State of the Field

I enrolled in this course because I’m interested in how people think about food and how this translates into how and what they eat. This is in part because I’m interested in eating disorders, the types of cultural environments that may trigger their onset, how people in recovery or working towards recovery from an eating disorder re-conceptualize and interact with food and eating, and what it even means to classify a person’s eating “disordered” in the first place. It was also because I find enjoyment in cooking, growing and cultivating food, and because although I want to eat delicious food that is produced locally, sustainably, and ethically. And because I feel an aversion towards (and am maybe even a little bit suspicious of) the image, culture, and aesthetic that often surround farmers’ markets, organic food, local food, veganism and vegetarianism, and food activism. It’s not that I think that there’s something inherently bad about farmers’ markets, organic food, local food, veganism or vegetarianism, or food activism. Not in the least. But I don’t like how these things or behaviors have been branded. There is an uncomfortable sense of elitism and superficiality. It feels like a fad that a person has to be educated and wealthy and even look a certain way in order to participate in. I didn’t really want to be a part of that. And I don’t think I fit in with that image very well anyway. And yet I’m not ready to give up on food activism because I’m still interested in eating healthier food that was produced ethically and sustainably and was more profitable to the actual farmers than to giant corporations.  

So with these thoughts in mind, I attended our first class. I thought that my beliefs surrounding food would set me apart from most of my classmates. I for some reason expected that most of the people in the class who were serious about food activism bought into or didn’t see the problems with the aspects of food activism and local/sustainable/organic/ethical food movements that bothered me. I was a little bit apprehensive about being the odd one out, the one who had all of these problems with or conflicting feelings about a set of beliefs and consumer behaviors that everyone else would be completely enthusiastic about and devoted to.

It turns out I was pretty wrong.

In actuality, many of my classmates expressed some of the same conflicting feelings and uneasiness about food activism and different food movements that I was experiencing. I was fascinated as I listened to classmates talk about the different ways in which they negotiated their personal consumption (both economic and physical) of food. I listened to one classmate talk about how she felt that eating meat was “more honest” than maintaining a vegan or vegetarian diet, but that in spite of this belief she has a hard time eating meat because of how familiar she is with the reality of what its like to slaughter an animal. The same classmate wants to be a farmer, but is disillusioned by the image that small/local/sustainable farming has and doesn’t want to enable it or become a part of it. I listened to another classmate talk about how she maintains a mostly vegan diet because it makes her feel healthier and because she isn’t comfortable with the way that the animals that are used for meat, eggs, dairy, etc. are treated, but that she’s willing to make circumstance-specific exceptions. And I listened to this same classmate point out that although she believes that eating a plant-based diet is more ethical than one that involves meat or other animal products, there are plenty of human rights- and environmental-related conundrums tied up in the cultivation and distribution of plant foods as well. And that even though her solution to this situation may be imperfect, it’s the one that works best for her right now. Another classmate talked about how she had recently cut out bananas from her diet because she concluded that it’s impossible for someone living in New England to acquire one ethically or sustainably. What all of this means to me is that we don’t all have the same way of negotiating food choices, and doing so doesn’t hold the same degree of importance to all of us. But I think that it became clear over the course of the semester that the decisions of what and how to eat are complex for everyone. And sometimes very different reasons can lead to the same decision, and similar reasons can lead to different decisions. You don’t really know why a person eats the way they do or what it means to them until he or she explains themselves.

I didn’t have all of this figured out when I started this blog—I’ve been learning and re-thinking along the way. I think someone reading my blog posts from the first to the last would be able to detect the way in which my perspective developed as I continued to learn from class discussions, readings, my classmates’ blogs, and the documentaries I watched. But I did know then I started Eating Their Words that I wanted to investigate the image(s) and the branding of food activism and food movements. So I set out to make Eating Their Words a blog about media representations of food activism in food activism-related documentaries. Although not all of my posts ended up being strictly about this topic—I also discussed online articles, other blog posts, my own (possibly) food activist endeavors, and a field trip to Haymarket and the soon-to-be Boson Public Market, for example—I’ve ended up watching and writing about eight documentaries over the course of keeping this blog. Some documentaries I liked, others I didn’t. Most I had mixed feelings about. The same goes for the non-documentary topics I discussed. But everything I wrote about helped me think in different ways about food activism and how it and the people involved in it are portrayed.

Based on the documentaries and other topics that I wrote about, I’ve come to a few conclusions—or if not quite conclusions, at least something closer to conclusions than I had at the beginning of the semester. I touched on some of these a bit in my blog post from April 1^st, in which I discuss the documentary Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead. These are some of the main problems that I see in food activism’s image, or how it’s represented:

·      “Fat Shaming” – People who are considered overweight or obese don’t need to be made to feel guilty or embarrassed about it. It doesn’t help them or anyone else. And it also doesn’t necessarily indicate health problems. Food activism needs to get over the idea that part of being a food activist, or even just a healthy person and/or a healthy eater requires or results in a particular physique.

·      Food Guilt – Eating is intimate and personal. It just is. It’s putting something from outside your body inside your body, and there are a lot of things to consider when determining what is and is not allowed to cross that boundary—health, ethics, personal taste, values, comfort, cost, etc. And it’s not as though you can just opt out of deciding what and how to eat in the way that you can a lot of other decisions, at least not for very long. But that being said, sometimes circumstances are such that the choice you want isn’t an option, or you don’t know how you feel about any of your options. Or it’s exhausting to put this much thought into he decision of what to eat every time you need or want to eat. That’s ok. It’s the reality of being a complicated, multi-dimensional, dynamic person with lots of other concerns outside of eating. I think that within food activism, we should be better about taking this into account. That no one’s eating or buying habits are perfect, and that’s fine. Perfection is not only unrealistic, but also maybe not even desirable. Because how is someone going to be happy and productive and fulfilled in all the other important areas of his or her life if every bit of energy and time and mental space is focused on food choice? So I wish we wouldn’t feel guilty about making so-called “bad” food choices every once in a while or leading an imperfectly sustainably life. It’s fine. One meal, or even one lifetime of meals, won’t make or break the universe. That doesn't meant that we should stop caring about the food choices we make, but just that we should put things into perspective and realize that being a food activist doesn't mean freaking out over every food choice we ever make.

·      Sexism – I don’t appreciate being told that my sex (or gender, for that matter) positions me in a specific way to nature and thus food activism. And don’t expect me to be any more or less concerned with food activism or an aspect of food activism because of my sex either. I think that there are definitely certain trends in the sex and/or gender of the people involved in food activism and it’s different aspects, but instead of pinning it down as evidence of sexual determinism, it’s more useful to consider what kinds of power structures are creating these trends, what they mean, and whether or not they are helpful.

·      Elitism – Everyone wants to have access to good food. But let’s not forget that what constitutes “good” food is often culturally, temporarily, geographically, and class-situated. And it’s obnoxious (not to mention usually unhelpful) when a more privileged socioeconomic group tells a less privileged socioeconomic what they should be doing so that they can be “better.” I think that consumers should be able to make their own choices. If healthier, sustainably produced foods are made accessible and appealing, people will want them. So let’s focus on making that happen.

·      Image/Superficiality – Farmers shouldn’t need to appeal to a certain ideal personal image in order to sell their products. A person who raises chickens doesn’t also have to wear overalls or knit or play the banjo. As consumers, we shouldn’t expect farmers—who are complex, multi-faceted people just like anyone else—to fit our preconceived, idealized image of a local farmer. Just as a consumer of sustainably produced, local, and/or organic food shouldn’t have to fit any sort of image in order to be considered “legitimate.”

And one last thing: instead of distancing themselves from food activism or related activities and topics, perhaps people who are uneasy about the food activism image or “brand” should consider becoming more involved. In doing so, food activism can be re-framed or re-directed as less of a trend or a style or an image and more of a set of actively-supported common values or ideas with a very practical goals. Like pushing for more sustainable growing and distribution practices that won’t push the environment towards un-inhabitability. And making sure that everyone has access to sufficient food, and that that food is nutritious and safe and enjoyable. And that the economic structure behind the food that we eat is fair and balanced. In short, I think that food activism should be about people making their relationship with food healthier— nutritionally, economically, psychologically, socially, politically, and environmentally. And I wish that food activism documentaries were better at conveying that. 

"Forks Over Knives" and Some Thoughts on Protein

I have some confessions. I cut the fat off of grilled steaks and pork chops not to avoid it, but to savor it. I’ve eaten deep-fried cheesecake, and it was awesome. I like butter on my toast and cheese on anything. And I can’t imagine not eating eggs in some form or another—be it soft-boiled or baked into banana bread or something— at least several times a week.

image source: forksoverknives.com

But I eat a lot of other things too of course. In addition to the foods mentioned above, I also really like pretty much any type of green leafy vegetable if it’s been sautéed with a little garlic and olive oil, I love fresh fruit, I could probably eat guacamole every day for the rest of my life and not get tired of it, and I think that roasted sweet potatoes are delicious. And I definitely don’t eat fried cheesecake or steak fat very often, and probably wouldn’t even if they were always available. Well, that might not be true, maybe I would if they were always available. But they aren’t, so I don’t. Still, the point is that I eat things that aren’t great for me and I enjoy them. But it’s more often that I eat nutrient-dense,  fresh or minimally processed foods, and I feel that overall I have a pretty good diet and a pretty good awareness of what a healthy diet is. However I started to question that feeling a bit when I watched Forks Over Knives.

As I watched Forks Over Knives, a documentary by Lee Fulkerson about the health benefits of eating whole-food, plant-based diet, I was thinking a lot about my diet and to what extend it does or doesn’t resemble the type of diet that the experts in the documentary recommended. To very briefly summarize, the documentary focuses on interviews with T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D. and Caldwell B. Esselstyn, M.D.. Campbell (a nutrition researcher) and Esselstyn (a surgeon), with supporting interviews from doctors, researchers, food policy makers, and patients/converts to the plant-based whole food, low-protein diets, make a convincing argument for the health benefits of this diet (for more information about who was part of the documentary, click here). They claim that following this diet is not only a great way of preventing disease and feeling happier, healthier, and more energetic, but that it also is an effective way of actually curing/reversing diseases like diabetes and heart disease, and possibly even cancer. They even document people who have these types of diseases and stop taking all of the medicine that they’ve been prescribed (like blood pressure lowering medications, insulin, etc.) and instead treat their diseases by switching completely to a plant-based, whole food, low-protein diet.

I have to say, Forks Over Knives had me feeling convinced. Campbell and Esselstyn seemed to be pretty good authorities on health and nutrition—they’re professionals who have done a lot of research on these topics, they did a good job of explaining the research, they had a lot of “real people” examples, etc.  And since I’m not a nutrition expert (at least not yet!) I didn’t really have any counterpoints to their argument.

Now, after finishing the documentary and having time to reflect on it, I think I’m a little more skeptical about their “food as medicine” approach to treating chronic diseases—I believe in the importance of nutrition, but I for one would not be willing to try to cure myself of something like cancer with food alone. So I kind of don’t know what to say about that. But I actually think that one of the most interesting topics covered in the documentary, and which Campbell and Esselstyn focus on in relation to disease prevention, was that of protein.

Because the diet they advocate is low-protein, Campbell and Esselstyn discussed that I would call a sort of mythology surrounding protein among Americans: we think it’ll make us stronger, faster, smarter, more attractive, and just overall better. We tend to think that it’s something that you can practically never have too much of. That it is a valuable ingredient in food while grains and other plant-based foods are “fillers.” It’s tied up with ideas about masculinity, personal value, tradition, plentiful resources, etc. And because of this, consuming protein is just as much of a symbol/performance/status marker as it is a nutritional choice. So it makes sense to me that people are overdoing protein, and that that could have negative health consequences.

I’m not normally into keeping close track of my dietary intake, but I’m currently in the middle of a project in my nutrition class in which I have to keep track of everything I eat for three days and then assess my diet. My first day, I exceeded my daily recommended intake of protein by 75%! And it wasn’t like I ate a giant steak or something—I got my protein that day through things like cheese, milk, eggs, a turkey sandwich, etc. So whether or not the low-protein, plant-based diet proposed by Campbell and Esselstyn is as awesome and effective as they make it sound, I do think that a lot of people in the U.S.  (myself included, apparently) have a protein overconsumption problem, and would likely benefit from cutting back on it.  But making that change won’t be easy because not only are protein-rich foods pretty abundant and accessible in the U.S., they’re also really wrapped up in socio-cultural values, self-identification, and the food-mythology I mentioned earlier. And it’s really hard (and possibly not even ethical?) to tell people that their socio-cultural values, self-identification, and mythologies are flawed. But on the other hand, since protein overconsumption is responsible for quite a few environmental and health problems, maybe it's worth trying to figure out some way that the socio-cultural values, self-identification, and mythologies surrounding protein could be re-imagined.

P.S. I was going to include a link to a post titled "One Chicken Breast, Six Eggs, Two Dinners for Four" on a recipe blog called Nothing But Delicious that I thought summed up pretty well my view of meat consumption—that it should be savored, not wasted, used sparingly, etc., and that that we should be more mindful of where our food comes from and how we feel about it. Unfortunately that post seems to have been removed from the blog in the last couple of days, which is kind of weird considering it wasn't exactly controversial...? If the post reappears or I find out what happened to it, I'll include it in an upcoming post. 

A Response to "The Sexual Politics of Meat"

photo courtesy of caroljadams.com

The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist Vegetarian Critical Theory by Carol J. Adams describes the ways in which the consumption of animal products is inextricably entangled with, and possibly even the cause of, patriarchal power structures (such as misogyny, militarism, violence, et cetera) and how feminism, consequently, should be recognized as being inextricably linked to veganism. A big part of her argument also involves the ways in which euphemistic language used to refer to the flesh of animals and other animal products that we consume (such as “meat,” “veal,” or “poultry,” as opposed to “flesh,” “anemic calf,” and “hen,” for example) as a way of creating an maintain an “absent referent” and distancing ourselves from the reality of what is being eaten. The latter argument is one with which I am familiar and agree. But the former argument, and the way in which it connects with the latter argument (in that the euphemistic language used effectively helps to disguise the anti-feminist nature of animal product consumption) challenges my self-identification: I consider myself a feminist, but currently my diet is neither vegan nor vegetarian. Does this mean that I’m glorifying violence and have internalized misogyny? That’s certainly not what my diet means to me.

I think about vegetarianism, veganism, and other types of self-imposed dietary restrictions (and especially the reasons that people have for employing them) quite a bit, often specifically in terms of the connections that can exist between these types of restrictions and disordered eating, and the ways in which ideas regarding disordered eating are almost always linked with ideas about gender. I say this with the understanding that voluntarily restricting one’s diet does not necessarily constitute an eating disorder, and that the very terms “eating disorder” and “disordered eating,” and the concepts they represent are culturally and temporally situated, not absolute. But while acknowledging the complexity and relativity of these terms and how they are understood, my research and observations do suggest that mental illnesses involving unhealthy relationships with and feelings about food and eating practices are very real, and that they can have devastating mental, emotional, and physical impacts on an individual. Because of this, I am convinced of the reality of eating disorders and (for lack of a better term) refer to them as such, while at the same time noting the imperfect nature of the terms and the problematic assumptions that are sometimes applied to them. And I also cannot help but notice that the overwhelming majority of people I know who have suffered from eating disorders (and I know quite a few) and are now in recovery have switched to vegan or vegetarian diets. Why is this so?

           

It was with these thoughts that I read The Sexual Politics of Meat, and it is perhaps for this reason that I couldn’t help but notice some overlaps between descriptions of veganism and descriptions of anorexia nervosa. For example, Adams describes loving the feeling of “a certain undefinable lightness” associated with veganism (p. 196), the way in which “food becomes the spoken language of dissent” through a vegan or vegetarian diet (p. 213), how a vegan or vegetarian diet can “release women not only from domestic oppression but also from the tyranny of the medical profession” (p. 207) and how adopting a vegan or vegetarian diet can function as “a form of female networking” (p. 207). These are all ideas that are also used to describe eating disorders, especially anorexia nervosa. Interestingly, Adams also specifically refers to and quotes Caroline Bynum (who wrote Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women, mentioned on p. 213) and Joan Jacobs Brumberg (mentioned on pp. 210-211, who wrote Fasting Girls: The History of Anorexia Nervosa, Girl Culture, and The Body Project), scholars who study and write about eating disorders, women’s control of their bodies, and body image. But, perhaps in the interest of not conflating eating disorders with veganism, Adams never refers to eating disorders directly.

However, she does pose this question: “Could someone who has a psychological problem with food also have a legitimate objection to meat?” (p. 212). I want to say that the answer is yes, but I can’t figure out a good way of telling when someone’s objection to meat is “legitimate” or not, or even what that really means. And these questions, I think, are important for me to keep in mind in my research on eating disorders and in my study of nutrition. Even if I never get to any clear answers, keeping in mind the questions and thinking about why they are important is a good way of paying attention to a lot of the problematic issues wrapped up in the terms “eating disorder” and “disordered eating.”

"Farmageddon: The Unseen War on American Family Farms"

photo source: farmageddonmovie.com

          Farmageddon:The Unseen War on American Family Farms, a documentary written, narrated, directed, and produced by Kristin Canty, presents itself as an exposé of the tyranny of the Food and Drug Administration and other government agencies concerned with the regulation of food production and sales. Canty identifies herself at the beginning of the documentary as a mother of four children who strongly believes in the health benefits of consuming organic food and (especially) raw milk. She tells the story of how one of her sons suffered from severe allergies and was effectively cured by drinking raw milk from grass-fed cows and eating organic food from small farms. After this experience, Canty and her children began consuming raw dairy products and other foods from small organic farms exclusively, and Canty became friends with many of the farmers who produce them. From these farmers, Canty learned about the overbearing government regulation of small, organic, sustainable farms, the horror stories of legally-questionable searches and seizures of small organic farms, and the restrictive regulations regarding organic foods, unpasteurized dairy products, and cooperative markets.

            Canty’s documentary does an excellent job of making the viewer (or at least, me) feel sympathetic towards the farmers she interviewed, and even morally outraged by the ways in which some of their cases were handled by government agencies. However, throughout the documentary I felt that the message of the health benefits and morality of raw milk and grass-fed meats was much more prominent than the criticism of the ways in which small organic farms are treated by state and federal governments, which was presented at the beginning as the primary purpose of this documentary and of Canty’s investigative work. The former message certainly supports the latter in this case, because part of Canty’s argument is that the strict regulation (and at times, blatant exploitation and bullying) of small organic farming initiatives and the near-criminalization of natural food is absurd. But the prominence of this first message sometimes muddied her argument, and at times made the tone of the documentary seemed more proselytizing than informative.  I was left wondering if the message that Canty was really trying to convey was something more along the lines of “These small organic farmers are being unfairly persecuted. P.S. The food they produce is better for you and for the environment.” or “Food from small organic farms is healthier and it makes you a better person, so it’s ok if small organic farmers and/or the people who purchase food from them kind of break the law here and there. P.S. GOVERNMENT CONPIRACY!!! P.P.S. DRINK RAW MILK!!!!!!!!!!” And it's ok to make those arguments—I think people should be able to eat the kinds of foods they want to eat, and if they want to encourage other people to eat those foods too, that’s ok. But I’m a little frustrated when that’s done under the guise of a different argument.  It’s kind of like being invited by a new friend to go out for coffee only to find out once you get there that his or her real intentions are to tell you about the saving power of Jesus. It’s ok to drink raw milk, and it’s ok to feel like you were saved by Jesus, but it’s not ok to sneakily lure someone in to try to force either of those things upon them. No one likes false pretenses.

            There were also some interesting messages in Farmageddon regarding privilege and femininity. For one thing, all of the “concerned parent” consumers interviewed in the documentary, not to mention Kristin Canty herself, were specifically concerned mothers. Both Canty and a prominently featured interviewee named Liz Reitzig (who was first identified as a “concerned mom” and only later as a raw foods activist and president of the Maryland Independent Consumers and Farmers Association) say that they became interested in buying their food from small organic forms and consuming raw dairy products because they are moms, and they feel that they are doing what’s right for their children by raising them with a type of diet associated with food activism and small, sustainable, organic farming. Furthermore, both Canty and Reitzig are white and educated, and based on the appearance of their clothes and their homes and the fact that they have time and resources to do things like drive hours away each week to do their food shopping and participate in a cow-share program that involves milking the cow oneself, are also economically privileged. And in addition to the way in which both Canty and Reitzig self-identify primarily as mothers (as opposed to as activists or professionals), each one of these women has four children, which is about double the national average of children per family in the U.S.. This *might* suggest that within the organic food/raw milk/small farm movement(s) a relatively privileged status is often considered the norm, and a particular “brand” of femininity in which motherhood is idealized and the role of childbearing and childcare is expected to be a woman’s primary concern is being promoted.

            It is also worth noting that many of the farmers interviewed in this documentary were very well educated ex-professionals (such as NASA scientists, biology Ph.D.s, lawyers, etc.) who became disillusioned with their work and decided to “go back to the land.” And when these farmers talked about their customers, they specified that they too tended to be very “smart” people who held doctorate degrees and/or worked at post-secondary educational institutions. This suggests two things: (1.) that consuming foods (and especially raw foods) from small, organic, sustainable farms is something that (only?) more educated or smarter than average people do, and (2.) that these consumers are trying to use “natural food,” an “old-fashioned” way of living, and physical labor to morally purify themselves. Even the name of the documentary, Farmageddon, is a religious reference that suggests that the disagreements between food activism/small organic farms and government food regulations is a “final and conclusive battle” between good and evil (for the Merriam-Webster dictionary definition of Armageddon, click here), and is meant to instill fear in those who haven’t yet “seen the light” of organic, raw, or “natural” food. And again, I think it’s ok to try to make that argument. And I’m even interested in the argument. But personally, I was a little put off by how it was made.