The result has been a general loss of basic cooking skills. Of course,
there are always people out there who like to cook, and interestingly,
men are doing a bigger share of the cooking at home than in the
past—but people cook less in general. They also eat out more,
especially at casual dining chains, and takeout is also on the rise. Of equal importance is that prefabricated food tends to be high
in salt, sugar, and fat; the better it tastes, the more people buy, so
it also contains so-called natural and artifi cial fl avors. These are
concentrated chemical additives (they are chemicals regardless
of where they’re sourced) that are designed to hit quickly with a
burst and then fade quickly so that we’re encouraged to eat more.
Moreover, they make our palates jaded. If tax dollars went to subsidizing fruits and vegetables instead of
corn and soy (which go into processed foods), there would be a
period of displacement as farmers switched from corn to broccoli,
and that transition could certainly be supported, but think of the
result: more fresh, local vegetables and less oversupply of crops we
don’t need so much of.The Future of Agriculture
In the past century, the small family farm has been gradually
disappearing, as huge industrial farms—corn, soy, beef, chicken,
and tuna farms—producing food have become very big businesses.
Farms have become huge and owned by fewer and fewer people.
Not only is the cost of land very high—especially as cities sprawl
into the countryside—on top of the cost of equipment, seeds
or stock, and fertilizers and pesticides, but we have also seen
manufacturing jobs and even service jobs exported. The long-term
exporting of jobs is a trend that presumably will not soon reverse. It will probably happen to food as well. As people seek cheaper labor
and land, our food supply will be largely imported. The so-called
developing world is poised to start exporting basic foods that they
will almost certainly be able to produce more cheaply than we can.