Food Democracy
Monday, July 28th, 2008
Your freedom to choose what you eat and where it comes from is slowly and silently being stolen from you. Money and influence from the large food giants have had a successful impact in persuading legislation to make it impossible for small local farms to compete. We are feeling the results of less food choices right here in Spokane. You can help by asking where your food comes from every time you buy or eat in a restaurant. Your help can simply be to vote with your dollars.
In a great article from the UN Chronicle: The Rise of Food Democracy Brian Halweil makes a great case for choosing local. I highly recommend reading the entire article but here is an excerpt…
“The typical supermarket contains no fewer than 30,000 items, about half of them produced by ten multinational food and beverage companies, with 117 men and 21 women forming the boards of directors of those companies. In other words, although the plethora of products you see at a typical supermarket gives the appearance of abundant choice, much of the variety is more a matter of branding than of true agricultural variety and, rather than coming from thousands of farmers producing different local varieties, they have been globally standardized and selected for maximum profit by just a few powerful executives.”
If you want to learn more about food democracy and how you can help, here are some great resources:
Ten Things You Can Do Right Now
We always prefer local ingredients. Sometimes they cost more but we know where they come from, we have relationships with our local producers and we are confident in the superior quality and taste of our food. Don’t be fooled, ask for the source of your food.
