8 Decisions You’ll Make
are burned to ship and process foods and ingredients across the country
and around the world. In return, unburned carbon is spewed into the
atmosphere, where it further increases the susceptibility of plants to
stress and disease. The same is occurring with water supplies, where
excess animal waste and fertilizer runoff are destroying food habitat and
polluting sources of drinking water.
As I explained how our acceding to the modern food system is kick-
ing environmental problems down the road for future generations to
deal with, I touched on how their lives and their children’s lives will be
different from ours. After hearing all this, the father let out a hearty
laugh, and with a broad smile wished his kids the best, relieved by the
thought that he would not be alive to face such consequences!
He was right. A lot of us will not be around—in person, that is.
But our legacy will be, through the genes we’ve passed along to our off-
spring, the culture we’ve created, and the environment we’ve left behind.
Looking at life generationally reinforces that we live in unprecedented
times. Never before have anchors like food, culture, social norms, the
environment, and factual understanding changed so quickly.
Carl Sagan said it best when, in 99 , he wrote,
I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchil-
dren’s time when the United States is a service and information
economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped
away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in
the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public inter-
est can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability
to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in au-
thority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our
horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish
between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without
noticing, back into superstition and darkness.I fear that time has come. While I was writing this book, I asked indi-
viduals about their connection to food. Some offered valuable insights,
but others questioned why I had chosen a topic that does not need fixing.
For them, buying food when the urge strikes has become as natural as
turning on a tap and filling a glass with water when they’re thirsty.