🕸 TREE 209: Food systems

Warning: today’s post will take you a couple minutes to get through.

---

You know those people who eat a diet that is actively shortening their lives and ruining their health right now? Why don’t they just take responsibility for themselves?

Let’s take that question seriously.

Most of us live sedentary lives in bodies that are evolved for long hard work. Our instincts to devour all available energy haven’t caught up with our culture of sitting around with food on demand. Our brains tell us to eat more than we need.

About half of the stuff for sale at your supermarket is really really bad for you. Do ‘those people’ know this? Not if they aren’t actively searching for good information. The richest, most powerful food companies on earth make ultra-processed food-like substances which are designed to trigger all the crave and more switches in our brains. But all we get from them are nutritionless calories. These companies use their eye-wateringly large marketing budgets and all the psychology to get us to associate those worthless products with beautiful, happy, fulfilled lives.

If ‘those people’ didn’t grow up eating home-cooked meals with their families around a dinner table a few times a week, they are a lot less likely to have built-in resistance to the lies of food marketers. Family dinners during childhood are one of best predictors of healthy eating as an adult.

Let’s say ‘those people’ wanted to buy healthful food. Can they? A lot of people, especially in low-income areas, only have easy access to convenience stores in which 90% of the stuff is trying to kill you. Imagine living in a place where you had to spend an hour on a bus to get to a decent supermarket. How would you get a week’s worth of groceries home for your family? Those areas are called ‘food deserts’.

What about time? What if ‘those people’ are working a couple jobs to make ends meet and so are their partners, if they have partners. We know that in the 21st century one income is rarely enough to raise a family. Where do they find the time or energy to cook healthy food?

On top of all that, let’s toss in TV and social media full of celebrity chefs and our culture’s fetishising of beautiful food. It constantly reinforces the idea that good cooking is for the rich and talented.

Finally, all that interconnected stuff is filtered through an individual’s mental and emotional relationship with food. There’s no guarantee it’s a healthy filter.

So, why don’t ‘those people’ take personal responsibility? You don’t know how hard they are trying, but you do know that almost every food-related thing they come in contact with – inside and out – is working against them. How do you beat that system without a shedload of help?

I learned most of this stuff while doing my culinary arts degree. If you want to learn more about food systems, watch Food Inc. To learn more about what to eat, read Food Rules. Do you need kitchen confidence? FOREST member Katerina Pavlakis will help you.

Grow slowly
Jeff

The Memory of TREE playlist – every song from every email: