The Sustainable Food Movement’s Big American Problem
Published October 01, 2009 @ 12:22PM PT
To hear foodies talk, you’d think that if farmers' markets were cheaper and inner cities had supermarkets, Americans across the economic spectrum would start gobbling up every scallion in sight. Those who work three jobs, the logic goes, don't buy fresh vegetables because they cost more than fast food. And in inner cities, people eat badly because the best option is often the corner store, where you’re less likely to find celery than Funyons.
These arguments do indeed hold truth. Rebecca Ruiz is correct when she writes in Forbes that “by and large, the healthiest food is not cheapest, nor is it available in every market.” But she is overlooking one important, cornfield-sized impediment to making Americans more conscious eaters.
The problem is that in America, we don’t like to eat healthy.
The movement faces a sensibility gap — a space between what the group pushing the movement considers reasonable behavior and the way everybody else prefers to live.
Michael Pollan, recently discussing the prognosis of the movement on NPR, said that if the momentum carries forward among dedicated elites, then costs will eventually come down and more people will sign on. He pointed out that many successful movements — women’s suffrage, for instance — started with the upper echelon.
Well, rich people can go on buying pallets of heirloom tomatoes, but it won’t fix the problem underlying both our food and our health: In America, we don’t like vegetables. If the average American spends more on soda than on cucumbers (I don’t know, but I’m betting!), what chance does an elite movement based on a healthy respect for plants have of widespread success?
This is not to say that people across classes can’t appreciate healthy food. There are inspiring forays in urban and community agriculture, and there are government programs that capitalize on low-income women’s interest in farmers' markets.
But the truth is that our current system of industrial agriculture is based almost entirely on giving people what they really want: cheap meat, and lots of it. If we were to produce meat on pastures in family farms, a more resource-intensive method, we couldn’t eat as much of it. And asking Americans to sign on to that — even many of the smart-talking foodies who pay lip service to sustainable eating but continue devouring meat daily — is a tall order.
A major push of the sustainable food movement, then, must be to nudge people away from meat-heavy diets. We can educate people about the costs of meat and benefits of fresh produce. We can argue that kids should form good habits.
But what we really need is to make fruits and vegetables hip. They need to be sexier. What we require is an ad campaign, along the lines of Dos Equis’ brilliant “Most Interesting Man in the World.” But in this version instead of drinking a beer, he would bite into an apple. I can see it now: “Stay hungry, my friends.”
Photo courtesy of alexlomas on flickr
Share this Post
Facebook
Twitter
Digg
StumbleUpon
Delicious
EmailRelated Posts
Comments (10)
Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the ideas covered in the posts. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments that are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; that contain ad hominem attacks; or that are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion.
Author
-
Katherine Gustafson is a freelance writer and editor with a background in international nonprofit organizations. Her articles, essays, and stories have been published in numerous magazines, newspapers, books, and Websites.
Featured Sustainable Food Actions
-
-
-
Campbell’s Soup: Stop Poisoning Our Food!
3529 People
-
Campbell’s Soup: Stop Poisoning Our Food!
Eating less meat may be the single strongest message of the sustainable food movement. There's not a single activist out there that would deny the fact that Americans need to eat dramatically less meat (but to be honest, that wouldn't even really solve the problem as the fastest growing markets for meat are in developing countries in Asia and South America).
Many of us who advocate for more sustainable food realize that old habits are hard to break, and that they only way to get people to eat better is to teach them how. Nutrition education is a key component to a healthier America, and we need more programs/organizations that work directly with disadvantaged populations on these issues.
I like your idea of a sexy fruit and vegetable ad (and man, do I love those Dos Equis ones).
Also, this might be of interest, CDC just released a state by state breakdown of fruit and veggie consumption:
http://www.fruitsandveggiesmatter.gov/health_professionals/statereport.html
Posted by Greg Plotkin on 10/01/2009 @ 01:00PM PT
You must be signed in to report content.
Thanks for the comment, Greg! You're right that many activists have this on their radar screens. But I also know people in the foody camp that haven't wrapped their heads around the connection. The buzz-words always seems to be "local," "sustainable," "organic," but not, for instance, "veggie-dominant" or "meat-wary" eating. I know, what about establishing the concept of a "meat-treat" way of eating, where meat is a treat and not a daily essential? I hope this post might spur discussion on how we can successfully get this message out there in a more forceful and catchier way.
Posted by Katherine Gustafson on 10/01/2009 @ 02:13PM PT
You must be signed in to report content.
Campaigns like Meatless Monday, I think, are a good way of trying to ween people off of their meat dependence, but I agree that the foodie movement needs something similar.
I'm totally with you on the meat treat thing. Everyone should realize that meat is a privilege and not a right.
Posted by Greg Plotkin on 10/01/2009 @ 02:23PM PT
You must be signed in to report content.
I'm totally on board when it comes to eating less meat, but not all sustainable ag advocates are. See the Slow Cook today, which slams the "Meatless Mondays" idea: "Conflating voodoo nutrition with half-baked environmentalism is neither healthful, nor educational."
http://www.theslowcook.com/2009/10/05/school-food-sugar-free-or-half-baked/
Posted by Liz Whitehurst on 10/05/2009 @ 03:46PM PT
You must be signed in to report content.
My thought is to return meat to it's actual costs. Work to end subsidies for all animal products and have the consumer pay the costs. Once meat gets very high in price ($12 a lb for instance), as it did before the advent of factory farming, people will eat it once or twice a week at most and be more motivated to try plant based foods.
Posted by Kristina Cahill on 10/01/2009 @ 08:27PM PT
You must be signed in to report content.
This year my sons school expanded the lunch menu, they now can choose what they want off a menu which does offer vegan. His sister is in elementary however and they stick to the same old format, Tuesday is hot dogs or grilled cheese. She chose to bring her own lunch, but many low income families do not have that choice. I believe it needs to start at the schools, provide the fruits and vegetables for the kids, they will want it, they will eat it. We have a program here called the Queens Galley which teaches low income families how to prepare healthy meals. It shows the kids that healthy food can be fun and delicious. The program is run on volunteers and donations so sadly it could end at any time. Most food pantries in the area also provide processed boxed food to the people because it's cheap and easy. How do you get a low income family or no income family to eat healthier when the option is healthy food for two days or 'food' for a week? Our local agencies and schools are the ones who should be addressing this.
Posted by Suki Kimok on 10/02/2009 @ 06:16AM PT
You must be signed in to report content.
Perhaps this is a dumb question (I'm no expert on food), but to me it seems like people often use the terms "sustainable" and "healthy" as synonyms. Are they? Is sustainable food really about getting more leafy greens into people or is it really about creating a food system that keeps the environment healthy and doesn't abuse animals or workers? If it's the former, why don't we call it the "healthy food movement"? If it's the latter, then can we have sustainable burgers and fries with sustainable milkshakes?
Posted by Amanda Kloer on 10/02/2009 @ 09:13AM PT
You must be signed in to report content.
Hi Amanda,
That's a great question, and I may well take it up for a future blog post if you'd don't mind! The way I see it, sustainable eating and healthy eating are inherently related. For instance, you can certainly have a sustainably farmed hamburger (from a cow raised on a field of grasss on a small, sun-driven farm, for instance), but since that is a more resource-intensive way of raising meat, you coudln't eat a hamburger nearly so often as you could in an industrial system, and a diet low in meat brings us automatically into the issue of healthy eating. Processed foods, which are also not healthy by and large, don't tend to be environmentally sustainable either because they involve shipping things long distances and using many other ingredients that cost energy to produce (and that's not even getting into the unsustainble health impacts). So the answer is basically that these two concepts overlap substantially, and talking about one inevitably involves talking about the other. But you make a good point that we should be precise about which words we use to avoid muddling the issues!
Posted by Katherine Gustafson on 10/02/2009 @ 02:19PM PT
You must be signed in to report content.
As a fellow blogger, I say please use my comments freely to inspire future posts! I was a vegetarian for years and I ate really unhealthy, mostly because I was in college and didn't know what to eat. I ate tons of pasta, bread, cheese, and snack foods. I feel like I eat much healthier now, and I try and eat a mostly vegetable-based diet with some meat and dairy. I've been trying to eat more sustainably and focus more on the environmental impact of what I buy. So I would love to read more about both the overlap of sustainable food and healthy food and where they diverge.
Posted by Amanda Kloer on 10/03/2009 @ 01:10PM PT
You must be signed in to report content.
I don't believe ad campaigns are successful at changing these deeply-rooted life choices-- witness the failure of advertising to change behavior related to drug use.
The best way to change lifelong behavior is to start very young, and with the whole family. Our local schools serve a dreadful menu provided by a giant corporation, and over half our kids are on free/reduced lunch. So what is served there is what they get used to eating-- burgers, pizza, tacos daily.
Teach people to garden, even a little, and they change what they eat. There is such pride in growing the smallest thing that it makes kids and adults alike want to learn how to cook. Growing produce for market is what taught me to cook, out of necessity. You just can't stand seeing all that go to waste.
The other thing that needs to be changed besides access to healthy ingredients is adapting Americans to a lifestyle that includes TIME for cooking. It isn't necessarily more expensive to cook and eat well, but it definitely takes more time. So folks will have to give up a little Tivo or Xbox so they can visit the farmers market, prepare the food, even can or freeze it. My husband just caught some crab, but we had to cook and clean and package it up last night. It's worth every minute.
Posted by Joanne Daschel on 10/04/2009 @ 02:00PM PT
You must be signed in to report content.