4 Decisions You’ll Make
would we bother to conserve resources when we could simply extract
and consume more?
Today, the modern food system accommodates our schedules,
not to mention our personal tastes. Convenience has been critical in
reengineering our understanding. Food is no longer the means for
society’s survival, but instead a source of personal pleasure and expression
of individual freedom and uniqueness. As food became ever more readily
available, the easier it was to believe that we deserved more while being
free of responsibilities—and the simpler it became to ignore the forces
that made abundance possible.
Food producers have profited immeasurably from the new mindset of
satisfying individual desires. So while people have been busy exploring
their own wants, the modern food system keeps coming up with novel
ways to infuse more calories while still delivering greater convenience.
As the United States settled into being a nation of non-farmers, and
food became a matter of personal preference, we assumed that this
reshaping of society was neutral.
Yet food’s effect on society was never neutral. Ramping up conveniences
intensified food’s broad reach over peoples’ lives. The food system was
shaping everything from consumer beliefs that yogurt improved health
and digestion to advancing US interests abroad through more food aid.
My recognition of food’s influence was reinforced by Bernie Sanders—
not the politician from Vermont, but the director of my department at
Farmland Industries. A major reason for my joining Farmland had been
their advanced analytical computing platform. The man behind it was
Dr. Sanders, who, ironically, never used a computer.
Even more than his business acumen, I valued his insights about food
and agriculture, often drawn from history. During one conversation, he
talked about how food can be used as a means of control. A long-standing
practice of the former Soviet Union was keeping prices of staple foods
like bread artificially low, which indirectly tempered citizens’ response to
malfeasance on the part of its Communist leaders. Another example was
when President Richard Nixon instructed the secretary of agriculture to
make sure that food prices remained low, thus ensuring that food did not
become a hot-button issue when reelection time rolled around. Today’s