The Nation - Food For All: How to Grow Democracy

Still available online, the September 21 issue of The Nation is, for the most part, about food, as it contains several essays and articles on topics regularly discussed here in The Delicious Truth.

Dan Barber, the chef and real food advocate, wrote “Why Cooking Matters,” a short essay that should take only about three minutes to read.

Barber believes that for us to eat better and be healthier, we need to start cooking and be more selective in our meat consumption:

“Not only do we eat too much meat, we also eat too much of the wrong parts. We don't know where our meat comes from, we don't know what the animal we're eating ate, and we sure don't know how to get behind the stove and take control of what we put in our mouths.”

The issue's best article, in my opinion, is Brent Cunningham’s “Cornucopia Blues,” a longer, wide-ranging piece that begins by discussing how America’s protectionist agricultural subsidies help foster global famine. Cunningham links this subject to the American “good-food revolution” popularized by Michael Pollan in “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”:

“The problem of ensuring that everyone has enough food to eat is inextricable from the problem of ensuring that food is produced in a sustainable manner.”

Cunningham then dives in further, addressing genetically modified crops, the realities of changing the food system in a widespread fashion and how behavioral patterns trump common sense when it comes to decisions about food and health.

If this blog’s subject matter interests you, I strongly recommend Cunningham’s article.