Thursday, August 18, 2011

Are all foods clean? A review of Food Inc.


"The way we eat has changed more in the last fifty years than in the previous ten thousand."

- Food Inc., opening line.

"'Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?' (Thus he declared all foods clean.) And he said, 'It is what comes out of a person that defiles.'"

- Mark 7.18b-20 (NRSV).

Jesus' words were a radical challenge to the Jewish practice of his day, overturning the Old Testament food laws and the traditions that had grown around them. Jesus' redefinition of purity as a matter of the heart and what comes out of it rather than the mouth and what goes into it has left an important mark on our eating habits; we don't think twice about tucking into a crab soup or creamy bacon pasta.

But perhaps sometimes, as a result of this very passage teaching us to see food as a non-issue, Christians can miss the ways in which our hearts may be deceived even as we eat food that Christ declared clean. In particular, there are ways of eating that fail to love our neighbour and fail to adopt a properly human, humane and humble attitude towards the rest of the created order. Our hearts may be defiled, even as we consume delicious feasts.

For anyone who is largely ignorant of contemporary industrial agriculture and its practices, Food Inc. is a good place to start to investigate where our food comes from. It is primarily a US perspective, and some of the details do differ elsewhere in the industrialised world, but not always by a great deal. Most urban dwellers are unaware of the social, ecological, animal and economic realities that get our typical diet into the supermarket. And most are surprised to find just how far we have departed from the stereotypical pictures of rural life still found in children's books and on food packaging. As in all kinds of other ways, the last fifty years or so have been truly revolutionary in this regard. I will not attempt here to summarise the various threads followed by the film, tracing the damage done to workers, animals, soil, waterways, other nations and farmers themselves by contemporary methods of industrial food production, though I was a little surprised to note that there were significant points still left unsaid, even after a string of unpalatable revelations.

But the film is not all ugliness and disgust. Having lifted the lid on the true cost of our cheap food, it moves on to explore two somewhat contradictory approaches to an alternative. On the one hand is an attempt to fight fire with fire, to build an organic and ethical food industry that can compete with factory farming by building a market for organic products in mainstream distributors at a competitive price. On the other is the pursuit of regenerative farming that moves beyond merely being organic to question the broader economic and political structures that govern the whole business. One asks us merely to change our consumption patterns and has faith in the market to deliver the goods that we demand; the other questions the very forces that help to (de)form those demands. The former, more pragmatic, approach is making significant inroads when measured by market share, but does it represent a form of greenwash, a slight improvement that actually serves to dull the necessary critique of a deeply flawed economic and political system? Or is the latter too idealistic and risks missing out on making small but real gains that are actually available for the sake of goals too radical to ever gain widespread acceptance?

This tension is a frequent one in ethical thought, where compromise needn't always be a dirty word, but where the possibility of self-deception via superficial changes is also ever present. This documentary is worth seeing, whether you are blissfully unaware of the origin of your next meal or already struggling with the ethical questions raised by contemporary food practices.

Jesus, who taught us that all foods are clean, also taught us to pray "give us this day our daily bread", and identified his body and blood with elements we take into our mouths. He was not seeking to remove food from the realm of faithful living before God, but to deepen our perception of what joyfully wholesome food might look like. It cannot be identified merely by its flavour or appearance, but depends on the relationships with our neighbours (human and otherwise) that it represents.

Can you give thanks for what will be put in front of you today?

24 comments:

Liz Jakimow said...

I watched Food Inc. with my 12-yr son last year (although he was 11 then). It made a huge impression on him. He still brings it up - most recently, two days ago - even though it's been a while since we saw it.

I do think that changing the food industry is not enough. Part of the problems stems from the way we eat food. If western consumers demand lots of chicken breasts, but rarely eat the rest of the chicken, then that will make a difference to how chickens are farmed. And, of course, the fact that we eat so much (too much) meat means we usually want it as cheaply as possible.

Food is such a large part of our lives. So not only is it an ethical issue, but a very important one. I loved what you said about how there are ways of eating that fail to love our neighbour. That's so true.

Christians really need to start thinking about what they're eating and look beyond what's on their plate to everything that helped bring that food to their plate. I use grace before meals as a chance to really reflect on where our food comes from and to pray for ways of producing food that are good for people, farmers, animals and the earth.

But it's good that documentaries like Food Inc are being produced. I think the first step is just being aware of what happens to our food before we eat it.

byron smith said...

Not One Sparrow: Eating mercifully, a 26 min video aimed at Christians to get us thinking about the animal costs of our current dietary habits and food production.

byron smith said...

Common Dreams: Approaching the [food] collapse: don't panic, go organic.

"An oil shock, global disease pandemic, prolonged drought in the American heartland, or nuclear meltdown could set off a global food panic. Supermarket shelves and grain silos would be stripped bare within a short period of time. Have you thought about this? Are you and those in your local community ready for this?

"World grain reserves amount to less than 75 days of supply. Harvests of strategic food grains and cereals have basically leveled off or even decreased, with enormous amounts of acreage now providing fuel for cars instead of food for people. At the same time, affordable fossil fuel energy supplies have peaked (Peak Oil), with the world increasingly dependent on “extreme” oil and natural gas extraction (deep sea and Arctic drilling, tar sands, and fracking), accelerating the prices of petroleum-based farm inputs, as well as food distribution and processing costs. Billions of people in the Global South are now spending 50-70% of their household income on food (although in the U.S. it is only 11%). Hydrologists and agronomists warn that Peak Water is fast approaching, when the already limited availability of water from underground aquifers for crop irrigation, which supplies 20% of U.S. and 40% of world grains, exponentially decreases. Peak Soil is also fast approaching, with soil erosion and desertification already degrading 25% of the earth’s land. Peak Soil is directly related to unsustainable farming and forestry practices, including heavy pesticide use, chemical fertilizers, genetically engineered mono-crops, and non-sustainable grazing and clear-cutting. Meanwhile global population numbers (in direct relation to poverty and lack of education for women) and demand for food (especially meat and animal products) are accelerating."

byron smith said...

The Conversation: Food vs fauna? Land-sparing vs land-sharing. Is it better to intensify food production to keep forests from being converted to agricultural production or to use less intensive farming methods that encourage biodiversity on farmed land yet may result in more clearing?

byron smith said...

Two very interesting documentaries: The World According to Monsanto and The Future of Food. The second was particularly good in focusing on the economic, patenting and political modifications pursued by Monsanto, which are far more insidious than genetic modifications.

byron smith said...

Review of Norman Wirzba's new book,Food and Faith
A theology of eating
by Rachel Stone.

byron smith said...

Plate to Planet. A good resource with short videos and information about factory farming. H/T Ben DeVries.

byron smith said...

CoE Food Justice page, with various interesting links and a good introductory paragraph.

byron smith said...

CD: Putting the fat cats on a diet. Stop supporting industrial agriculture with your wallet.

byron smith said...

Vidal: The future of food. A brief investigation of various more radical suggestions to address the doubling of global food consumption predicted by 2050.

byron smith said...

Guardian: Where GM foods are grown. An infographic of million hectares by nation. Interestingly, the US is just short of having as much area under GM crops as the rest of the world combined.

byron smith said...

CD: Opposition to Monsanto growing.

byron smith said...

What would Jesus Eat? A blog investigating "The convergence of consumerism, food, agriculture, environment and theology".

byron smith said...

MoJo: Drought and superbugs. GM foods breeding more resistant pests.

Evolution in action.

byron smith said...

Grist: The companies fighting GM labelling in the California.

byron smith said...

The Conversation: Anti-GM dirty tricks, a case study in media manipulation.

byron smith said...

Five million farmers sue Monsanto for $7.7b.

byron smith said...

Grist: The first legal case Monsanto might lose. It's a big one. If they win, then there are very scary implications...

byron smith said...

6 min summary video of the problems with the industrial ag system.

byron smith said...

Guardian: Meet the weeds Monsanto can't beat.

byron smith said...

Guardian: 30-50% of all food wasted.

byron smith said...

Guardian: Some reflections on recent revelations of horse meat found in Tesco burgers.

byron smith said...

See links and discussion with Brad Littlejohn concern Mark Lynas lecture on GM here.

byron smith said...

See also Brad's post on Mere Orthodoxy. I cut and paste (and slightly edited) my comments from FB onto that site.