I have so much to learn about food systems it makes me dizzy!

After slogging through the nightmare of industrialized agriculture and factory farming, I have reached the light in Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma.

Chapter 10, “Grass, 13 Different Ways of Looking at Pasture” has left me feeling so excited and inspired by the possibilities of a “closed-loop” farming practice that I probably shouldn’t write about it right now for fear of being too gushy and coming across as a high-pitched enthusiastic woman who doesn’t really know much about what she is trying to talk about.

Which I am.

But I just had to write a little bit.

I wrote in my last post about the high price of local food and wanted to add this to the discussion.

In the pages of my book, Michael Pollan has just courageously taken part in a chicken slaughter at Joel Salatin’s Polyface farm in Virginia, and is driving South with Joel to meet one of the folks responsible for some of the distribution of said chickens in their path from farm to plate. This following of the path, of food from farm to plate, is Pollan’s MO for the book, and I am seeing more and more clearly that the shorter that path is, the better the outcome for all involved (accept of course the business men at the top of the corporate ladder.) On the drive, Pollan and Salatin get into talking about “the growing local-food movement, the challenges it faces, and the whole sticky issue of price.”

I’ll let Pollan, who is not a gushy, high-pitched woman who doesn’t know what she is talking about, take over:

I asked Joel how he answers the charge that because food like his is more expensive it is inherently elitist.

“I don’t accept the premise. First off, those weren’t any elitists you met on the farm this morning (members of the local community who had come to pick up their freshly plucked chickens.) We sell to all kinds of people. Second, whenever I hear people say clean food is expensive, I tell them it’s actually the cheapest food you can buy. That always gets their attention. Then I explain that with our food all of the costs are figured into the price. Society is not bearing the cost of water pollution, of antibiotic resistance, of food-borne illnesses, of crop subsidies, of subsidized oil and water – off all the hidden costs to the environment and the taxpayer that make cheap food seem cheap. No thinking person will tell you they don’t care about all that. I tell them the choice is simple: You can buy honestly priced food or you can buy irresponsibly priced food.”

It’s true that cheap industrial food is heavily subsidized in many ways such that its price in the supermarket does not reflect its real cost. But until the rules that govern our food system change, organic or sustainable food is going to cost more at the register, more than some people can afford. Yet for the great majority of us the story is not quite so simple. As a society we Americans spend only a fraction of our disposable income feeding ourselves – about a tenth, down from a fifth in the 1950s. Americans today spend less on food, as a percentage of disposable income, that any other industrialized nation, and probably less than any people in the history of the world. This suggests that there are many of us who could afford to spend more on food if we chose to. After all, it isn’t only the elite who in recent years have found an extra fifty or one hundred dollars each month to spend on cell phones (now owned by more than half the U.S. population, children included) or television, which close to 90 percent of all U.S. households now pay for. Another formerly free good that more than half of us happily pay for today is water. So is the unwillingness to pay more for food really a matter of affordability of priority?

As things stand, artisanal producers like Joel compete not on price but quality, which, oddly enough, is still a somewhat novel idea when it comes to food.

“When someone drives up to the farm in a BMW and asks me why our eggs cost more,…well, first I try not to get mad. Frankly, any city person who doesn’t think I deserve a white-collar salary as a farmer doesn’t deserve my special food. Let them eat E.coli. But I don’t say that. Instead, I take him outside and point at his car. ‘Sir, you clearly understand quality and are willing to pay for it. Well, food is no different: You get what you pay for.’

Gushy woman taking back over now: I’m glad Michael of Foxglove farm didn’t tell David and I to go eat E.coli that day at the market when we brought up the topic of pricey local food.

I can often fall into believing the argument of “well, not everyone can afford this so it can’t be a solution.” This is so clearly not true for a number of reasons! I forget that I could easily be someone who could not afford good quality food if I had different priorities.

I know very intimately that my family’s choice to buy good quality food means that I don’t have a new pair of shoes every other week. We don’t own a house, a T.V., a cell phone, a new car, or have the latest style of jeans.

Yes, we do spend about one half of our disposable income on food, much more than the current average of one tenth, but this is a choice I am happy to make. The benefits are immeasurable, and you know something is worth the dollar when you can’t measure the good that comes from it. And while I do like nice clothes, how I dress my body from the inside is more important to me than what I put on the outside of it.

I am feeling very humble when I say this, and so I hope it does not come across as self-righteous, but I can afford to buy good quality food because I choose to. I am very grateful to have the ability to make this choice.

I can afford to buy good quality food because I believe it is more important to feed my daughter well than to dress her well. I can afford to buy good quality food because I believe in farmers who are nurturing the fertility of the land instead of depleting it. I can afford to buy good quality food because I want to remain healthy and to be able to enjoy my good quality food when I am at the end of my life!!

Good quality food is worth it to me. So, lets get out there and buy some honestly priced food! (I much prefer the view of honestly priced over highly priced!)

BTW, if you haven’t yet read Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan, it comes highly recommend by this book-worm.

Onwards with the learning!

Yours in amazing health, Katrina.