Food as Radical Empathy

Alison Alkon speaks on how food can build radical empathy, which she defines as an understanding of one another's circumstances and reality. She shares how food can bring together people and build communities. Her dive into the innate connections food brings to the world was enlightening. She brought up how food serves roles through symbolic, “secular” traditions and in religions that had never been emphasized to me before. I think it is a valuable way we can celebrate cultures and share them with communities and individuals to increase cultural awareness. I am participating in Fiddler on the Roof at Kutztown, and we had multiple rehearsals dedicated to the education of Judaism. One of the aspects of education was through food! A member of the company baked challah and brought it to everyone. Not only is it an engaging educational tool, but it also immerses individuals within the world of one another through the human senses of taste and smell.

There is also a point within the TED talk where Alkon claims that food can break people apart. Her initial example didn’t sit right with me because it didn’t seem like food was breaking people apart but was just an example of food failing to bring people together again. I view this as being very different from “breaking” people apart. I think her examples of food in some social movements were a better example of breaking people apart, for example, the Boston Tea Party. I also feel as if food breaks people apart in other ways, more similar to what she went on to talk about further in her presentation regarding food racism. 

I also was thinking about her examples of body-image issues and body-shaming in society. I think this topic could get its very own presentation. Dieting. Eating Disorders. Body-shaming of all body types. The complicated entanglement of food, women, objectification, societal pressures, body-image issues, and societal beauty standards. There is a whole vast world that could be explored deeply on how societal pressures determine how people look at food. Some view it as a source of calories to be carefully counted, some view it as fuel for high-intensity activity, some view it as enjoyment, some as relentless cravings, and others view it as a highly valuable thing that is always scarce in supply. Social media exposes young people to potentially harmful dieting behavior and beauty standards and can fracture the relationship between individuals and food, taking away its value and potentially its power to connect them with others (jeopardizing the potential to use food as a tool to facilitate radical empathy).

I loved when Alkon stated that we need to “engage with the totality of the food system.” It emphasized the reality of how interdisciplinary the food system really is. It is valuable and complicated and can be explored through many lenses and angles.

Food marketing is another part of the food system that is complicated. I tend to ruminate on the ethics of marketing something to populations when it is a food that is not “healthy” for consumption. I think about how sugar is marketed through sweets and candies and sodas and drinks. I think about the US’s problems with type 2 diabetes. I think about if we are causing our own downfall just to sell items in stores (AKA to make money). I think about how extremely processed foods have been generally normalized, especially because they tend to be cheaper and more accessible to a wider spread of people. I think about the lack of education and knowledge on health and nutrition (at least in my opinion).

I think about all of those things, and I have no idea how the system could be pushed to make significant changes. I know there are good changes happening out there, but it is hard to believe that businesses and industries will focus on the health of everyday people before the profits of their company. But that is why the movement towards supporting local farms/farmers markets is so great.

Native American, African American, Latino, and women farmers face discrimination within the food system, and Alkon focuses on this in her TED Talk. I think this is very important to giving listeners a well-rounded view of how racism and discrimination of different minority groups are still very, very present-day issues. It takes form as the credit of the sustainable agriculture movement being mainly directed towards young, white men and spans to other issues like immigration and the exploitation of labor.

Alkon’s call to action centered on advocacy and citizen involvement. She explained how education on food is more accessible due to the wide library of food literature available. She pushed listeners to engage with all food stories within different cultures and put the responsibility of diverse stories being told on those who work within the food system. She presents the importance of social and historical context in understanding other individuals, which emphasizes aspects of being an active member of society (specifically the responsibility of investigating and educating oneself from as unbiased of a standpoint as possible). She calls people to get involved to help improve aspects of the food system using free speech in the form of protests and advocacy. Another way is by voting (locally and federally) for leaders who reject all forms of racism and discrimination and will take action to improve wages and conditions of workers within the food system.

Overall, Alkon’s TED talk was very educational and emphasized the multifaceted nature of the food system. She emphasized the value of human lives and the access to basic human rights for immigrant workers and individuals. She focused on racism within the food system and proposed that creating radical empathy within people could help combat this issue. Education and the increase of awareness will hopefully increase the action taken by communities, groups, individuals, and populations so that actions of governments and world leaders will change. There were definitely many topics within this TED talk that could be explored in greater detail, but the presentation did a great job in expanding the horizons and perspectives to help engender change and action.