KitchenCosmologyNourishing Engagement with the Living Universe

"Increasingly, people are regarding their food choices as a form of political action. One of the consumers we interviewed for this book said, 'I try to vote with my dollar and not enrich those who are doing bad things in the world.'"  Peter Singer and Jim Mason, The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter

Is Eating Organic Food “Elitist”?

I was recently in Santa Barbara – the epitome of wealthy California communities – working with a good friend on a book about our’ relationship with food. One afternoon we took his dog Bokie to the “dog park” and ended up having a fascinating conversation with a woman who grew up in South Africa. The two dog owners realized that their dogs probably ate a better diet than at least one billion people in the world – and had better water to drink, better sanitation, and perhaps even better wardrobes. This led to a discussion of organic food.

Celeste expressed a sentiment I hear often these days, “No one who is struggling to get enough to eat could care less whether or not their food was raised organically.” No one can argue with that. But where does it leave you and I – and I’m not implying that some of you aren’t struggling with food issues. But let’s face it. The majority of us West County residents have a wider set of options. What is our responsibility? Is eating organic food elitist?

I have been reading a great deal lately about the global food system, about hunger and poverty, about environmental sustainability, and about the forces that seem to be keeping us – and I mean all of us on the planet – from acting effectively to avert the crisis we are facing. This is a conversation I hope to have with you over the next few months.

At the deepest level, the problem seems to be one of “seeing.” In our increasingly fragmented world, we don’t really see or experience ourselves to be part of the whole. In our increasingly global and corporate world, the impact of our choices is often felt in places that are distant from where we live. These two “blind spots” are at the root of our ability to act in ways that are actually dissonant with our own vision of the world we want to create.

In Jon Kabat-Zinn’s words, “In general, if you feel you’ve got a problem to solve that is ‘out there’ and you don’t necessarily see or want to see any possible relationship between the ‘you’ who is trying to solve the problem and what the problem actually is, you may wind up not being able to see the problem accurately, in its fullness.” When we categorize the problems we are facing as ‘out there,’ when we separate ourselves from them, we lose sight of the fact that we are each an integral part of this whole that we are living in. We lose sight of the fact that you and I are creating the world we have through our own individual actions.

What does it mean to see ourselves as part of the whole? When we look at the world from there, how does it shape our choices?  My deep belief is that our voices and actions matter and that in a real way, there is no middle ground – we either act in ways that create the world we say we want or we support what exists. By doing nothing, we are always tacitly supporting the status quo.

When we look from this whole, is eating organic food elitist? I don’t think so. Elitism is a form of disconnection, a way of seeing yourself as outside of the rules. Elitism is about acting without regard for the consequences on others, especially those outside of your circle. Choosing to eat organically has many positive benefits for the entire planet -- less pesticides and herbicides, better soil and water quality, and better working conditions for farm workers just to name a few.

It’s true that organic food is more expensive. One of the main reasons is that we are paying the full cost of our food rather than pushing some of the costs onto the environment and the health care system. We sacrifice some of our income in the short term rather than sacrificing our health and the health of the planet in the long term. Celeste is right – no one who is struggling to get enough to eat could care less about whether or not their food was raised organically. This is all the more reason that those of us who can afford to buy organic food, make this choice. By voting with our dollars we send a powerful message to our government and to the food industry. As demand for organic food grows, costs will come down and organic food will become a choice for  more and more of us. 

We are blessed to live in a part of the country where organic food choices are plentiful. If you want to keep your food costs down, visit one of the many local farmer’s markets, join a CSA like Laguna Farm, start a garden, or choose to eat food that’s in season. In the words of John Ikerd, a professor from the University of Missouri, “We still have the power to change our food system and our society, the only way it has ever been changed – one by one. . . as consumers decide to eat local and farmers decide to grow for local customers we can transform the corporate global food system to a network of local sustainable food systems."

*This article originally appeared in the August 2006 issue of the West County Gazette, Sonoma County, California.