why do the poor always end up having to pay?*

While middle-class America may suddenly struggle with higher gas prices with their long highway commutes from suburbia to their workplaces, others in the world find themselves struggling to eat.

Food prices have been shooting up around the world, not because of any massive food shortages, but because demand has increased. Rising incomes in China and India have increased their appetites for meat and grain, but more notably, western biofuel** programs have been hoarding the harvest. The results have been devastating (for instance, the resignation of Haiti’s prime minister because of food riots):

We are the canary in the mine,” says Josette Sheeran, the head of the UN's World Food Programme, the largest distributor of food aid. Usually, a food crisis is clear and localised. The harvest fails, often because of war or strife, and the burden in the affected region falls heavily on the poorest. This crisis is different. It is occurring in many countries simultaneously, the first time that has happened since the early 1970s. And it is affecting people not usually hit by famines. “For the middle classes,” says Ms Sheeran, “it means cutting out medical care. For those on $2 a day, it means cutting out meat and taking the children out of school. For those on $1 a day, it means cutting out meat and vegetables and eating only cereals. And for those on 50 cents a day, it means total disaster.” The poorest are selling their animals, tools, the tin roof over their heads—making recovery, when it comes, much harder.

~ from The Economist, The New Face of Hunger

The economist article seems to be a bit more optimistic about recovery—believing that market forces will eventually increase supply, but seems to ignore ecological implications of the limited availability of land (and that growing too much too quickly with too many chemicals can destroy valuable soil). Is it really possible to think that we could plant enough corn to satisfy our only-increasing appetite for biofuel? Are the rich countries going to enjoy their frequent flyer miles, their blueberries and pomegranates shipped from miles and miles away, while the rest of the world experiences a Malthusian catastrophe? And furthermore, even if we do recover from this catastrophe, how many people will starve to death or suffer from malnutrition in the process? Is it worth it? Of course, I guess the life of someone poor in a third world country is worth a lot less than my life.

Yes, alternative fuel options for the sake of environment stewardship and sustainability are probably a good idea. But when it involves disrupting agricultural markets in such a way, that we get our biofuel while the poor starve, then I can’t help but think/cry/wail injustice.

While we try to find some “sustainable” method to continue our SUV gas guzzling habits, we seem to be doing it on the backs of the poor. And that angers and saddens me deeply: how it seems that we are constantly getting more comfortable from the sweat and blood of the poor.

And somehow, I’m also implicated in this system. I feel dirty buying my airline tickets to return home, my Florida-grown oranges and Mexico-grown asparagus, that’s been shipped many petroleum miles to reach me in my supermarket so that I can have my diverse food options. Meanwhile, others starve.

I am trying to understand why I was born into privilege and abundance, and not another life that could be so different. And if it’s only to perpetuate the oppression of the poor, then I feel very very sorry for myself.

* In case you can’t tell, I am/was angry as I write/wrote this. Perhaps, I might have more hopeful/more practical to say later, but this is how I feel right now. I am trying to learn to feel my emotions more, because they give indication into what I care about. And this has been part of a long reflection in the past few months of trying to understand my economic and social privilege…. Trying to learn not to feel guilty about it, but to learn how I can live differently with it, so that it won’t be wasted on myself.
** Please read comments to this post for clarification about biofuel-- there are apparently different types, and not all of them rely on edible food (e.g. some apparently use waste products)

*** In the same vein as this, India has been displacing massive amounts of its indigenous population in the name of environmental conservation: Wildlife conservation in India has generally emulated the early American (Yosemite/Yellowstone) model which regarded forests as pristine wilderness, excluded human beings from national parks and other protected areas, and saw its aboriginal people as “marauders,” “poachers” and “encroachers,” all the while sanctioning the lifeways and hunting practices of elite sportsmen and urban tourists. Throughout rural India, tribal Adivasis, ancient forest dwellers who occupy thousands of villages, are routinely blamed for declines in local biodiversity. (from: Guernica, Eviction Slip)

less meaty issues

The wedding is over. The honeymoon is over. And I find myself readjusting to a new rhythm of life, perhaps more traditionally known as practicing my “wife skills”.

Since indoctrination by Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma and realizing that forever eating Trader Joe’s freezer, or food carts/take-out, or salad and baked fish, was neither sustainable nor satisfying, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to eat well and cook well, especially in light of the fact that I’m now cooking for a little family of two.*

I’ve been both appreciating and thinking critically about the way I ate growing up.** Plenty of stir-fried green vegetables, hearty soups, white rice, tofu and a little bit of meat. Most Chinese cooking use vegetables and tofu as the central elements—and meat serves more as a flavoring ingredient. Yet somehow in this country, Chinese food has been reduced to a plate full of deep fried chicken served on white rice. And while my favorite meals will probably always be the ones my mother cooks, I’m learning to venture nutritiously and flavorfully beyond oil and salt, and a bit of soy sauce and sugar.

In any case, I was pleasantly surprised a little while ago to see a NY Times article highlighting the fact that we eat way more meat than we need to. Thinking about the nutrition of my childhood, and what makes my body actually feel good after I eat, I completely agree with this.

Furthermore, of late, I’ve been feeling that meat/seafood-centered cooking can be downright boring. There is much more to be experienced in the land of culinary than a huge chunk of chicken smothered in sauce, with a side of potatoes and steamed vegetables. It’s been quite fun to discover the different flavours obtained by blending different spices, vegetables, beans and tofu. I don’t think I will ever actually become vegetarian, but I really appreciate the richness of cuisine without meat.

So here begins a new daily delight with the tangible (and edible)! There is something very enjoyable and meditative about eating food that you have carefully prepared (though having someone else to share the food with is integral to that enjoyment).

~

Yet as much as domestic matters and managing an apartment can easily and comfortably occupy my mind for days on end, there’s a deep itching inside me to pursue something more. And yet I don’t want to end up chasing after personal glory and societal acclaim, which I can sense is a desire in me. As C.S. Lewis noted in the Screwtape Letters—when we think we are finding our place in the world, the world is actually finding its place in us. Let’s hope that if given an option, I would choose to be unnoticed and humble rather than praised and proud.



* Clarification: I only cook half of the time. My dearly beloved husband has been wonderfully egalitarian about chores :)
** It’s amazing how much the food habits of our childhood impact the way we want and expect to eat today. This was clearly evidenced and experienced upon my drooling reaction to trying cream cheese and bagels for the first time in middle school to my disappointment and perplex with why people didn’t share their dishes in restaurants.

super market choices

We sometimes do quite a bit of research on what we buy. We read reviews about car mileage and maintenance and comparison shop our electronics. Yet when it comes to food, the very items we use to nourish our bodies, we often don’t ask where it comes from and we end up having our choices made for us. Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma explores the food industry and the findings are initially rather dismal.*

Low-income Iowa farmers purchase vast amounts of fertilizer, pesticides and corn seed, in order to produce more generic corn (which only pulls down prices, which will only erode the land and pollute the water). The corn will then be purchased and transformed into high fructose corn syrup and partially hydrogenated oil, the backbone of processed foods (and also found in a surprising number of other foods—cereal and bread).

Cows and chickens are crammed in confined quarters, and forced fed meat and corn mixtures (contrary to their natural diets) until they are ready for slaughter. Egg hens are crammed even more tightly than meat hens, with as many as 10% dying from the confined conditions.

While organic once offered an alternative to our mass-produced supermarket choices, it has also turned into economies of scale affair. As Gene Kahn, former (?) CEO and founder of Cascadian Farms (a big corporate organic produce company) comments, “Everything morphs into the way the world is.”

Organic produce mostly comes from large industrial size farms since it’s cheaper than buying from many individual farmers, and then tons and tons of oil are expended in shipping the produce fresh across the nation or even across the globe. Free range chickens are only given a small door open to the outside in the last two weeks of their nine week lifespan (after they have grown accustomed to staying indoors in their cooped up pen, only slightly better than those of the non-free-range variety). As Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm, “Now which chicken shall we call ‘organic’? I’m afraid you’ll have to ask the government, because now they own the word.” I guess organic ceases to mean anything anymore when organic TV dinners are now sold at Whole Foods. (All that being said, organic food has greatly diminished the amount of pesticides and chemicals poured into our soils and waters).

So it saddens me to see even the most integral choices of our lives embedded with injustice to the poor and damage to the environment. I find it harder and harder to imagine being able to live without participating in these injustices, as I am certainly one who has benefited greatly from the comforts that these systems have afforded us.

As Geez magazine puts it, I wake up finding myself “somewhere between dreams for a better world and a padded, private life (I) didn’t exactly choose”. In today’s supermarket abundance, the vast array of flavours and textures, I don’t feel like I have very many real choices.



* This entry was compiled from quick notes I made in response to the earlier half of Pollan’s book, which was rather depressing. If I ever get around to it, I will write my response to the second half of his book, which was far more hopeful, and does offer some alternatives to our usual supermarket choices. By the way, Omnivore’s Dilemma is an excellent book—I highly recommend it. Not only does Pollan succeed in making 100 pages written about corn engrossingly interesting, he’s also made me rethink what and how I eat. I actually have an extra copy… so please contact me if you would like to borrow it/have it (you have to promise to read it!).