\nYork Review of Books,<\/em> journalist Michael Pollan has an epic essay charting the
\nemergence and character of the food movement. Or, as he puts it,
\n“movements.” They are unified, for now at least, by little more than the
\nrecognition that industrial food production is in need of reform, “because its
\nsocial\/environmental\/public health\/animal welfare\/gastronomic costs are too
\nhigh.” (Pollan, of course, has been indispensable to the rise of this movement, even though he omits his 2006 best-seller, The Omnivore’s Dilemma<\/a>,<\/em> from his
\nlist of its catalysts—among them Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation<\/em><\/a> and Marion
\nNestle’s Food Politics<\/em><\/a>.)\n<\/p>\n
This collection is a “big, lumpy
\ntent,” says Pollan:\n<\/p>\n
Where many social movements tend to splinter as time goes
\non, breaking into various factions representing divergent concerns or tactics,
\nthe food movement starts out splintered. Among the many threads of advocacy
\nthat can be lumped together under that rubric we can include school lunch
\nreform; the campaign for animal rights and welfare; the campaign against
\ngenetically modified crops; the rise of organic and locally produced food;
\nefforts to combat obesity and type 2 diabetes; “food sovereignty” (the
\nprinciple that nations should be allowed to decide their agricultural policies
\nrather than submit to free trade regimes); farm bill reform; food safety
\nregulation; farmland preservation; student organizing around food issues on
\ncampus; efforts to promote urban agriculture and ensure that communities have
\naccess to healthy food; initiatives to create gardens and cooking classes in
\nschools; farm worker rights; nutrition labeling; feedlot pollution; and the
\nvarious efforts to regulate food ingredients and marketing, especially to kids.\n<\/p>\n
Yep, that about covers it. And those factions don’t always
\nplay nicely together. For example, animal-rights activists can’t abide what I like to call
\nthe “born-again carnivores”—the people (like me) who used to be vegetarians
\nbut resumed eating meat once they could get it in good (or at least
\nbetter) conscience from small farms.\n<\/p>\n
Pollan finds one common point on which all the various
\nmovement splinters can agree: that the way our food system is organized and
\nsupported in this country has led to an epidemic of ill health. First Lady
\nMichelle Obama’s various forays into food politics shows just that there is awareness of that fact occurs in very high places. But the food
\nmovement isn’t just about tearing down the unhealthy, unfair, and unclean
\nindustrial food system, says Pollan. It’s also about celebrating the communal and gustatory
\npleasures of its opposite—and that’s what makes the food movement so appealing. Farmers
\nmarkets aren’t just outlets for organic kale; they’re the new informal
\ngathering places to meet and make friends. They make food shopping fun again, no longer a grim sprint behind a cold
\nmetal cart through aisles of corporate logos.\n<\/p>\n
In the final part of the essay, while discussing Reclaiming \n<\/p>\n \n<\/p>\n Related Links:<\/strong><\/p>\n Ask Umbra’s Book Club: Live chat with author Anna Lappé<\/a><\/p>\n CJR puts Philpott in the hot seat<\/a><\/p>\n
\npolitical scientist Janet A. Flammang’s new book, <\/a>The Taste for
\nCivilization: Food, Politics, and Civil Society<\/a>,<\/em> Pollan takes aim at a
\nfavorite target: the corporate message that cooking is a chore and convenience food can rescue us from it. Fast food and convenience food,
\nwrites Flammang, along with other tactics to denigrate “‘foodwork’—everything
\ninvolved in putting meals on the family table,” have wrecked the critical social institution of
\nthe family meal, and other important food rituals, such as the
\nbreaking of bipartisan bread that used to occur in the Senate dining room.\n<\/p>\n
\ncooking and communal eating as worthy societal activities are just two goals
\nthe various factions of the food movement can agree on. They’ll need to find
\nmore common ground if they hope to persuade politicians—and the rest of the country—that theirs is a cause worth backing.\n<\/p>\n
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