By Brook Larios | SDUN Reporter
I can’t stomach being cutesy. Yet, we’re a culture of people who love cutesy, we embrace it; we sop it up. To us, it’s like a sundae doused in unicorn laughter-flavored syrup, like a helping of perfectly al dente macaroni topped with three rich artisan cheeses. Artisan. There’s one of those cutesy words. Like farm-to-table or farm-to-fork or sustainable. I’ll admit it; I’m guilty of using them all.
A few years ago at the Hillcrest Farmers Market, I ran into a local grower who saw the world a little differently than most. He was a corporate guy turned earth worshipper and he didn’t care much for rules. When I introduced myself as a sustainable food writer, he looked at me as though I carried the plague. He asked, “What is sustainable food?”
Good question.
Touting my role in the sustainable food movement was simple; describing it with a modicum of intellect was not. Fresh, clean food – sure, but that doesn’t explain why we use these words to describe the foods our great-grandparents ate.
We use the cutesy nicknames because labels are easy; they allow us to communicate a broad concept without having to define it. They roll off the tongue; describing the system with which they’re associated does not. The grower’s point was this: All food is sustainable. You eat it and it keeps you alive. Even the Yellow 5-, Red 10-laden variety.
He had me. I blushed, thanked him and walked away.
This column began as a Thanksgiving piece. I scrapped it. With millions experiencing food scarcity (read: starving), sometimes the type of food we eat simply seems less impressive than the fact we eat at all.
In a recent article published in “The Economist,” writer John Parker posed this question: With an estimated two billion person increase in the world’s population by 2050, will there be enough food to go around?
Being a picky eater, as one might expect, is a luxury. But should it be? Traditional and organic farming, Parker pointed out, could feed Europeans and Americans, but not the world. He did not, however, take into account groups like Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF), which brings solar power to developing communities so children can study when winter light ceases early in the day and so their parents can grow crops to nourish them when that season’s sun is scarce. Groups like this acknowledge the industrial systems we’ve created aren’t working like Monsanto would have you believe. Heavy-hitters like SELF, whose board of directors includes green advocate Ed Begley Jr., are working directly with these communities to enhance the framework already in place –and it’s working.
There are two camps of people most closely linked to the world’s food culture, Parker went on to explain: Those who wonder, “what should we have for dinner” and those who ask, “will there be anything for dinner.” Our food system is tiered and, while there’s no quick fix, localizing it is a key step in breaking those layers, in nourishing our neighbors despite their economic circumstances.
In certain parts of our own county, there are fewer economical barriers to fresh, locally and ethically grown produce. The City Heights, Linda Vista and San Marcos farmers markets accept EBT (the semi-newly named food stamp program). In an evolved food system, more farmers markets would begin this practice. Those of us who can afford to pay for our local growers’ bounties would support them by paying in full, for theirs is a life where nine-to-five means nothing. Weekends aren’t acknowledged by those with whom they work (meaning the vegetables, fruits and herbs).
Those cutesy words? A thing of the past. The things of our past, like neighborhood markets of fruits and vegetables untouched by pesticide science? Our present.
