beginning thoughts: ethics and food

I've been incredibly lucky to develop new friendships this semester with girls who are as interested in food as I am and not just about the taste: also about the social and economical implications of food. It has been challenging, to say the least, to be exposed to certain issues and challenged on the levels of convenience and greed. I would like to start mentioning those things on here (although I'll try to not make this my soapbox) to get ideas, thoughts, criticisms and new topics going. While a lot of people in food ethics movements are reading books like Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma or Foer's Eating Animals, we are reading books on controversial nutrition, Barbara Kingsolver's experience with growing all of her food for one year in Animal Vegetable Miracle, or tales of urban farming. These books so informative and fun to read and discuss, but the two main goals I have been challenged with are

1. Eating food in forms as close to the way the Lord made them before we got our hands on them
   
2. Loving our neighbor

The second point is the most convicting and the hardest to ignore - just feeding America has become a global affair in which many countries and peoples are involved. Today, our "neighbor" is not just next door, so suddenly to answer that question becomes a more complicated and inconvenient task. Which food items I buy, from what store or farmer I buy them, and from where they came are all aspects of that.

I love food, it is a necessity for life, an art and vital part of all cultures, a means of forming community; I think it should be celebrated. I am not going to stop celebrating it and I am not going to stop sharing it and hoping for a community to form around the food I make - but I do want to be more aware of how I treat the discussion of it.

On that note, I have also been thinking about this blog in regards to the crisis going on in Haiti right now. Right now, for me and for those who are reading, food is in abundant excess. For Haitians dealing with the devastation of the earthquake, food is a precious commodity and luxury item. For some Haitians (dare I say this?) the aid and attention the earthquake has brought may actually be supplying MORE food than what they had before. I am not suggesting or offering much; just asking that we think about that and honor them by keeping it in our minds while we talk about food so flippantly. I feel responsible to mention it if I keep writing this blog.

So, food ethics. This is just an introduction to some things going on in my life and in my kitchen other than the recipes and mishaps I write about on here and the beginning of sharing more. What are your thoughts and experiences?

A bittersweet article on Haiti's food situation


Info on a documentary worth renting. Not much has changed since the 60s here except African-American migrant workers are becoming Latino migrant workers

An alternative perspective from a large industrial farmer, sent to me by a friend