I am not apolitical, and both family and friends know I can get on a soapbox. But I really do believe people need not to be told what to think or do; rather people need to be empowered to be critical thinkers. I think it is only too often people choose apathy, choose the prime time line-up instead of using brain-power, and choose soundbites....but not my friends and families. So in the spirit of a long a read before bedtime, I offer this link to Michael Pollan's article, or "memo" as he refers to it, addressing Mr. President-elect about something we all too often take for granted: food. It is easy to assume that we can go to the store to get what we need. Or for those who cannot, it is because they either do not have the money or don't have a near-by grocer. The truth is, like clean air and clean water, food can become a scarce or costly resource. The article is long, quite long really! I think it is well-worth the read. But read it critically or don't. If you do read it, I would be delighted to discuss it. ciao- tori |
Thursday, October 16, 2008
I love to talk about food!
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2 comments:
Funny, I did read Michael Pollan's article a few days ago, and then found your blog post about it :) He wrote a very good and compelling article which I appreciated.
That's awesome that you are canning and preserving foodstuffs. I do some, but I either a) need another freezer or b) need to learn how to can food for the shelf, instead of the freezer.
It is on my to-do list :)
I think this is my favorite paragraph of the article:
When Eleanor Roosevelt did something similar in 1943, she helped start a Victory Garden movement that ended up making a substantial contribution to feeding the nation in wartime. (Less well known is the fact that Roosevelt planted this garden over the objections of the U.S.D.A., which feared home gardening would hurt the American food industry.) By the end of the war, more than 20 million home gardens were supplying 40 percent of the produce consumed in America. The president should throw his support behind a new Victory Garden movement, this one seeking “victory” over three critical challenges we face today: high food prices, poor diets and a sedentary population. Eating from this, the shortest food chain of all, offers anyone with a patch of land a way to reduce their fossil-fuel consumption and help fight climate change. (We should offer grants to cities to build allotment gardens for people without access to land.) Just as important, Victory Gardens offer a way to enlist Americans, in body as well as mind, in the work of feeding themselves and changing the food system — something more ennobling, surely, than merely asking them to shop a little differently.
I would love to garden more but I think I would do much better if it were a community thing, and it was easier to have access to community gardens... (ie there were more of them) I think that community gardening should be the next popular revolution...
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