section>
THE END OF FOOD
THE END OF FOOD
Thomas F. Pawlick
GREYSTONE BOOKS
Douglas & McIntyre Publishing Group
Vancouver/Toronto
Copyright © 2006 by Thomas F. Pawlick
Published simultaneously in the United States by Barricade Books
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a license from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For a copyright license, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.
Greystone Books
An imprint of Douglas & McIntyre Ltd.
2323 Quebec Street, Suite 201
Vancouver, British Columbia V5T 4S7
Cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada ISBN 978-1-55365-169-7 (pbk.) ISBN 978-1-926812-10-6 (ebook)
Cover design by Jessica Sullivan
Cover photograph © Lorraine Molina/Getty Images
We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the British Columbia Arts Council, and the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) for our publishing activities.
Contents
How an encounter with North American supermarket tomatoes radicalized the author and demonstrated the poverty of what our food system is producing
Nutritional decline and lack of flavor are now the norm in North America’s supermarkets, to the potential detriment of everyone’s health
Nature abhors a vacuum: While nutrients disappear from our food, their places are being taken by something much more sinister
4. The X Files
The intersection of two trend lines forms an ominous X on the graph of our, and our children’s, future food security
5. Collateral Damage
The destructive impact of the modern food system on the natural and human environments, especially on biological diversity
6. Stalin Redux: Collectivizing Rural America
Russia destroyed its kulaks in the 1930s; we are destroying our family farmers, with much the same results
Part II : THE SOLUTION(S)
7. Acts of Subversion
Taking back control over our food supply, from the ground up, and the backyard out. City/community/neighborhood gardening and the organic gardening movement
8. Think Locally, Fight Locally
Creating an alternative food reality, and building momentum for the eventual national battle with the corporate system
9. Being Human
The ultimate reasons for refusing industrial food are more than material
10. Connections
Where to find information on food solutions, along with seeds, and supplies for home gardening, canning, drying, and other subversive activities
Notes
THE TOMATO WAS THE LAST STRAW. That’s sort of a mixed metaphor, but how else can you say it?
I wanted to make a salad, a simple thing, just lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, some parsley, add a can of tuna, and toss it in vinegar and oil: a quick meal, so I could get to work on the stuff I’d brought home from the office.
But when I went to slice the tomato, it was too hard.
Red, but too hard for eating. A tomato should be just starting to get soft and juicy for the flavor to be there. Hard tomatoes, unless you’re frying them green southern-style, are bland and tasteless. They shouldn’t crunch when you eat them.
Okay, pick another one out of the batch. I’d bought four at the supermarket the day before and one of the others would be ripe.
I squeezed the second one. It was hard too. So were the third and the fourth. I looked at them. They were all bright red, not green. Yet they seemed nearly as tough and crunchy as so many raw potatoes.
Oh well. Put them back on the counter. In a day or two they’d be ripe enough.
But a day or two later, they weren’t.
A week later, they were still hard.
So I put them on the windowsill, directly in the sun, to ripen. Two, three days went by, then a week.
Still hard.
This isn’t possible, I thought. Tomatoes are supposed to ripen in the sun. They are supposed to get soft and juicy so that when you slice them for your salad they taste yummy.
Not these tomatoes.
I’m a stubborn man. I was determined that no mere vegetables (actually tomatoes are classed as “berry fruits”) would get the best of me. I would outwait them,
