The Local-Vore Movement

By ARIELLE REICH 

I became familiar with Democracy Now!, a daily, independent, progressive radio/television/podcast program when I interviewed producer/host Amy Goodman for a magazine that I write for periodically. Since I met Amy, I’ve been a devoted listener and recently came across a fascinating interview with Michael Pollan, a professor of science and environmental journalism at the University of California, and author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto.

Pollan says that food is under attack from both the food industry, which takes whole foods and turns them into highly processed “edible food-like substances” and from nutritional science, which convinced Americans that it is the nutrients, and not the food that matters. Pollan also discussed his economic perspective of the food industry.

“You can’t really make money-selling things like oatmeal, plain rolled oats. You can buy a pound organic oats for seventy-nine cents. There’s no money in that, because it doesn’t have any brand identification. It’s a commodity, and the prices of commodity are constantly falling over time. You make money by processing it, adding value to it. You take those oats, and you turn them into Cheerios, and then you can charge four bucks for a few pennies of oats. And then after a few years, Cheerios become a commodity. So, you have to move to the next thing, which are like cereal bars. And now there are cereal straws that your kids are supposed to suck milk through, and then they eat the straw. So, you see, every level of further complication gives you some intellectual property, a product no one else has, and the ability to charge a whole lot more for these very cheap raw ingredients.”

Pollan suggested some changes in policy, such as a farm bill that prevents driving down the price of high-fructose corn syrup, so that real fruit juice can compete with it and carrots could compete with Wonder Bread. To combat the trend of globalizing food at the point where we are losing farmland everyday and the increase in rates of heart disease that can be attributed to consumption of trans-fats and other highly processed foods, Pollan suggested eating local foods and supporting local farms to stay healthy and to keep some autonomy in our food system.

People who make an effort to eat locally, dubbed local-vores, also believe they are helping the environment. The food system in the United States contributes about a fifth of greenhouse gases and is very energy intensive. The food industry has moved away from using photosynthesis to using a fossil fuel system and use pesticides made from petroleum. Then, think of all the energy it takes to move food all over the world. In fact, we now we take about ten calories of fossil fuel to produce one calorie of food energy. Definitely something to think about during your next visit to the grocery store!