You Are What You Eat

Last updated on: October 3, 2012 at 8:00 am by Sarah Babbs

You Are What You Eat 2012-10-03T08:00:30-04:00 Sarah Babbs

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Today’s post is the first in a semi-regular series on how food and eating can either further or hinder social justice. This post is from Mary, whom I know from grad school, and who writes a wonderful blog about food issues at Peas and Justice. Mary lives in an intentional community with her husband and works for a community garden.

Eating is a political act. I remember not understanding this statement when I first heard it. I thought eating was just a healthy, delicious act, and didn’t consider the larger implications of my food choices. Learning more about global agricultural policies, I realized that where I choose to buy my food and what I choose to eat can impact the environment, my local economy, and global hunger. I now believe that eating is the most delicious way to contribute to global justice. The saying goes “if you want peace, work for justice.” I believe that justice and peace start at home – right on our plates and forks.

Food justice is closely tied to the idea of food security, or the idea that our food system should be designed to allow all its members access to healthy, adequate food. Our global food system has enough food to feed everyone, yet millions go hungry. In the United States, many people (including children) go to bed hungry each night because of lack of resources to purchase food or inability to access food.

Our food system is designed so that large factory style farms provide raw materials (corn, soy beans, fruits, and vegetables) that are shipped to factories to be transformed into finished products that are ultimately purchased by consumers at grocery stores. Unsustainable amounts of inputs including fuel, chemicals, and government subsidies are required to maintain our food system. The outputs of our agricultural practices include severe environmental degradation, the decline of family farms, and numerous health problems for Americans.

Even with the large amount of energy and resources invested into our food system, food security still cannot be guaranteed for all. An increasing amount of people are considered food insecure or live in food deserts. A food desert can be simply defined as not having an easily accessible grocery store or place to purchase healthy foods. People without cars may not live within walking distance of a grocery store and may have to take two or three buses to purchase their groceries. Food deserts exist in both urban and rural areas including areas that used to be considered the bread-basket of America.

Access to a healthy food system represents a form of social marginalization. Mark Winne, author of book Closing the Food Gap, explains that “We have in America today a tale of two food systems—one for the poor and one for everyone else.”1 Problems of the food system, such as food deserts, affect certain populations disproportionately, which Winne says should come “as no surprise to anyone. When the food system fails our communities, “people of color, low-income households, and women are the first to suffer.”2 When marginalized communities cannot access healthy goods, they may adopt unhealthy eating habits such as consuming cheap processed and fast-food. These dietary habits lead to negative health consequences such as diabetes, obesity, and high blood pressure.

Many people who are food insecure may also rely on food pantries. Food pantries have evolved from an emergency food source to the long-term food provider for millions of people in the U.S. There is a dangerous idea that the poor should accept anything they are given, which can lead to accepting unhealthy food donations. In Closing the Food Gap, Winne quotes one food pantry volunteer as saying, “‘We’re not a grocery store…I think [the clients] should be satisfied with whatever they get.’”3 Fortunately, many pantries are beginning to take seriously the fact that they provide some of the only food their clients are eating. Yet ever growing expansion of food pantries should not and cannot be the approach to solving community food security;4 a more comprehensive, non-emergency approach will be needed.

So what do we do? As Catholics, our faith has resources to help us make sense of the large issues connected with food justice. Catholic Social Teaching gives special attention to food and agriculture issues in “For I was Hungry and You Gave me Food.” This document draws off of Matthew 25 and provides six values to shape food policy: (1) overcoming hunger and poverty, (2) providing a safe, affordable, and sustainable food supply, (3) ensuring a decent life for farmers and farmworkers, (4) sustaining and strengthening rural communities, (5) protecting God’s creation, (6) expanding participation.5 The United States Catholic Conference of Bishops (USCCB) also recognizes that the “way we organize society economically and politically, including the way our agricultural system is structured, impacts human dignity.”6 Importantly, “Agriculture is not just another economic sector. It is about food and hunger, the way we treat those who grow and harvest our food and fiber, and what kind of nation and world we are shaping.”7 Documents and ideas like this give Catholics a guideline for how their faith connects to everyday issues such as hunger and food security.

Fortunately, it is very easy to take action to help make a better food system. Food justice is my favorite social justice issue because it can be so easy and rewarding to make a difference. (If action steps aren’t at least somewhat enjoyable, it can be temptingly easy to burn out as you try to make a difference.) You can start your food justice journey by simply growing some of your own food. This can be as easy as putting a pot of herbs in your kitchen and can evolve to growing lettuce or growing tomatoes to can your own tomato sauce. You can support agricultural practices by buying produce at your local farmer’s market or signing up for a CSA. When shopping at the grocery store, take a look at where your produce has come from and try to choose (or ask your grocer) for produce that has come from your region. I also recommend avoiding the heavily processed foods in all those dangerously delicious aisles.

As you begin to make more sustainable food choices, you can also make a difference by learning more about larger food justice issues. Read about the U.S. farm bill and learn about how agricultural polices can contribute to hunger. Talk to your local food pantry and ask about the possibility of donating fresh fruits and vegetables instead of the unused canned goods from the back of your shelf (totally guilty of this one). Talk to a local representative about the possibility of minimizing the food deserts in your area.

Growing my own food, being part of a CSA, and participating in a community garden have been therapeutic and empowering experiences for me and have shown me that small steps can make such a difference. The small choices we make can have large economic and political consequences that can help lead to greater food security for all our communities. Happy eating!

Footnotes:

1 Mark Winne, Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty, (Boston: Beacon Press, 2008) 175.

2 Winne, 190.

3 Winne, 71.

4 According to the Feeding America website, the largest food hunger-relief charity in the U.S., they have had a 46 percent increase in demand from 2006 and now provide food to 37 million Americans including 14 million children each year. While some of this increase is due to the current economic crisis, the ever-growing increase in demand is evidence that food pantries are not solving hunger in the U.S.

5 United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, “Catholic Reflections on Food, Farmers, and Farmworkers,” available from http://www.usccb.org/bishops/agricultural.shtml.

6 Ibid.

7 Ibid.

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