These days, the terms “local,”’seasonal,” and “organic” are now unavoidable. Chefs and restaurant menus deploy them relentlessly, while food magazines and newspaper food sections sprinkle them like salt. Meanwhile, books such as Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma and Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, both of which argue for a sustainable food system have been bestsellers, and movies such as Food, Inc., have thrown torn aside the curtain shielding “Big Food,” our globalized, industrialized food system.
Inevitably, there has been a backlash. Proponents of sustainable eating are derided as naively elitist or impossibly utopian. Alice Waters, godmother of the “seasonal, local, organic” movement, is mocked as rigid, self-righteous “St. Alice.” Critics of Big Food are even accused of trying to starve the world’s poor by depriving them of the benefits of the Green Revolution.
As an environmentalist, I cannot ignore the carnage caused by a food system that brings us “fresh” blueberries in February. However, there is no question that the goal of sustainable eating raises a number of practical and philosophical issues, on both the personal and global levels. To start with, there is the question of what to do during the winter, when my son is begging for avocados and the only local produce in the markets are Meyer lemons and artichokes. And that’s in the bountiful Bay Area; how can people in the less climate-blessed parts hope to eat sustainably year-round?
And then there are the issues of cost. Critics of sustainable food claim it is an elitist fad, not a real option for those without considerable disposable income. It is certainly true that a trip through the aisles of Whole Foods can make the eyes glaze with sticker shock — but does it have to be that way? Does the world really need an industrialized food system to feed its billions of hungry mouths? What can we do to make sustainable food more widely available, at prices that everyone can afford?
The goal here at 20,000 Meals is to address these questions and many others, to give average families the tools they need to make a difference by changing their habits, to make good choices that meet both practical and ecological goals, to explore strategies for creating sustainable food systems and to help parents raise a generation of responsible eaters.
Inevitably, there has been a backlash. Proponents of sustainable eating are derided as naively elitist or impossibly utopian. Alice Waters, godmother of the “seasonal, local, organic” movement, is mocked as rigid, self-righteous “St. Alice.” Critics of Big Food are even accused of trying to starve the world’s poor by depriving them of the benefits of the Green Revolution.
As an environmentalist, I cannot ignore the carnage caused by a food system that brings us “fresh” blueberries in February. However, there is no question that the goal of sustainable eating raises a number of practical and philosophical issues, on both the personal and global levels. To start with, there is the question of what to do during the winter, when my son is begging for avocados and the only local produce in the markets are Meyer lemons and artichokes. And that’s in the bountiful Bay Area; how can people in the less climate-blessed parts hope to eat sustainably year-round?
And then there are the issues of cost. Critics of sustainable food claim it is an elitist fad, not a real option for those without considerable disposable income. It is certainly true that a trip through the aisles of Whole Foods can make the eyes glaze with sticker shock — but does it have to be that way? Does the world really need an industrialized food system to feed its billions of hungry mouths? What can we do to make sustainable food more widely available, at prices that everyone can afford?
The goal here at 20,000 Meals is to address these questions and many others, to give average families the tools they need to make a difference by changing their habits, to make good choices that meet both practical and ecological goals, to explore strategies for creating sustainable food systems and to help parents raise a generation of responsible eaters.
