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Food Justice, Out of the Mouths of Babes
past Randall Amster
“Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast one thousand ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.†— Psalm 8:2
My oldest son recently “graduated†from preschool. In the endearing ceremony, each of the children was asked what they want to be when they grow up. His precocious, divergent, and unanticipated response was, “I want to be a farmer like my dad.†And I couldn’t have been more proud.
To be certain, I’thou inappreciably a “farmer†in any real sense of the word. Yeah, I do work hard to scratch out a proficient-sized family unit garden each year in this high-desert habitat, and in our five years here we've planted an orchard and built a big craven coop, among other interventions. So while I definitely get my hands dirty and spend a fair bit of fourth dimension building soil and coaxing vegetables from the granite and clay, my skills are much closer to the hobby side of the coin than anything that can rightly be termed “farming.â€
All of which makes my son’s statement even more powerful to me. He knows that I’g a teacher and that I write a lot, and surely I spend much more than of my working time at abode on these pursuits than I do on farming. Merely such cerebral matters are largely invisible to a minor kid, taking identify silently inside the confines of a personal calculator. Our garden, orchard, and subcontract animals, past contrast, be in a tangible and collective manner that registers on a deeper level in the optics of a child.
In many ways, this is exactly why I do it. Sure, the notions of finding nutrient in the desert, relearning essential skills, becoming more self-sufficient, and staying shut to nature are all important drivers as well. Yet the essence of these pursuits really does devolve upon the lessons being taught to the kids. In a society that tries to breed out any connection to the natural world and more often than not teaches children that food comes from the supermarket, my son’s impromptu career aspirations are nothing short of miraculous — all the more so, because that my partner and I were both raised equally urban people with little connection to the state.
In addition to our family farming adventures, we’ve also tried to cultivate an appreciation of how nature works and why it’s important. The children have learned to place wild edible and medicinal plants in our bioregion, helping to harvest prickly pear and assistant yucca fruit each season, as well every bit to appreciate the healing benefits of juniper berries, snakeweed, mallow, horehound, and more. When we go hiking, we like to follow the path of the arroyos and learn where the water flows — leading to a working appreciation of the fact that similar networks be underground in order to supply near of our water.
The subcontract animals that we share the space with hold a special place in the children’s minds, constituting an countless source of fascination and yielding regular insights into the origins of our own behaviors. Myriad stories are told (and sometimes embellished) virtually Daisy the Pig, Samson the Caprine animal, Fred the Rooster, or Rebel the Horse, and it’s vitally important to run through all of the animals’ names from fourth dimension to time as an exercise in both retention and establishing the full family unit circumvolve. Likewise, the wild animate being visitors we regularly see here occupy an virtually folkloric stature in our lives, with tales of hawks and mountain lions and coyotes being central to the feel of beingness on the land in this fourth dimension and place.
At the end of the twenty-four hour period, much of this family practice comes dorsum to the elementary question of where our food comes from. If we had to be fully self-sufficient due to a precipitous collapse of mod conveniences, information technology would be enormously challenging to say the least. Simply if we’re able to steadily expand our capacities and cognition base, we might begin to arroyo a point of subsistence in time. That may not sound all that romantic of an aspiration, to merely be subsistent, yet on some level it’southward among life’due south near elusive and worthy aims. Connecting our children to this realization is, in my view, part of our duty equally parents, customs members, and citizens of the world.
Stepping dorsum i more level, it’due south further apparent simply how loftier the collective stakes really are by now. As Evaggelos Vallianatos recently wrote in Truthout, “the EPA has been licensing toxic and cancer-causing farm chemicals that, essentially, poison our nutrient and drinking water while causing harm and decease to wildlife…. And many of these pesticides hurt or kill wildlife at extremely low amounts, contributing to a massive extinction of species, which is unprecedented in history.†In addition to the wanton use of pesticides and biocides in food production, nosotros have to grapple with the potentially-disastrous effects of untested genetic modification, unregulated additives, and unchecked centralization of our essential food supplies. As Vallianatos concludes, the food that virtually Americans eat is “unhealthy and hazardous†considering information technology is widely “contaminated by legal and illegal poison residues†throughout the chain.
Some years ago, I gave a joint presentation called “What’southward on Your Plate?†at an activist conference. It was intended to indicate out how securely dissociative we tend to exist well-nigh our nutrient, to such an extent that even committed social and environmental advocates oft don’t connect the dots of their activism back to the meals that sustain them. This is understandable on some levels, akin to telling coal miners to “breathe carefully†in its long-term futility and thus, in its potential for rationalization. It’s as well the case that we’re non presented with many other viable options beyond “willful ignorance†and “hope for the best†when information technology comes to our general food choices in this culture. Nevertheless, in the ensuing years since giving the sick-received presentation, a wider consciousness about food bug has indeed slowly begun to have agree.
And naturally, some circles take come up to define this emerging sensibility every bit a pathology. There’s even a term being bandied about to encapsulate it: “orthorexia,†which is defined as an obsession with “healthy or righteous eating.†According to the website Eating Disorders, the phrase was first coined in 1997 by Steven Bratman, MD, and refers to “people who create severely limited diets in the name of good for you eating…. One of the primary challenges with treating orthorexia is that many orthorexics don't think they need whatever help. They’re very proud of their dietary choices, and don’t think it’s necessary for them to acquire how to eat ‘normally’ since they consider ‘normal’ food to be harmful.â€
Another site, this one a Yahoo! Wellness cavalcade that’s received over xl thousand recommendations on Facebook, farther notes that orthorexia sufferers “increasingly restrict their diets to foods they consider pure, natural and healthful…. Those affected may start by eliminating processed foods, annihilation with bogus colorings or flavorings besides as foods that have come into contact with pesticides. Beyond that, orthorexics may also shun caffeine, alcohol, sugar, salt, wheat and dairy foods.†In addition to such mainstream sources, the Periodical of the American Medical Association (JAMA) ran a review of Bratman’s book Health Nutrient Junkies, in which he emphasized the typical orthorexic’s “self righteousness†in denigrating fashion: “As orthorexia progresses, a twenty-four hours filled with wheatgrass juice, tofu, and quinoa biscuits may come up to feel equally holy as ane spent serving the destitute and homeless.â€
Further, a 2004 article in Psychology Today observed that “sufferers devote excessive attention to their own strict rules and often spend hours each twenty-four hours worrying near tomorrow’south meals. Such a person may find himself socially isolated because he doesn’t indulge in everyday dishes.†Equally the Yahoo! “expert†confirms, “going to extremes in an endeavour to consume only healthy foods tin also be socially isolating and can undermine personal relationships.†If we juxtapose this perspective — namely that one can be too strongly dedicated to healthy foods, resulting in obsession and ostracism — with the “pervasive poison†litany delivered by Vallianatos and others, it highlights the double-whammy of food toxicity and pathologized awareness, paving a cinch path to continued complacency when information technology comes to the food in our midst.
Then when my son publicly proclaims that he wants to be a farmer, the subversive nature of the remark isn’t lost on me. He may well turn out to be something entirely different in his life, but the fact that he’s even thinking nigh where his food comes from at all is a good sign — and orthorexia be damned. Ultimately, if we’re going to turn that long-overdue corner toward a sustainable and just society, at that place will demand to exist a lot of young people with the awareness and skills to manifest life’s essentials of nutrient, water, and energy in a healthy way. The pathology isn’t in knowing too much and trying to take action; it’s in consciously avoiding the knowledge and lapsing into socially-affirmed complicity.
There’southward no futurity in that. But for a brief moment last week, I could discern one in my son’s telling words.
Randall Amster, J.D., Ph.D., is the Graduate Chair of Humanities at Prescott College. He serves as Executive Managing director of the Peace & Justice Studies Association and every bit Contributing Editor for New Clear Vision. Amongst his contempo books are Lost in Infinite: The Criminalization, Globalization, and Urban Ecology of Homelessness (LFB Scholarly, 2008), and the co-edited volume Edifice Cultures of Peace: Transdisciplinary Voices of Hope and Action (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009).
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