Right away she brought up the idea of “radical empathy” and after listening to her speak a little more about it, I think about the relationships between the producers of our “food” and the consumers. Last semester we talked a lot about how our food system has changed a lot over time and in a way has been neglected. When larger corporations got involved in farming there was bound to be an issue among the farmers and CEO’s due to the pay scale and work rate difference. So, I guess my connection right away is that this idea of radical empathy is strong and could serve the greater purpose here which would be connecting everyone in a positive and informative way.
She then mentioned the way food has been a part of culture and religion for as long as we’ve been around. Along with this topic I think about how people in the past used to populate where the food was plentiful. As this went on the use rate for many food items would be much quicker than the replenish rate, you can only crow crops and animals so fast and so many at a time. Once this was no longer viable and what we now know as conventional farming became popular, we lost a lot of the small farming. This like I said contributed to a lot of disconnect but led to the whole idea of what farming is to be turned on its head. With many people no longer really knowing or caring where their food came from that degrades the idea of community.
Another big topic that she mentioned was the ability for people to afford healthy and beneficial foods. She spoke on how the marketing of these processed foods has changed the way people eat. This may be one of the most relevant issues around the world, focusing on the United States in general the topic of food deserts comes to my mind. While many big cities have supermarkets and other stores, many will be closer to fast, or junk food. Another perspective of this could be someone in the middle of “nowhere”, not capable of going to the grocery store. There are so many different reasons people may not be able to get the proper nutritional foods. With about 36.8 million people being in what we label as “poverty” in 2023 simply not being able to afford groceries with prices also being on the up and down is also another huge issue.
Poverty in the United States: 2023
In the end my main takeaway would be that these issues are not something one person can fix, and it won’t be a fast or easy process whatsoever. I love the idea of connecting cultures and trying new foods but that would be something I disagree with. I think for us, not to be selfish but the United States needs to be our main focus. We have so much disconnect in our country to begin with and our food systems are damn near a crisis. I am not opposed to taking ideas and conversing with all cultures and countries but in my opinion, we need to fix ourselves before we take on the role of hero and try to save everyone else like we usually do.
3 comments:
I do believe that the U.S. has a food crisis, but we cannot exclude other countries and their role in our food industry. We import a lot of food from other countries. For example, Mexico is by far the greatest importer of fruit and vegetables to the United States. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/us-food-imports-by-country/#:~:text=Generally%2C%20the%20largest%20exporters%20of,in%202020%20at%20$21.8%20billion. The Global Food Industry is interconnected and we have to view it on the global scale. However, I do not believe that we should not CRITICIZE the Global Food Industry. There is still deep rooted racism due to the progression of imperialist plundering in the global south.
I generally agree with your take that we need to look inwards with the food problems before we look outwards. Not only does America have large population in poverty unable to eat enough, but many of the people in America might not be undernourished, but are still malnourished. They get enough calories, but not a good spread of macro- and micro-nutrients. This is even more glaring when we consider the glaring amount of food we waste, with the FDA estimating between 30-40 percent of the food supply going to waste (https://www.fda.gov/food/consumers/food-loss-and-waste). Obviously when there is an easy to fix problem abroad, we should help out. My parents grew up hearing and seeing about how bad the living conditions in Ethiopia were, but today it is one of the fastest growing economies in the world and becoming a regional powerhouse. If simply throwing some money can help a starving region, I believe we have some sort of noblisse oblige to at least try and help. However, it's ultimately always going to be easier trying to solve the problems that are literally closet to us, and so I think trying to solve them first is (at least ideally) more efficient than it is selfish.
I want to say that when you say "However, I do not believe that we should not CRITICIZE the Global Food Industry", that I totally agree. We don't want to go forward and view flaws in the system as *only* sins. Ultimately, the modern agricultural system and global food trade is what has allowed billions of people to live their lives, so we should work to fix it's flaws rather than abhor its shortcomings.
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