03 Nov Michael Pollan on Politics and Needs of Food Movement

That picture is of the first chicken I ever bought whole and roasted. I was raised vegetarian by my animal rights leaning father and remained that way until I was in my teens. I ate meat for maybe a year or two before going back to being a vegetarian for environmental and health reasons. Since I was traveling in Spain around the time the bird flu broke out it seemed like a good idea. I was a vegetarian tried and true, no animal fats or horse hooves for me. As soon as I found out about rennet in cheese I added another thing to what I scoured labels for. 

My senior year in college I was in an environmental ethics class and a food systems class, that both used Michael Pollan's book, The Omnivore's Dilemma to explore current food issues and the ethics surrounding food choices. Surprisingly from this experience I came away an omnivore with a dedication to local and organic food like never before. I join a CSA which is where I got the beautiful chicken you see above as well as entirely too much food for me and my roommate to eat every other week. We started composting and talking about growing our own food. Between the two of us though, not a seed was planted. Time flew by with busy school schedules, work schedules, and trying to keep up with all of the amazing things going on in Austin. There didn't seem to be any time left at the end of the day to grow food! It is a common issue that many organizations and businesses in Austin are trying to find a solution to. We are lucky here in Austin. We have a strong local food movement. People who can have completely adopted the idea of voting with your dollar and changing you food habits as a radical act against the large industrial agriculture and healthcare systems that just aren't sustainable anymore. 

After a few years of talking to everyone I could about The Omnivore's Dilemma and local food, I finally got the amazing chance to hear Michael Pollan speak a few nights ago at the Paramount. The fact that I went with the lovely Paige Hill of Urban Patchwork and Brandi Clark Burton of Austin EcoNetwork only made the event more amazing. Between the two of them I think they knew every local foodie, or locavore, in the room that night. Michael Pollen blew me away and not just because he is somewhat of a foodie celebrity since I don't care much for "celebrity" statuses. He spoke against the farm bill, something many people are hard pressed to do since it is still sold as being good for all farmers. He truthfully said that we need something better, something not written for Monsanto, but for the small, local farmers. He said we need to demand it from our government, not just hope for it from our cities. He praised school gardens, and urban gardens, and really any way you can grow your own food. He spoke about his Food Rules book, in which he condemns “food like substances” and encourages people to pick food that is real food again. He brought up the fact that even though so many people have made the food movement strong, especially in places like Austin where we have plenty of space to grow our own food and a year long growing season, there are still hundreds of thousands of people who don't participate because they can't afford to or because they just don't know anything but conventional food like substances.

I was raised vegetarian, yes, but I was raised with canned or frozen vegetables made in a microwave and a lot of soy based fake meat. A big reason I switched to being an omnivore was because I wanted to learn how to cook everything and experience the cultures of the places I still want to go to. I don't want to have to pass on the wild boar that was killed by the farmer hosting me and has been slow roasting all day long. I want to be able to have that experience. That experience, which is very visceral and emotional, is one that I think Mr. Pollan wants everyone to have with their food again regardless of if you are a vegetarian or omnivore. Forgetting that emotional history and visceral experience as well as our culture around food are big things that have resulted from industrial agriculture adn fast food. He, like I, hope that remembering and taking this experience of where food comes from, how it is handled and cooked, and how it is eaten, will help us to get back to a point where our food system and our communities are whole again. Then maybe through this we will take into account how intricately our food and we are tied into nature. Even if we don't grow it with our own hands. 

By the way, my roasted chicken was phenomenal.