Jim Hightower: Giving Thanks for America's Good Food Movement

[marmar]

via CommonDreams:



Published on Wednesday, November 25, 2009 by Creators.com

Giving Thanks for America's Good Food Movement
by Jim Hightower


What better day than Thanksgiving to celebrate our country's food rebels!

I'm talking about the growing movement of small farmers, food artisans, local retailers, co-ops, community organizers, restaurateurs, environmentalists, consumers and others - perhaps including you. This movement has spread the rich ideas of sustainability, organic, local control and the Common Good from the fringes of our food economy into the mainstream.

It began in earnest in the 1980s and 1990s as an "upchuck rebellion" - ordinary folks rejecting the industrialized, chemicalized, corporatized and globalized food system. Farmers wanted a more natural connection to the good earth that they were working, just as consumers began demanding edibles that were not saturated with pesticides, injected with antibiotics, ripened with chemicals, dosed with artificial flavorings and otherwise tortured.

These two interests began to find each other and to create an alternative way of thinking about food. Today, more than 13,000 organic farmers produce everything from wheat to meat, and organic food sales top $23 billion a year. Some 4,800 vibrant farmers' markets operate in practically every city and town across the land, linking farmers and food-makers directly to consumers in a local, supportive economy. Also, restaurants, supermarkets, food wholesalers and school districts are now buying foodstuffs that are produced sustainably and locally.

No one in a position of power - corporate or governmental - made any of these changes happen. Instead, the movement percolated up from the grassroots, and it has become a groundswell as ordinary people inform themselves, organize locally and assert their own democratic values over those of the corporate structure. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/25-4

[tekisui]

1. knr!~

[Warpy]

2. We did potluck Thanksgivings back in New England

as the day we celebrated hiding from our dysfunctional families. The families got us for Xmas.

We were all foodies and most of us were whole foodies. The offerings were all outstandingly good, if occasionally surprising in an incongruous sort of way.

[bananas]

3. k&r nt