When you really look at it, America's agriculture system, with its preference for big centrally managed factory operations over small locally run family farms, looks kind of, well, Communist. And I'm not thinking about the kind of "socialism" that Fox News warns will descend on America if Obamacare isn't repealed or if the rich have to pay more taxes. No, I mean real … [Read more...]
The independence diet
With July Fourth coming up, you can expect to hear lots of discussion on the left and in the green community about how bad "independence" really is -- no matter how cool you may think the Founding Fathers were. Instead of good old American values like independence, self-reliance and individualism, well meaning folks are sure to tell us that we should be embracing … [Read more...]
Lawyers for honest food
Imagine a country where the government outlawed the food that people have eaten for thousands of years. Imagine that raw milk straight from cows couldn't be sold across state lines unless it was heated until most of its nutritional value was destroyed. Imagine that one small town that tried to allow its local farmers to sell directly to families couldn't protect those … [Read more...]
Local food for smart people
If you've read The Omnivore's Dilemma or seen the documentaries Fresh! and Food, Inc. then you already know that the problem with food today is that most of it is produced less for the benefit of eaters than for the profit of agribusiness corporations. But going on about confinement chicken houses or lakes of pig manure at factory farms might be kind of a heavy message for a … [Read more...]
Factory food is making us dumber and dumber
In the film Idiocracy, the decline of America comes not through an oil shock, a debt crisis or even the rise of China and India. Instead, a kind of reverse eugenics, where yuppies defer childbearing until it's too late while guys in wife-beater T shirts keep on multiplying themselves generation after generation, brings the nation to a sad place in the year 2505. The average … [Read more...]