. While we may not be able to switch to healthy slow foods due to costs and the corporate machine, it doesn't change the relevancy, it just makes it unlikely, one may argue.
ReplyDeleteThis all sounds rather cute and well founded in lala-land. Have you considered that there are simply too many mouths to feed for everyone to eat the way you're proposing? If so, are you admitting that this is an elitist diet and lifestyle that only the fortunate few with enough money and access to this type of food can enjoy?
ReplyDeleteEveryone growing their own veggies and fruits? Truly? Do you understand that the ascent of human kind is based on us being specialists rather than generalists? Since we stopped hunting and gathering we've lived in societies where people perform specific tasks and trade with others for the tasks they can't perform themselves. You grow grain, I make horse shoes, she raises cows etc. Growing a few tomatoes and other veggies is fun and I've done it for years but to suggest that this can be a significant food source for all or many of us is terribly naive. Even a few tomato plants produce more tomatoes than I can eat and only do that for a few weeks. Do I then start trading with my neighbors to get some beans? Now consider that I work at least 8 hours a day plus a commute. Then the kids sports and other activities on the weekend. When would I tend my garden?
Not to mention that you have no idea what's in the soil around your house. If these plants become a significant food source I'd want the soil tested.
We need to stop the population boom and make the best possible choices at the super market. If we insist on organic fruits they'll sell them. We don't need to grow them ourselves.
I encourage you to do the back-of-the-envelope math to see how many small specialty stores NYC would need to supply everyone. Don't forget that everyone has to be able to walk, bike, bus or drive to the store. Parking too. It's not going to happen. Centralized food shopping (super markets) is very efficient and does not prohibit good quality foods from being sold.
So anyway. Do the math. How many small producers do we need to feed everyone? Or are you counting on 'survival of the fittest' where the population goes down to say, 20% of current levels?
I love delicious foods and I also love eating. I don't know the different identification of foods as long as it is healthy to eat I will try to taste it.
ReplyDeleteSome good points but really delusional in the most mainstream common way possible i.e.that technology will deliver the utopian dream. It is that very thinking that got us into this mess!
ReplyDeleteNature is the answer.
All grain is inferior food, fit only for birds, though ideal for creating billions of zombie slaves like we have now.
All beans are rubbish food as they combine starch [glucose loading glue] with protein [very acidifying and dangerous. allergies and all mnay of disease including cancer anyone?] 50/50, terribly hard to digest well.
BTW I thought your picture of the burnt black bread was an example of what was not good food! LOL!
"The Staff of Life".. Pshhaw!!! Worst food ever more like [after dairy of course].
Eat fruit and herbs and breathe.
Thanks for your note.
ReplyDeleteThere's nothing utopian or dream-like about it. Everyone on the Spartan Diet is eating a post-industrial diet. The point of technology is that it makes such a diet not only possible, but relatively easy.
Fermented grain and beans are some of nature's highest-quality foods.
The confusion about these foods comes from the disasterous results of industrial, engineered versions of these foods. But grains and beans have formed a foundational part of the human diet for thousands of years. It's only recently that we managed to make them unhealthy.
Also: It's not possible for humans to be truly healthy on a frutarian diet, as you suggest.