I never liked green peas. But there they were, at every Sunday lunch back in the ‘50s, alongside the pot roast and mashed potatoes. I was forced to eat them, required by the injunction that “people in China are starving.” I made a swimming pool out of the mashed potatoes, put the peas in the gravy in the potato pool, and, reluctantly, ate them. I was not convinced that I was helping the people of China by my sacrifice. How would me eating those damn peas help anybody?
Me helping starving
people in China was a nonsensical abstract idea to the twelve year old me. And
it still presents a problem for me. I simply don’t think that eating what’s on
my plate helps anybody. There are people all over the world starving. The
images on the screen of those children in Africa wasting away to nothing are
truly heartbreaking. The news stories about children in this country not having
anything to eat because schools are closed make clear the problem of food insecurity.
Scarcity is everywhere, and yet there is abundance. The problem of abundance
and scarcity – how to solve it?
I
don’t waste food, but I am not a member of the clean plate club. Certainly it
is bad to waste food, but is the badness in not eating what is on my plate, or
me putting more on my plate than I need? Once I have ordered or prepared the
food, eating it is irrelevant. It either becomes human waste or food waste. If
my mother wanted to help the starving Chinese, maybe she should have never bought
the damn peas in the first place.
I
am not poor; I can afford to buy as much food as I like. For me, food is
abundant, and the only thing that stops me wasting it is my attitude, my
thinking about it, my liberal guilt. Because of attitude, my mindset, I don’t
produce a great deal of food waste, but I feel sure that I would produce a lot
less if I were poor; if food were scarce for me, I wouldn’t have the privilege
of “wasting” it.
Back
to my peas and the clean plate club. The leftover peas or the leftover squash casserole
at the restaurant are actual waste. It is the result of my eyes being bigger
than my stomach. I created the waste by ordering too much food; my bad. But wait,
the food was there to be ordered, often already prepared. If I or someone else didn’t order it, it
would become food waste wouldn’t it? The problem is not what I do with the
food, but that there is too much food in the system. (Now you will say that there
is too much food in the system because of demand created by me ordering it; I
get that.)
The
system, the growing and distribution of food, produces food waste. My habits,
and your habits, of buying and consuming or not consuming are, I believe, close
to being inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. It is all very complicated, but two facts are clear
and indisputable: there is a great deal of food waste, and there is a great
deal of hunger.
One answer seems obvious to me. Instead of thinking of this excess food as “waste,”
let’s think of it as a food resource, and get it to the hungry. Send the peas
to the Chinese. From a business perspective, we have the product, the
materials, at zero cost. It is just landfill material. All we have to do is set
up a distribution system.
Hunger
in America is a social problem, and it needs a social solution. This is what
Patrick was talking about. Government action can, contrary to Mr. Reagan, be the
solution, and given the scope of this problem, should be the solution. This is
not the dreaded socialism, but even if you call it that, it is a good thing. Why
should addressing this problem be left to charitable organizations like Second
Harvest food banks and good hearted people like Betty Mae and her friends? Would
not Kroger benefit if all of the food “waste” it produced could be sold to the Excess
Food Distribution Agency (EFDA) and disposed of without cost? Would not restaurants
benefit from a reduced waste disposal expense? Would not local governments benefit from reduced solid waste disposal costs? Would not our environment benefit from fewer landfills? It would cost a little money,
but very little relative to its benefits. And it would make a better, more
just, society. One F-35 fighter costs $100 million dollars. Let’s not buy one
or two, and put that money toward helping the least among us.
We should recognize that hunger in America is a national shame, and that food “waste” is a resource available to address it. People are starving in the richest country in the world. There is abundance that can be shared to address this scarcity.
I came across the blog post below regarding the Mindset of
Abundance and the Mindset of Scarcity. It’s about how our mindsets affect our
actions. Shifting mindsets may be key to solving the problem of abundance and scarcity. Here is a quote relevant for this class: How can we fully embrace abundance in a world where abundance on one
side of the scale threatens scarcity on another—for example, does our abundant,
consumerist world not create a situation where our environment is so routinely
polluted?
https://www.shanebreslin.com/essays/scarcity-mindset-abundant-tension/
Weekly Participation Summary
09/22 This essay
09/18 Posted They’re Made of Meat, +
09/21 Posted comment on Up@Dawn
Machiavelli, Hobbes, Draper, Dinah...
09/22 Posted comment on Kathryn’s Post
Public Transport DQ
09/24 Posted comment on Betty Mae’s
Should We Freak Out
09/24 Posted comment on Green, the symbol of hope
Week Five Point Total – 5
Five Week Cumulative Point Total – 25
Hey Ed! In contrary to your liking, I always enjoyed the peas! The thing I was reluctantly forced to eat was the collared greens. To this day I have never met a person who loves collared greens! It is my opinion that we cut this out of humanities diet completely.
ReplyDeleteNow on to the environmental issue. My mother is an accountant and one of her clients is a low income housing community. We have recently discussed the nearby Publix donating things like bread into this community. Often times, large corporations like this are reluctant to donate food because there is little to no legal support for them and they are scared of a lawsuit involving the donation of old and harmful foods. The sad thing is that the items that they could safely donate also have a long shelf life so there is no need to take them from the store. Luckily, there are organizations like Feeding America that supports these grocery stores by helping monitor the donation of safe foods that couldn't harm an individual.
I like collard greens, at least the way they prepare them at Sunflower Cafe.
DeleteI did have a particular aversion to lima beans and aspragus, as a child. But there were no Sunflower Cafes then, where I grew up.
So much in our culture is driven by fear, fear or lawsuits not least. Seems like legislation could address that, and reassure Publix et al and other donors that they'll not be on the hook for the rare adverse reaction to consumables shared in good faith.
You are talking about such an important issue here and something that is hard to solve. What is the solution? Is it me only buying what I need, consuming less or the industry producing less?
ReplyDeleteI think the biggest thing we must figure out is how to get the food from where it is leftover, to where it is needed? Of course, there is demand but figuring out the logistics to be able to help the people that need it. I know many are always bringing up the fact that restaurants are throwing away meals and big portions of their meals, Ed was talking about the Rotisserie Chicken in the mall or supermarket that is being thrown away. There are two things that I need to say against that argument. For one, I think the prohibition of that is due to the fact that most stuff is already cooked or precooked and therefore cannot be given to anyone besides the people dining in that particular spot. If someone gets sick off the food they were distributing, who is going to be liable for that? And the reason most food is already ready, is because people who go to that restaurant or take-out are too busy and impatient to wait a little longer for their fresh food (and in worst-case, do not even eat it all then). That goes with the first argument, who is the actual problem here, consumer or food industry?
I am all for distributing the food and food waste is a huge problem in the country, but I think there is a lot more that needs to be figured out, in order to make it a profitable and effective.
Good thoughts, all. Bottom line seems to me to be the need for a fundamental shift of mindset, away from abundance and scarcity and towards sufficiency. Consume what's sufficient. Axe excess. "Use less and share more," as Jahren says.
ReplyDeletePeas are my least favorite thing to eat honestly so i agree with everything you've said, but when you ask why something hasn't been done it's a very simple answer. It is easy to do nothing and watch people starve, and hard to be a good person. Our government could do so many wonderful things for its people but they are not worried about doing whats best for us. If it doesn't help them get re-elected or line their pockets then it will not get done. The political games our leaders play has cost people their lives, and even this is not enough for them to change. In Yemen we allow millions of children to starve to death all because Saudi Arabia is our ally. I'm tired of picking up the slack for these evil people in charge when they are the ones who should be fixing the world, not us.
ReplyDeleteI find you point "once I order or prepare my food eating is irrelevant." very interesting and a fine point. I think that food waste is another issue that humans have dug themselves into in regards to environmental ethical dilemmas. Im not sure even if everyone was completely on the same side regarding food waste if there would even be change after that. Its one of those issues where its hard to pin point where it starts. Is it corporate restaurants ordering too much food and wasting it? overpopulation? Or a group effort by wasteful humans? I think a lot of these reasons are interlinked and create further issues past food waste. Therefore, how do you actually create change in this realm with this issue? I think an individual effort would help but I think policies must be enacted to create change so we are all not starving in years to come.
ReplyDeleteI see reflected in your peas anecdote the issue that we keep on coming to in this course: the importance of individual action vs changing the system within it operates. You could eat all your peas to assuage your child guilt over the other starving children, but what would that ultimately accomplish? Maybe a pea hunger strike to draw attention their plight would be slightly more conducive? Minds can certainly be swayed by actions. However, at the end of the day, systemic change is what is needed to change circumstance. That is definitely influenced by changed of heart, but takes a certain amount of will.
ReplyDelete