Club Organic: Foodie Elitism

Transcript

INTRO:
Proponents of local and organic agriculture support a just cause, but have they created an elite culture surrounding wholesome food? Commentator Kayla Hunter discusses the ups and downs of slow food.

HUNTER:
I once saw a bumper sticker that read: Eat organic food. Or as your grandparents called it, food. I liked this. I liked the idyllic image it created of a world of wholesome fruits and vegetables, soil under fingernails, cows lazily chewing cuds. Food as it was before it was refined and packaged into products.

Some people are now channeling the ways of grandpap by joining the Slow Food movement. Posed as an alternative to the industrial food system embodied in fast food, this international movement strives to preserve small-scale, diversified organic farms. Their motto is ìgood, clean, and fairî-- food that benefits producers, consumers, and the environment.

Slow Food is still very grassroots in America, as most of us here are fully indoctrinated into a cheap, convenient system of nourishing ourselves. Most of us also have jobs that slowly but steadily require more work for less money-- if weíre lucky enough to be employed. And itís no secret that eating organic and local is more expensive and often more time consuming. So how are the less fortunate people in this country expected to adopt this lifestyle? Are the organic and local movements, despite all their noble causes, also exclusive clubs?

Even the founder of the Slow Food movement, Italian activist Carlo Petrini, is not immune to this elitism. In his book Slow Food Nation, Petrini criticized San Franciscoís Ferry Plaza Farmerís Market for being boutique-like, a place where rich people tote their produce (quote) ìlike jewels, status symbols.î

I admit, I too sometimes wonder if the movement is in part just romanticism amongst a bunch of privileged people who have the time and resources to challenge convenience. I thought this especially after receiving an incredibly simple critique about my Allegheny Front commentary on Trader Joeís business practices. A Nicaraguan friend of mine painstakingly translated it into Spanish, and his only comment was, ìWell, at least they sell you food.î

Succinct, blunt, and true, his comment shook me. I thought about women in Nicaragua who wipe the sweat from their brows each morning as they grind corn to make tortillas, women who live in this simple way that we idealize because if they didnít, their family would starve. To them the thought of an instantaneous meal is like a comforting hand on a hunched, knotted back.

I felt a little silly for moaning about my first world dilemmas, but I also shouldnít feel guilty for participating in a lifestyle that makes me feel good. Itís just important to step back sometimes and appreciate that I have the luxury to make this choice. And to recognize why people would sacrifice health for convenience in the first place.

After thinking about it more, perhaps what I liked most about the bumper sticker about our grandparents food wasnít this happy little portrait of pastoral bliss, which was perhaps not the reality of their weather-beaten lives. What attracts me is the fact that they didnít have to call give their food a label back then-- organic, local, free range, what have you. They just simply ate.

OUTRO:
Kayla Hunter is a recent college grad who is getting some dirt under her nails this summer as a camp counselor at Frick Environmental Center in Pittsburgh.