Food and Class

[callady]

Food and class

Posted by Tom Philpott at 9:48 AM on 12 Oct 2005
The sustainable-food movement has a class problem.

<snip>

Economies of scale brought on by increasing consolidation, vast subsidies, and wholesale, unchecked exploitation of immigrant labor have created a system of cheap, plentiful, and dreadful food.

Industrialization, mass culture, wage stagnation, and Puritanism (e.g., prohibition) have almost completely destroyed traditional foodways here, allowing McDonald's and the home convenience-food industry to fill the void. A bad-feedback loop thrives; the food industry shovels billions of dollars into marketing and controls school lunches, leaving vast swaths of the population innocent of alternatives and ignorant of what real food tastes like.

In the meantime, a backlash against industrial food is mounting in the Anglo-American world. It started when Americans like Julia Child and Brits like Elizabeth David travelled to southern Europe at the precise point when industrialization was swamping our food culture. A prosperous middle class, buoyed by the post-War boom, travelled to Italy and France and tasted farm-fresh food prepared with flavor -- not portability, volume, and profit -- as the primary motivating factor. Hence the birth of the yuppie food revolution.

But middle-class wages have since stagnated; real growth in wages since the early '70s has been minimal, save for a blip in the 1990s. So the bulk of the people who frequent Dan Barber's restaurant or Alice Waters' place in Berkeley tend to be pretty well-heeled.

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2005/10/12/84943/582

[freeplessinseattle]

1. Interesting article, thank you!

I was so bothered when I heard some comments about the Katrina victims, such as "look at her! that's why she's poor! she spends all her money on food." gawd, what an incredibly cold statement loaded with classism and looksism, not to mention blame the victim mentality in multiple ways. I tried to explain that cheap food has a lot of calories but doesn't nourish or fill you up. a person can eat a whole bag of chips for dinner and not feel satisfied.

Years ago my when my then boyfriend and I were on an ultra tight budget we'd go to the food bank. I remember looking for produce but all they ever had was maybe a few heads of wilted lettuce, brown spotted bananas, or bruised apples. One time we got a whole pineapple from there and were so excited. Such a treat for the lower income class, and today at the fruit stand I almost bought a pineapple for only $3, but passed because it would "be too much trouble".