Farm Fresh Fantasy
November 18, 2011 | Eat Local
The American supermarket is a powerhouse with no seasons, no shopping restrictions, and an abnormal amount of variety. This abundance is nothing short of an illusion; in fact there are only a small number of companies and crops involved. If you were to follow most of this food back to the source, you would consistently find yourself returning to an enormous cornfield. This variety of products is really just several different configurations of one component, corn.Corn is in everything from breads, PowerBars, ketchup, and Pop-Tarts to Cough Syrups, batteries, and Vitamin C. Some other common terms for food additives that contain corn are: mono- and di-glycerides, dextrin, maltodextrin, dextrose (glucose), fructose, monosodium glutamate or MSG, sorbitol, and starch. All these ingredients on the back of your processed food contain corn. Corn is also fed to animals; it is the main feed ingredient for cows, pigs, chickens, and fish.
We are engineering our food, at a lower-cost and higher yield than ever before. These new foods can be made to possess desired traits, from a certain texture to extended shelf lives. We are even engineering the animal. Take chickens for example, they are grown twice as fast and twice as big as they were in the 1960’s. Studies show that more people prefer white meat so the chicken has been engineered to have bigger breasts, but these innovations do not come without a cost. The chickens rapid growth and development puts a substantial strain on the animal; although twice as much meat is produced the bones and internal organs remain underdeveloped and make the bird effectively immobilized.
This genetic engineering is not just limited to corn and meat, it has extended to: soy beans, tomatoes, rice, and squash. All these crops are grown on a massive scale in an industrial setting, a monoculture practice of producing one single enormous crop, picked while they are still green, shipped hundreds of miles, and force ripened with ethylene gas.
We have become so far removed from our food we don’t know what’s in it, or how it is made. A deliberate divide has been placed between us and where or food is coming from. Our food is genetically modified, injected with hormones, sprayed with toxins, and ripened with gasses. The reality of the industrialized food system is a factory, not a farm. The utopian imagery of rolling green prairies and happy cows has been replaced with factory-like production on a massive scale.
This is exactly why we must make the shift from factory farms to local food production. The ability to know your farmer and where you food is coming from is something the consumer has the power to control. Every time you purchase something you are supporting and enabling that practice to continue. The power to go to the farm and see your food, know your farmer, and know how your food is produced before it reaches your table is the type of approach needed to promote transparency in the food system.
Here are a few alternative food networks that are easy to get involved in and support sustainable, local, and organic agriculture.
CSAs
Community Supported Agriculture, or CSAs, consist of a community of growers and consumers that typically put together a weekly box scheme of locally grown produce, meat, and eggs for either home delivery or pick up.
An example of one in Ireland:
Farmers Markets
Supporting infrastructure and agriculture by building sustainable, independent, and transparent food economies, you can find your local farmers market with this directory:
Also See:
Urban Gardening, Community Gardens, and Yard Sharing for more local fare.
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