Looking for a 'secretary of food'

In all of the appointments to cabinet that the president-elect has been making lately, his pick for secretary of agriculture has been put off. In fact, the discussion about the post has been sort of lost in the shuffle of economic crisis that as taken over the country in recent months. A New York Times columnist has returned to the discussion, outlining an argument for the renaming of the post as "Secretary of Food." His point is that agriculture is no longer what it was when the governmental department was created. Since then, "fewer than 2 percent (of Americans) are farmers. In contrast, 100 percent of Americans eat." Citing the affect of agribusiness on the environment and the economy, Nicholas D. Kristof argues that something must be done and that the perfect message of "change" that Obama can send is to refocus on that sector of our country. As Kristof says Michael Pollan (author of the "Ominivore's Dilemma") told him: " 'Even if you don’t think agriculture is a high priority, given all the other problems we face, we’re not going to make progress on the issues Obama campaigned on — health care, climate change and energy independence — unless we reform agriculture.' "

Read the complete article on the NY Times Web site. It even links you to a handy little petition to Obama asking him to focus on reforming the decripit state of agribusiness in the U.S., if you agree with that statement, anyway.

The return of ugly food

In this time of food crisis it hardly seem likely that anyone would choose to ban food based on what it looked like. I know I've gotten some of my yummiest tomatoes from a garden and they rarely look pretty. And yet, for years the European Union would not allow so-called 'ugly' fruits or vegetables to be sold in the nations included in that group. They did this, obstensibly, to keep prices uniform. Which is silly. And they finally realized this, after years of ridicule from the world. And so, countries within the EU can now celebrate in their new found 'ugly fruit.'

Slowing food down...

What is Slow Food? Have you ever taken a look at our blogroll and thought, "What is that link to 'Slow Food USA' all about? I've never heard of slow food. Did our esteemed contributors make an error?"

Actually, the slow food movement is real and its making its way onto the national food scene. We think it's important to realize what this movement is all about and what it can (and cannot) do to solve the problems we are seeing in food policy in America. In this post, I spoke about the politics of food and how the next president can solve them. This is what Slow Food USA is all about: bringing about better food policies.

But let's rewind. What is "slow food?" Well according to the Slow Food USA site, "Slow Food is an idea, a way of living and a way of eating. It is a global, grassroots movement with thousands of members around the world that links the pleasure of food with a commitment to community and the environment." Well that didn't help very much did it? Okay, maybe it did a little.
First, skip all that stuff about a way of living and grassroots. Most movements proscribe to these notions. Now, linking the 'pleasure of food' and a 'commitment to community and the environment' is a little different. The idea here is that with fast food has created a disconnect between people and food. Before the advent of grocery stores, we grew our own food and dirtied our own hands doing so. Before restaurants become an everyday habit, we used to make our own food, too. We'd know every ingredient in a dish because we had put it there, and likely grew that ingredient ourselves.
While the slow food movement does't aim to shut down grocery stores and fast food chains, they want people to remember the "people, traditions, plants, animals, fertile soils and waters that produce our food," as their About Us page says. In order to return people to these traditions, the group also aims to "inspire a transformation in food policy, production practices and market forces so that they ensure equity, sustainability and pleasure in the food we eat." So, the slow food movement is to essentially educate people on our real connections to food (beyond that obvious 'we need it to survive' angle) as well as help instigate change in the way food is treated in our government policy by engaging our policy makers.
Hmmm...well that sounds familiar, at least partly (see our about us post and this post to remind you what this blog aims to do).

To learn more, read this interesting glimpse at the movement, printed in the New York Times, called "A Slow Food Festival Reaches out to the Uncommitted."

Letting your stomach cast the vote...

It seemed like kismet when I walked into Silver Diner, a small, old-fashioned diner/chain based in Virginia and Maryland, and found the establishment polling its customers, but not in the way you might expect.
For the month of October, the diner offers Obamalettes (a Chicago pizza-style dish) and McCainlettes (a BBQ chicken dish inspired by the senator's home state). As customers order one or the other, tallies are counted and on Oct. 30, Silver Diner will post the results and predict a presidential winner. Who's winning? Well, it seems that pizza for breakfast (or do you think people are actually swayed by their political bent?) is too great a pull. Obama is leading with 1026 votes (orders) to McCain's 485. While this experiment did make me laugh, what made me connect it with kismet?

Well, I posted this New York Times article in our Food in the News box a few days ago. I didn't get up the interest to write about what should be the connection between food and politics right away. It seems it is more of an interesting topic than I first considered and it took a political omelette to remind me of that.

Okay, first off let me say that food has a much biger impact on our everyday lives than we are usually willing to acknowledge. It not only affects our wallets and our health, the abudance of food keeps us from needing to start wars with other nations, keeps us from turning on our neighbors, even keeps us from going hungry to feed our children (or watching them starve cause we have no food at all to give them). But as Americans, except for those who are poor and unable to acquire food, we have chosen to forget those times in our evolution as a nation that are comparable to many countries in present-day Africa.
As the New York Times article, published in a recent issue of The Sunday Magazine and phrased like a letter to the coming president, states, "Food policy is not something American presidents have had to give much thought to, at least since the Nixon administration..."
It seems that we've forgotten the connection between food and every other aspect of our lives in America. Michael Pollan lists some of these connections in his 'letter':
-Mass food consumption has led to industrialized food production which has increased the impact on our environment (through releasing carbon as we creat new crop fields, using gas in our farm equipment, and killing the land with overuse). As Pollan states, "When we eat from the industrial-food system, we are eating oil and spewing greenhouse gases."
- The way we live in America, with such easy and cheap access to all the foods that are bad for us (I say this as I eat a donut generously brought in by a fellow coworker), has contributed to our generally low health. Most of our top diseases are actually related to what we eat. As Pollan states: "You cannot expect to reform the health care system...without confronting the public-health catastrophe that is the modern American diet."
- America, because we have placed such value in helping others (generally a good thing) and because we have perfected the mass production of food, has become key to the survival of many nations. As we scramble for our own food, we are less and less able (or willing) to give to other nations. How many riots do you think we have set off when we have taken away food aid? How come we didn't help these areas grow their own food, instead of letting them rely on a finite source that so many others rely on? We will soon see how much more valuable food is than previous 'allies' are. "Expect to hear the phrases 'food sovereignty' and 'food security' on the lips of every foreign leader you meet," predicts Pollan.
Pollan raises many more interesting points after offering a look at how we got where we are now. The article is definitely long, but it is worth a read and some meditation on the points he brings up. These are issues we will be facing in the near future.
As Pollan warns the next president of the United States: "What this means is that you, like so many other leaders through history, will find yourself confronting the fact — so easy to overlook these past few years — that the health of a nation’s food system is a critical issue of national security. Food is about to demand your attention."

Whether Obamalette or McCainlette wins, it will be up to the American people to actually address this growing issue. What options do we have to solve this coming crisis? What are we doing wrong right now that could be changed to promote good food policy? This is what we need to ask ourselves, and our leaders, no matter which omelette wins on Election Day.