To Steven Budiansky, in response to his piece “Math Lessons for Locavores” published in the NYT August 19, 2010:
I just read your article “Math Lessons for Locavores” in the NYT. I hope you can take the time to read and respond to my email.
I am not sophisticated in the ethical food movement and I live in semi-rural Pacific Northwest where we have local, amazing farms (we are currently eating from Helsing Junction Farms, an organic CSA). So my thoughts on the locavore movement are thus informed.
Thank you for your article – especially your observances on the energy consumption of driving and household operations and the perspective such observances afford. I liked the points you make in your article and the fact you seem to be dispelling the “do-gooder” nature of the locavore movement. Do-gooder does no good in my opinion as it tends to ignore those who are not privileged to make such holy choices. The hothouse-tomato math was also a good point.
However there were some points you seemed to omit entirely and I was wondering why you’d make such omissions. For instance, most locavores I personally know advocate eating seasonally, which means they wouldn’t be (in theory) consuming tomatoes when tomatoes aren’t in season (or they’d be eating preserved ones). The famed authors of The 100 Mile Diet were not eating hothouse foods if I remember, but rather seasonally with visits to farms and employing preservation methods.
Do you not think this is a rather powerful tool for knowing what one’s area grows while supporting small, local, ethical and family-run practices over heavily subsidized agribusiness? To read your article you seem to find agribusiness a glowing institution of virtue. Have you watched many documentaries on the practices therein, taken a cursory study of the Farm Bill and its effects, or explored many of health effects of our processed food diet including the saturation of HFCS? I am not accusing you of ignorance on these issues. But if you have explored them I’m wondering how those considerations might be incorporated into your worldview.
A little personal anecdote. We’ve been instrumental in bringing the abovementioned CSA here to our town. My husband brought the movie Food, Inc. to our area with no small effort on his part (the next-closest place you could find it was in Seattle which is what passes for the Big City here in Washington). Through our efforts and our friends’ and family support the organic farm fifty miles away now has enough customers in Hoquiam we warrant our own drop-station. Local residents are participating in this locally- and organically-produced food, supporting a family business and ethical practices (including the farm’s workers), eating well, finding connection with their food, and supporting the charity efforts of the farm. You can actually take your children to the place their food is grown and you can help harvest (and we have done). If see immense value in all of this, and more I could list besides.
If we locals had just eaten peppers wherever “someone else” decides peppers should come from we would miss all of these opportunities.
I am not an ethical food fanatic as you might understand such. Those in this movement often shame, disparage, and offer little assistance to those in less privileged socioeconomic spheres (I also get tired of all the obesity concern-trolling too). However the ethical food movement’s tenets have already transformed the world around us and have the power to do even more good. “Math lessons” seemed to come off a bit condescending, even if I completely appreciate those (like yourself) who take to task adherents who are spending more time crowing their superiority than thinking critically about their choices and our institutions (the number of which I think you may exaggerate – most I know who have food ethics issues are genuinely trying to do the right thing for themselves and their world).
I truly hope you take the time to write back. It is not my intent to proselytize (and I’d like to believe it wasn’t yours either). I would like to reach a greater understanding, especially since you’ve written a high-publicity refutation of a movement I find a lot of value in.
Kelly
I really think that is quite amazing! I really hope you get something back, and not an automated letter either!
I hope it’s the beginning of an intelligent discussion.
Word. Thank you for writing it. Eloquent and spot-on as always.
Thank you, and I’m proud of myself I can whip up something like this relatively quickly (about 15 minutes). I hope he responds too!
There is a book by James E. McWilliams called “Just Food” in which the author tries in a similar way to use mathematical sense to dispute the “snooty and overly idealistic” locavore movement. As far as the numbers go, it does seem to make sense on paper. But he totally ignores nutritional value, ethical farming practices, Farm Bill issues, etc. Interesting.
Thanks, Shannon. Glad to know I’m not totally off-base to have some concerns about such arguments.
Kinda irritating because OK, let’s say you DON’T care about nutrition much or where peppers are grown or whatever or how connected people are to the land or how small farmers are being hosed. So you’re going to be entirely dismissive (using MAN MATH and LOGIK) about those who do? Me, I love people who pour their passion and efforts into improvements, especially holistic-minded improvements that take into account human beings aren’t just factory-produced alimentary canals.
Maybe it comes down to, “Those who say it can’t be done, shouldn’t get in the way of those who are doing it.” Quote not attributed because I’m bloody-tired.
I received a response today:
Thank you for your e-mail. I hope you’ll understand that I don’t have time to write you a detailed reply, but I have nonetheless carefully read your message and I agree with much of what you say.
My view is simply this: if you like the food your local farmer produces, if you like visiting the farm with your kids, if you like the freshness and variety, if you like the sense of community, then buy it!
But don’t buy it on the phony promise that you are doing something morally virtuous, that you are striking a blow against the evils of “big ag,” that you are protecting your family from dangerous chemicals, that you are saving the planet.
One example of the fact that life is complex and always involves trade-offs. Since the 1960s, farmers in India, by adopting modern technologies (chemical nitrogen fertilizer, hybrid and now GM varieties of crops), have hugely increased yields per acre. The wheat crop alone has more than tripled its yield per acre, sparing hundreds of millions of acres of land that otherwise would have been needed for crops (and by the way also vastly reducing water and chemical use per ton of food produced). We literally would have long ago cut down every acre of rainforest just to feed humanity were it not for modern farming technologies.
Kind regards,
Stephen Budiansky
Interesting. Now I have to go and read his article.
You bring up the health aspect and I’d just like to put this out there: I live in metro DC and there are 3 Whole Foods stores within the DC boundaries. However, there are very few affordably-priced grocery stores for the majority of the population. The ones that there are don’t carry much of a selection of fresh produce. How can people possibly eat well if they don’t even have the stores to buy the good food at? Fortunately for those in the know, there are several farmer’s markets during the season and some of them even take food stamps! But the majority of DC dwellers don’t take advantage of these. I think education is truly the key.
Further, you make wonderful things with your fresh produce – I’ve seen them here. I don’t think many people know how to cook from scratch anymore, with the popularity of things like hamburger helper, etc. Along with education on how to buy needs to come how to cook it. I think that people who have never cooked from fresh shy away from it because they just don’t know what to do with the food once they get it home.
An aside: I heard something about raw milk and supporting local farming the other day that made me laugh. A woman was saying that she gives her kids raw milk but has to drive to Pennsylvania to get it (she lives in MD), since it’s illegal to sell raw milk in MD. She went on and on about eating local, supporting local farms and having a smaller carbon footprint. I wanted to say, “Lady, how are you supporting local farms or having a smaller carbon footprint if you’re driving 100 miles round-trip to buy your milk from farmers who don’t even live in your state?”
@Jen
Re: education on nutrition, I highly endorse reading Michelle’s piece about “poor people and nutrition” (this is my link under “shame, disparage…”). As your Whole Foods example alludes to, there are other factors in play at why people eat what they do (or don’t eat what others suggest). Cooking from scratch takes more time and it is frankly and often more expensive than buying processed and subsidized foods. “Education” is not at the root of the problem IMO. But socioeconomic asshattery (which includes body-shaming to boot!) is often flung about. 🙂 So careful with the “education” mindset as I think it is very lacking. I mean to write an article myself some day on the subject…
“Along with education on how to buy needs to come how to cook it. I think that people who have never cooked from fresh shy away from it because they just don’t know what to do with the food once they get it home.”
I think this might be true. I am a pretty damn awesome from-scratch cook. However I am emphatically not a class 5 vegan who eats nothing that doesn’t cast a shadow. As a working-class income family I can’t always buy the best choice AND all of us have limitations: other people’s choices restrict some of our own (more about raw milk in a minute which is applicable). I also feel free to use ingredients that are “cheater” ingredients. Not Hamburger Helper for instance (never used it) but other stuff like it.. Tonight I am cooking this awesome pot roast using packets of dried soup and salad dressing mix. Is that “from scratch” or not?
You can certainly question the Raw Milk Lady out of curiosity (because I am curious too to hear her strategy), but I would encourage you not to be TOO skeptical. For instance, her support of the raw milk farm in Penn may be a very viable way to get raw milk in MD (it is certainly more supportive of a raw milk movement than just NOT consuming raw milk, which is what we Hogabooms are doing because we don’t have it close by). She might be combining these trips with other out-of-town errands. She might do less driving/consume less deliberately for her “carbon-eating” choice of the raw milk drive. She might think raw milk is pretty Goddamned Important kind of like other people decide going to a conference on domestic abuse out of state is more important than carbon footprint. Etc.
Kelly, when I said education I wasn’t referring only to the people who can’t afford to shop at Whole Foods, but rather at the country as a whole. And when I said education, I didn’t mean lecturing people on what’s wrong with them and how to fix it but rather education as part of a drive to include all socioeconomic levels equal access to good, fresh, affordable food.
Prime example: I live on the edge of 2 neighborhoods – one average middle class and the other the ‘hood. There are 2 grocery stores near me. Chain S and Chain G. The Chain S store in firmly in the middle-class neighborhood and has fairly reasonable prices for produce – 2 weeks ago a package of fresh strawberries was 2/$4.00. Chain G is located in the ‘hood. 2 weeks ago their strawberries were $3.99/pkg and they looked terrible. To further demonstrate that people who shop at the store in the ‘hood are charged more I shopped at Chain G in the ‘hood one day and saw that cheese I normally buy is priced at $2.99/pkg. I priced the same cheese at the Chain G store in a different part of town and it is regularly 2/$5.00. It was on sale for 2/$4.00 at the one location last week but not in the ‘hood. Ridiculous.
I’m not down on people who use things in packets – on the contrary. My standard from-scratch spaghetti sauce takes a long time and I usually don’t have time to make it. But my family likes spaghetti and we eat it pretty often, so I usually make sauce with a packet and tomato paste and water. But that’s not what I see as the problem. The problem is that so many people will choose to make canned carrots instead of steaming baby carrots (easily done in the microwave). Or that people will choose to buy pre-made mashed potatoes instead of making them. In the store today locally grown red potatoes were 99¢/lb. Pre-made heat & eat mashed potatoes are $3.29 at the cheapest and you don’t get nearly as much mashed potato as you would if you spent the same amount on the fresh ones, not to mention the extra preservatives you get and the waste you generate by buying the pre-made potatoes in the packaging.
You can call it “socioeconomic asshattery” but I think that it’s education – educating people to be mindful of their choices – in all areas. Pointing out the asshattery is, in itself, educating people, no?
Raw milk lady may be justified in what she does. But it was a radio interview and she was the one emphasizing the desire to be local along with her love of raw milk so it was difficult to determine which she was more passionate about – the raw milk or supporting local dairy farms. I heard it as being equally important and thought that she would be better served by lobbying for a change in state laws in MD (I don’t know that she doesn’t but she didn’t mention it – she just complained about having to drive all the way to PA) and by supporting local farmers by buying milk from supermarkets that sell milk from local dairies. Or better yet, buy from local dairies directly (supporting the local farmers directly) and lobby for change in the law, which seems to fill both her needs to support raw milk and buy locally and seems to have more direct impact on her 2 desires. Plus, she cannot complain about food having a large carbon footprint or people not supporting local dairies if she’s part of the problem, imho. That’s like complaining about how high your heating bill is but keeping the thermostat at 85 degrees in the winter and wearing shorts inside rather than lowering the temp and putting on a sweater.
@Jen
I didn’t accuse you of committing the “asshattery” – merely pointed out how much of it I’ve seen when Food & Health are talked about.
Did you read Michelle’s article?
I didn’t think you were accusing me of committing “asshattery”. Sorry if it came across that way.
I read the article you linked to and I don’t think it negates my way of thinking. Based on this food pyramid, she says that you need to get enough food, first and foremost. Agreed. And I also agree that the lower your income bracket, the less food you can afford to buy. So you have to buy calorie-dense food in order to meet your caloric needs. Got it. She also says that the choice to buy nutritious foods comes only after the other food needs are met – something I disagree with.
Nutritious food can be calorie-rich, tasty, novel (not sure why that’s a need – food should be interesting? maybe I’m being dense because it’s late) and SHOULD be accessible to all – hence my observations that it’s ridiculous that 2 stores, less than 1 mile from each other should have such different pricing on the same item and that this item should be of a higher quality at the store in the middle class neighborhood than that at the store in the poorer neighborhood. I forgot to mention that the produce section at the poor neighborhood’s grocery store is half the size of the one in the middle-income neighborhood and half that of the store across town whose cheese is cheaper. There’s a salad bar at the store across town – not so at the store in the poor neighborhood. My feeling is that this is discriminatory and should be against the law, simply because it doesn’t provide equal access to food and that’s something that we all need. Kind of like equal access to health care. But that’s a different topic altogether.
The other point that this article makes is that the availability of quality food for any individual is dictated by their income. True. My point (and I guess I expressed it badly) is that it shouldn’t be that way and the only way to get people (who don’t get it because they never have been short of food) to understand how important this issue is, is to educate them- namely by showing them their asshattery (I love this word) and demonstrating to them exactly how detrimental to society their ignorance of the facts is.
I notice that her sources seem to be related to weight issues. I’m not even talking about nutrition in regard to weight. This isn’t about dieting. It’s about eating things that are good for you so your body can be its healthiest – whatever that means for each individual. I’m talking about the right to pay the same amount of money for strawberries no matter which neighborhood your store is in, the right to not have to pay twice as much for certain things just because you live in a neighborhood that is considered to be “sketchy”. *Aside here: I just found out a few weeks ago that this lower-income neighborhood is where the DC sniper was shooting people a few years back. So maybe it qualifies as sketchy. I don’t know.* This is about the right to be able to afford more than canned veggies and tuna. The right to have a reasonably-priced supermarket in the inner city. All of these things are tied together and I think they need to be addressed by people who can afford to make the changes for those who can’t.
@Jen
All of these things are tied together and I think they need to be addressed by people who can afford to make the changes for those who can’t.
Absolutement. I think we’re in agreement on those points. A tangent: the food hierarchy pyramid was developed not by Michelle but one of her mentors/inspirations, Ellyn Satter, and if there’s a better approach to feeding and eating (especially for families) I haven’t seen it!
Re: a different sort of “education”, or a few thoughts rather. Last year I was invited to teach a classes’ worth of food and eating and nutrition subjects to local low-income families. I now have PAGES of thought on good vs. bad strategies to approach this from my little experience. I enjoyed the class very much and had a lovely time. I also had students leaving and telling me excitedly how much they looked forward to cooking from scratch. I know part of this was because I’d cooked and served familiar foods they’d want to eat – IOW refried beans and hot homemade french bread rather than quinoa salad. Nothing wrong with quinoa – in fact it’s a superfood – but you have to meet people at all the needs of food, not just nutrition but emotional response, comfort, etc. I’ve seen many people influenced by my cooking and recipes and I’d like to think in part it’s because I’m not too lecturey. I do admit though that from-scratch cooking takes time. These individuals often had more than two kids, more than two jobs, exes, blended families, and were students besides who had to deal with the State and paperwork, etc. I know this because I did a little poll ahead of time (and I also asked where they liked to shop for food and how many stops they’d make and how often).
I know food deserts are a concern and part of Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign. I think there is an increased consciousness of the grocery store issues you’re speaking about. I’m hoping meaningful and broad-based change is in the works.