Why Michael Pollan and Alice Waters should quit celebrating food-price hikes

[marmar]

from Grist Magazine:



Skewed View from the Berkeley Hills
Why Michael Pollan and Alice Waters should quit celebrating food-price hikes
By Tom Philpott
04 Apr 2008



As their grocery bills rise, Americans should take comfort: the price they're paying for industrially produced food in the supermarket is starting to approach that of artisanally produced food at the farmers' market. And that might make more of them choose healthier, less environmentally destructive diets. At least, that's the message of an article in Wednesday's New York Times titled "Some Good News on Food Prices."

To make her case, reporter Kim Severson turned to two Berkeley-based icons of the sustainable-food movement, author Michael Pollan and restaurateur Alice Waters. "Higher food prices level the playing field for sustainable food that doesn't rely on fossil fuels," Pollan told Severson.

People struggling with their food bills should "make a sacrifice on the cell phone or the third pair of Nike shoes," Waters advised.

All due respect to Pollan and Waters, but I think they are grossly simplifying matters here. Nationwide, heightened food and gasoline prices, combined with an economy that's shedding jobs, are putting a hard squeeze on consumers. According to The New York Times, applications for food stamps have surged recently, and the program is projected to reach 28 million Americans over the next several months, the most since its inception in the 1960s.

I have a hard time imagining people who are struggling to put food on the table rambling off to the farmers' market on Saturday to fill cloth bags with the sort of fresh, local, organic produce so beloved by Pollan and Waters (and me). Indeed, higher food prices are likely to send many time- and cash-strapped people in quite the opposite direction.

Rising costs may end up increasing the allure of large entities with economies of scale, cutthroat buying practices, and experience in transforming low-quality ag inputs into stuff people like to eat. I'm talking about fast-food companies, which can likely absorb higher input prices and still churn out crap -- and rake in profits. If that's true, prices at the drive-thru won't rise quite as steeply as those in the supermarket line, giving people yet more incentive to abandon their home kitchens and flock to the Golden Arches. .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.grist.org/comments/food/2008/04/04/index.html

[DiverDave]

1. Check out this site to save on vittles:

http://www.thegrocerygame.com/

I saw a news report that showed 168 bucks worth of food for 47 ...just amazing.

I'm signing up this week.

On edit, this should be crossed posted in GD...

[Deja Q]

2. Maybe those who say "sacrifice the cell phone" can convince the phone company to

put back all those pay phones, removed because they weren't deemed "profitable" anymore. :popcorn:

I'll agree, "3rd pair of nike shoes" is another issue; those buggers cost hundreds and aren't exactly much better than the $50 orthopedic-approved shoes, or even the $30 generics, which aren't terrible either. But then nike's profits will hurt, and like everything else, that's solely the consumers' fault.

:shrug:

[boobooday]

3. Who are they talking about?

Third pair of Nike shoes? This particular example has a stench about it.

[Merlot]

4. Blame the Victim again:

People who don't have enought money or don't make the "right"choices on their food purchases. Instead of buyng fresh produce, they buy stupid stuff they don't need and scrimp on healthy food.

When the reality is most people can't afford the organic farmers market and as food prices rise will probably eat cheaper, less healty foods.

Eating cheap and healthy takes time, effort, knowledge.

Those people in the article are seriously out of touch.

[boobooday]

5. Wonder how much they spend on shoes . . .

This kind of holier-than-thou crap really gets in the way.

You're right, they are seriously out of touch, and only concerned with proving their own virtue.

[Tumbulu]

6. The thing is that the corporate poisoned toxins that people have come to call food

has never been good for anybody. Now, for once this stuff that actually kills you is priced not too much lower than healthy honestly produced real food.

People should never have been duped into eating these false foods in the first place. If they are no longer even cheap, then perhaps folks will make the switch to not so toxic and perhaps healthy foods.

I think that people have some wild idea that good food can be produced inexpensively. It is not so. And it is unfortunate that so many people have come to depend on food being so cheap.

[Callisto32]

7. I agree on the points about processed foods but,

I think the point is that many people are already feeling the squeeze just paying for things like housing/energy/food. With the cost of two of three of these things rising like the summer sun, it will be even less possible to make ends meet. The article shows signs of being from the "intelligencia" (sic.) who often do not see the economic situation of those in the lower economic ranks while simultaneously claiming to be advocates therefor.

[The2ndWheel]

8. That's called overshoot

We better hope we get cheaper energy, and that we use more and more of cheaper and cheaper energy. We also better hope that our ability to increase our activity due to cheaper energy doesn't result in us carving up the planet. It should be a fun century.