Firstly, sorry for the long Hiatus. I had been working on getting school andcollege applications together. I know I shouldn't have neglected you all, but school comes first.
Speaking of school, let's go back to your middle and high school years. Probably your college years as well. In your time, you've probably read some Ray Bradbury, be it his novels or short stories, or perhaps you read A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley or even the Looking Glass Wars series by Frank Beddor just for fun.
Or maybe you can't remember any of that but you've watched certain TV Shows like the Sci-Fi Channel's epic miniseries Alice or witnessed the strange city of Ba-Sing-Se in Avatar: The Last Airbender. You've almost definitely seen the movie The Matrix. The list continues with movies like
Pleasantville, Battle Royale, and V for Vendetta (based off a Graphic Novel).
Think back long and hard to your English classes and you'll remember what all these things had in common.
The term for these worlds is Dystopia. Dystopia can be summarized by the components of the words: dysfunctional and utopia.
Let's break this down. Dystopian societies usually have a few things in common.
- Power. There is generally one person or a small group of people in control. This power is absolute and driven by powerful desire such as money, influence, control of resources or the idea that they are absolutely right.
- Illusion. There is always a way to make people think that everything is okay. Either by drugging them or by hiding the truth. The general public is kept somewhat safe and vaguely happy and the system continues to work.
- Acceptance. And by this I don't mean the good kind. The people in dystopian societies accept the system. No questions are asked. Anyone who rebels is erased or made an example of.
- Force. Dystopian leaders use brute force to enforce their system, keeping the people stupid and the rebels quiet--- or dead.
So what does this have to do with green living?
Well, my friends, we are living in a dystopia. Laughable you say? Well think about the way our food system works.
Here's the scary thing. A lot of people DON'T know how the food system works.
Did you know that almost 90% of the beef that we eat is sold by a huge conglomerate that has over the years bought out small family farms? Did you know that Factory-farms keep cattle penned up so that they cannot exercise off the fatty diet they are fed, just so that they meat gets the delicious and desirable marbling? In addition, they can now fit ten times more cows onto the same amount of land.
Now, I am no vegetarian, but doesn't it startle you to think that people don't know this?
Did you know that in a side-by-side comparison, most people prefer grass-fed beef? Did you know that most of your beef isn't grass-fed?
Did you know that most of the corn farmed in America is inedible unless it is processed into High Fructose Corn Syrup (corn sugar I think those marketing people are trying to call it now). That's the same high fructose corn syrup making it cheap and tasty to consume liquid calories in the form of sodas.
So it's apparent that people don't know where their food comes from and how it affects their environment and economy.
What do you and your kids think a farm looks like? The ones you go to for fun with the petting zoos and the slides? That is not what most farms look like.
So now we're beginning to see dystopia.
- Power: There are giant corporations controlling our food. They are often aiming for cost efficiency over environmental health. This affects the safety of our meat and our crops. Diseases spread quicker when everything is close together. Plants have to compete for resources when they are planted together--they can't move to where the soil has more phosphorus!
- Illusion: That image of pastures and animal-nature harmony that we have when we think of food is an illusion. So to is the idea that people wouldn't sell things that are bad for us just to make a quick buck and the idea that saving five bucks on hormone-fed beef at the grocery store versus organic beef at the Farmer's Market is not going to cost you more somewhere else-- like your health.
- Acceptance: We don't ask questions about our food. We don't read the nutrition facts or ingredients. We assume, when we do read the ingredients, that those weird chemicals are TOTALLY harmless. We often don't know what parts of an animal we're eating or where our crops come from. The entire seafood industry suffered along the east coast because we couldn't tell whether or not our shrimp and fish were coming from the gulf.
- Force: The Big Food industry companies are buying out the smaller farms and killing their business with lower prices. When you sell more, you can sell it for less and still break-even. The need for food is already there, and when you're strapped for cash and finding organic food is like searching for a needle in a haystack, guess who wins? We may think we are making choices, but when you look at what there is to choose from, are we really?
So how do we break down this dystopian food system? Let's follow the dystopian story model.
- Get Educated: The more you know about your food, the easier it is to gain back your freedom of choice and understand what you are doing to your body, your family, your economy, and your planet. Try some excellent Documentaries such as Fresh, Food Inc., Supersize Me, and King Corn. Google topics such as Factory-farming, monocropping, agricultural waste, etc.
- Spread the word: Tell more people about the manipulation of our food, and naturally, our people. Studies have shown that if 10 people ask their grocer about including more organic options, the grocer will follow through with the requests. Grocers are more likely to stock organic foods if they know it's going to sell.
- Make better choices: This one is pretty hard. But baby steps are good. Try to cut out sodas with High Fructose Corn Syrup. Learn what's in season so that your food doesn't have to cost us the emissions of airplane fuel or the danger to the earth when we over work it. If it disgusts you that people can eat something, stop eating it yourself!
- Beat the System: Don't go doing crazy things like bombing the offices of Lobbyists. Win legally and legitimately. Grow your own food, start a buzz, host discussions on food, have events on growing locally and helping farmers, push for more organic school food, or even lobby congress for more help to the farmers who practice sustainable farming.
Real change happens from the bottom up.
