THINQon : Less Food, Same Price

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Tom Gremain, Lover of the sublime and subtle beauty of this...

Less Food, Same Price

Latest Post: April 3, 2011 at 7:27 PM

4 followers

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/29/business/29shrink.html?hp : Check out this NY TIMES article. Thoughts?

I think these "marketing techniques" are exactly the problem with modern America. We've become so focused on bottom-line economics and supporting trans-national corporations, that we are totally willing to sell out the American public. What's worse is that our Government, one that is by and for the people, are coyly codifying this relationship--the corporation is not regulated, as the public pays their bottom-line without any recourse. I think that packaged food must go, I think that line-production of food must go, I think the consumer should pay more for local food, and start cooking again. We need to get back to our 1930s ethos... we need to remember what it is like to be an HONEST human being where subltle thievery outlined in this article does not make the company profit, but makes the company instead a target for consumers to boycott. I buy only veggies and chicken and rice and fish and fruit. I used to eat anything and everything, and my digestive sytem went to crap... pun, well, i guess intended. It took a lot of growing up to realize how many, many years of unbalanced diet can lead to debhilitating symptoms. And it took more growing up to have patience to cure that imbalance and implement proper diet. I now feel in control of my body again, and it was 100% due to diet. Again, this has implications in our health care system... both mental health and bodily health.

Thoughts? What can we do to actually show the government we want more consumer protection, and perhaps begin the real revolution: The U.S. does not need to be the world's economic leader at the cost of our general welfare. Real revolution will involve the implimentation of proper diets, of less working hours, of less exploititive loans, of less television propoganda. And all of these changes only have a possiblity if our Government reigns in its influence, takes a stand, and lives with the consequences of higher consumer prices that are better for the body, mind and soul. I feel like my country has gone wild. I truly get sad thinking about how much our general population--especially the impovrished--is oppressed by creative and subtle propoganda. I get sad that the U.S. has these ideals of equality and general welfare, but do little to impliment these actually. Actually... in reality... its one thing to say it. I am going to hold a sign outside near a busy intersection today about this..

Any catch phrases?

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Hanna Clapson, I am an English major. I write and think. I...

March 29, 2011 at 3:54 PM

22 followers

I feel like the epidemic of obesity which is obviously correlated with terrible and unrealistic diets comes directly out of our increasing alienation from the land. A large part of the satisfaction of eating healthy for me is in knowing where the food I'm eating comes from. When I know the farm and the land and the tree from where my food grows there's almost a sense of ownership over it. There's more pride in eating healthy because the relationship between me and my body, my health, and the land is entirely interweaved.

When food is from a production line, from a factory of whose conditions we do not want to know, we are taught that it's okay to accept what's given to us blindly. We are taught it's better not to ask where the food comes from and just be happy that it comes. Maybe this was born from a dust bowl period in our history where there was no food going around at all, people needed to eat no matter what. Or maybe it's come after a long period of urbanization, people moving away from the land, the frontier all used up, no one aspires to be a farmer anymore, why is that?

Were the system to change we need to change what's normal. Policy goes a long way when it is implemented from the bottom up, which is to say in federal institutions. Maybe if our schools relied on natural and local organic food, taught urban farming to their students, had a teaching garden. Maybe if our prisoners grew their own food. If hospitals integrated therapy through farm work. It's something which needs to be ingrained into social thought, that food is divinely rewarded and as such should be treated with awe and appreciation.

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Emma Brock

March 29, 2011 at 11:40 PM

58 followers

Tom what you're talking about is, politically speaking, extremely ambitious: basically revolutionizing how people think about their relationship to the food they consume.

First of all, agribusiness isn't going to have any of it.

The Doha round of trade talks have been moribund for years, largely over differences between the developed and developing world on agricultural subsidies. In previous rounds the developing world accepted trade agreements that opened their domestic markets to Western goods and services while Western countries maintained trade barriers against agricultural imports from the developing world. Countries like China, India and Brazil were unwilling to conclude another round on such unfavorable terms, which brings us to the current impasse. It says something about the power of agribusiness in the West that governments nominally committed to neo liberal trade practices are unwilling to challenge interests that have been blocking trade liberalization for years, even as using tax dollars to subsidize those interests to the tune of billions of dollars a year runs directly counter to the ideology they espouse and are trying to force the rest of the world to accept!

Political impossibilities aside, there are two other objections that are going to be raised against any campaign that favors fresh, locally sources produce over packaged, prepared food, namely that the latter are more convenient and they are cheaper, and it's hard to argue either point. There is a widespread perception today that people are unusually time constrained (which isn't actually true, but perception is everything) and therefore they "need" items that can be prepared quickly, preferably in a microwave. Also, it's simply a fact that it's much easier for low income people to get a sufficiency (and often a good deal more than a sufficiency) of calories by purchasing packaged foods instead of fresh ones.

This isn't perhaps an really hard sell to the upper middle class but how do you pitch it to the (much more numerous) lower class, many of whom do their grocery shopping at Walmart (if they're lucky enough to own a car) and think dining at MacDonalds is a treat?