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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@gilanet.com>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Asking the wrong questions
  • Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 11:24:50 -0700


I fail to understand why we continue to demand to proof that doing
something
in the manner that things were done BEFORE the industrialization of the
food
system would be BETTER than the current system. It seems to me that the
burden of proof should be on those who want to assert that the CURRENT, ie,
"conventional" system of agriculture (and by extension, nutrition) is
better
than it was before.

This is exactly the sort of reasoning that leads nutrition advocates for
applauding companies like General Mills for "adding" whole grains to their
cereals as "a step in the right direction". HUH? The food companies
completely bastardize the food supply and then we are supposed to thank
them
for taking one tiny step backwards? It never ceases to amaze me how society
just accepts the status quo, as if it were a part of nature, that it came
to
be in a vacuum, and that any attempt to make change is "progress."

That is totally backwards; we need to educate people about the powerful
econonmic and political forces that created this entire mess of a food
system in the first place and instead of having to prove that a more
sustainable way of doing things is actually, well, more sustainable, shift
the burden of proof to the people who want to maintain the status quo to
get
them to prove why it should remain so.

Michele

Michele Simon JD, MPH
Founder and Director
Center for Informed Food Choices
PO Box 16053
Oakland, CA 94610
510-465-0322
michele@informedeating.org

Sign up for Informed Eating -- a free newsletter on the politics of food:
www.informedeating.org.







  • [Livingontheland] Asking the wrong questions, Tradingpost, 02/18/2005

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