Eric Schlosser on America's food industry and his delicious new film

17 Nov 2006

Eric Schlosser on the set of Fast Food Nation.

Photo: Matt Lankes/ © Fox Searchlight

Eric Schlosser sat unassumingly -- and almost out of place -- in a floral armchair in a spacious, elegantly decorated suite on the 10th floor of Seattle's Fairmont Olympic Hotel. Behind him, a poster rested on an easel. It featured a juicy burger, bigger than Schlosser's head, adorned with an American flag.

In many ways, the jumbo burger is a metaphor for Schlosser's life over the last decade or so -- the fast-food industry looming large as he researched the modern American convenience-based food system, first publishing his findings in a two-part article in Rolling Stone in 1998. The piece generated more mail than anything the magazine had run in years, and soon Schlosser, a National Magazine Award-winning journalist, was at work on a full-length exposé titled Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal.

That muckraking book -- which revealed the inner workings of America's food system and its effects on animals, land, and people, from the immigrant meatpacker to the low-wage fast-food worker to the blissfully unaware Big Mac eater -- generated critical acclaim. Schlosser went on to apply his investigative skills to a book on America's black market and, earlier this year, Chew on This, a revamped version of Fast Food Nation aimed at younger audiences.

"The first step is to just open your eyes and see what's happening, and I think a lot of my work is driven by that aim," he says. In addition to opening consumers' eyes, Schlosser's work has hit its target: earlier this year, 19 food-industry associations launched Bestfoodnation.com, a public-relations campaign that, among other things, accuses Schlosser of publishing misinformation. But Schlosser stands by his facts, and has said that he would jump at the chance to actually speak to a representative from McDonald's. (The chain has refused to speak to him even off the record.)

Amiable and intelligent, Schlosser is now touring in support of the Fast Food Nation film, a fictional narrative based loosely on the book and directed by Richard Linklater. Schlosser and Linklater collaborated throughout the process, from planning sessions to screenplay drafts to shoots with the big names (Bruce Willis, Greg Kinnear, Ethan Hawke, Avril Lavigne) peppering the film's cast. The result is an almost shockingly gruesome, but realistic, look at the fast-food industry through the eyes of the many characters (from cattle ranchers to company execs) playing a role in satisfying our appetite for a quick, cheap meal. "One of my favorite shots in the film is [an] aerial view of the feedlot, where it just goes on and on and on," Schlosser says. "I mean, that's insanity."

Hungry for his thoughts on how to change the way Americans view food, I sat down with Schlosser to chat about reinvigorating a holistic, healthy food system, weaning his kids off Happy Meals, and more.

What do you hope this movie conveys about the American food system?

Image: © Fox Searchlight

I hope it just shows people how the system works. Most people have no idea where their food's coming from and how it's being made and what it's doing to the land and what it's doing to the animals. And most importantly for me, what it's doing to people -- in this case, the people who process and are involved in bringing you your food.

The film is really about showing you what's happening and trying to make people think, and ideally make them feel too -- feel some compassion, move them in some way.

What do you think we could do to fix the system?

The first thing to do is educate and inform yourself. And really get a sense of what's going on. After that, it's up to you and how passionate you feel.

There's no shortage of groups doing really good things on different issues that are part of the problem. If you care about exploitation of poor immigrant workers, there are workers' rights groups and immigrants' rights groups. If you care about what we're doing on these factory farms to the animals -- which is cruel beyond belief -- there's the Humane Society and there are different groups working on behalf of animal rights.

The Sierra Club is doing a good job right now in terms of [working to mitigate] the environmental impact of factory farms. The runoff from these farms is one of the leading causes of water pollution in the United States. The hormones that they're giving to these cattle are excreted in their manure and are winding up in streams. And they're finding fish that are weirdly deformed -- their sexual organs are deformed -- downstream of these feedlots, and that's just crazy.

The simplest thing people can do is be conscious of where they spend their money. As a consumer, you can think of each purchase as a vote. When you go to fast-food chains and buy industrial meat, you're endorsing those practices. If you spend a little more time and money and buy food that's being produced the right way by conscientious people, then you're supporting a totally different system.

Now, I know you have kids. Do you let them eat Happy Meals?

Before I did the research for Fast Food Nation, I took my kids to McDonald's. It was always really irritating because they wanted to go there for the little crap plastic toy connected to some recent Disney movie. And I'd buy them the Happy Meal and they'd sit there playing with the little toy, and the food wouldn't get eaten, and I'd wind up eating their French fries.

So I never liked it, but once I started really investigating the industry and understanding how it operated, that was it. No more McDonald's, no more Burger King, no more KFC. And they were bugged at first, but ... they survived.

What was it like working with the well-known actors in this movie?

Each person in the film came to it with a different connection to the subject matter, but all of them did it because they really wanted to and not because they were going to get paid a lot. Bruce Willis' typical fee is higher than the total budget of this film. He did it because he felt passionate about the subject, and he was terrific. Avril Lavigne is a vegetarian, and she felt passionate about it.

(L to R) Luis Guzman, Ana Claudia Talancón, Catalina Sandino Moreno, and Wilmer Valderrama from a scene in Fast Food Nation.

Photo: Matt Lankes/ © Fox Searchlight

Wilmer Valderrama -- he was absolutely amazing. Wilmer came to the United States at 14, unable to speak a word of English. He arrived in Los Angeles and immediately was thrown into a high school where all the classes were in English. So he knew -- on a personal level and on a very visceral level -- what it's like to be an immigrant, and what it's like to feel completely out of place and forced to adapt. He didn't walk across the desert, but he had a really powerful immigrant experience here.

Why did you decide to go with a narrative rather than a documentary?

The book came out in January of 2001, and I was immediately approached by people who wanted to do a documentary. And I thought that would have been terrific. There were things I'd seen that I thought would be very powerful [on-screen] and that my words had failed to describe accurately. But I spent about a year trying to pull it together and none of the options felt right. Most of the filmmakers were working with networks, and all of these networks, one way or another, had a relationship with the fast-food industry. Even PBS -- you know McDonald's is a big sponsor of Sesame Street. So I felt uneasy.

About a year and a half after the book came out, I was approached by Jeremy Thomas, a British, independent producer who works with some of the really great European directors -- totally outside of the Hollywood system. He came to me with this idea of doing the fictional film ... but I just didn't see how it would really work. So I said I'd think about it.

In 2002, I got together with Rick Linklater, who's one of my favorite directors, and we started talking about it. We worked on it on and off for a couple of years, but I didn't sign off the rights to my book until it was clear to me that Rick really wanted to make this film, that he would have total creative control over the film -- and that the money would be raised outside the Hollywood system.

One piece of the movie that I was surprised by is the college kids who get together and talk about, basically, this notion of "eco-terrorism," and then try to tear down a fence and let cattle out. That wasn't necessarily part of the book.

Well, the decision to do it as a drama was, from the very beginning, a decision to keep the title, keep the spirit and some of the subject matter [of the book], but do something totally different. So we decided the film would be about people in a small town in Colorado.

One of the storylines is about a young woman named Amber who starts out as a fast-food worker. There have been a lot of films made about a young woman's sexual coming of age -- you know, a lot of French directors are obsessed with that -- and we were interested in a young woman's political coming of age. How is it that you suddenly start opening your eyes and start thinking about the world around you? In this case, she's starting to question things; she has an uncle who has a big impact on her, but she also hooks up with a bunch of college kids who are thinking and debating about these issues. So those scenes with the college students are really meant as part of this young woman's growing awareness.

Can you comment at all about your involvement with the upcoming film There Will Be Blood, a treatment of Upton Sinclair's Oil?

Yeah. That was a novel I read that I fell totally and completely in love with, and I just really connected to a lot of it. It was about the birth, in many ways, of the present American oil industry. And there was also, at the core of it, a father and son relationship that I thought was very poignant. So I contacted the estate of Upton Sinclair ... and obtained the rights to the book. And I wasn't really sure what I was going to do with it.

I was approached by Paul Thomas Anderson -- who was literally the only other human being I had ever met who had read the book. He felt very passionate about the book. And Daniel Day-Lewis did as well, so they very much wanted to make this movie. And I thought, well, here's one of the handful of really great directors of the moment and here is probably the greatest actor of my generation. So I gave the book over to them.

I've talked to Paul about it, and I've read his screenplay, but I'm not actively involved in that in the same way that I have been with Fast Food Nation. I hope it's a great success.

Fast Food Nation is somewhat related to another Sinclair book, The Jungle. It's an interesting connection.

This film pays homage to The Jungle, it really does. It's similar in using meatpacking as a way to literally look at what's happening in this country ... what's happening in the slaughterhouses is a pretty good metaphor for a lot of what's happening right now.

How do you think food issues and Fast Food Nation relate to environmentalism?

Well, you can't pull apart the system. You have to look at it in totality. The same system that is treating workers like they're disposable is treating [land and] animals like they're industrial commodities. There's no sense of stewardship. There's no long-term vision about what is sustainable or what's not. This is about short-term profits, pure and simple.

If you look at the values that are much more traditional in agriculture, it's something that's handed down generation to generation. So there's a long-term view, there's a sense of stewardship because you expect your family to be there for generations. It's just totally different from one of these agribusiness companies that, you know, if it makes more sense to plow it under and put up a shopping mall, they'll do that.

One of the problems I have with the mainstream environmental movement is it tends to be narrowly focused on very specific problems and often isn't concerned about human beings as part of the natural environment. I think people and animals are as much of a concern as wetlands or the environment, so I've really tried to encourage environmental activists to broaden their view and to include human beings and to see that this system that is polluting water is also maiming poor people. I would really encourage anyone who reads this who is an environmentalist to think about broadening the view and broadening the coalitions for change, because the one other group that you could include is consumers. There's a connection between a system that's poisoning the land and really sickening the people who eat the food.

As consumers, should we focus on buying locally, organic, vegetarian? Should we fight the subsidies that these companies are getting, pressure companies ... ?

It all sounds good. I'm not a vegetarian, but there's no question that a vegetarian diet is much more sustainable for the land, is much more sustainable for many of the people eating that way. I eat meat, but not every day. I don't buy industrial meat.

If I had a choice between eating produce that was local or eating produce that was organic and shipped from China, I would probably choose the local. It's complex, but the goal is a system that is sustainable. The agro-industrial complex that we have right now -- that is treating animals this way, that is treating the land this way, that is treating human beings this way -- has only really been around for 30 to 35 years, and we're already seeing huge costs in health, in terms of the environment, in terms of just cruelty. So this system isn't sustainable.

Each one of us who eats is part of that. If you eat, you're connected to this, and you've got to think about it and do something about it.

Sarah van Schagen is Grist's assistant editor.

Comments: (22 comments)

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Sobering Truth for Baby Boomers

Mr. Bliss's article, Fry Away Home, is not only addressing the problem of eating healthier and living healthier lifestyles, he also ends it with the comment "listen to your gut." It has become of growing interest to many experts in sociology as well as ecology that people are yearning for not just healthier food, but a better quality of life than that which is pursued today.

I do not have a large garden or land on which to grow much food, but I know that when I am working with the soil or watching a plant grow or, yes, chasing my dogs away from the broccoli and carrots, that I feel more alive inside. Many people I know have felt this way, and it is something that has healed many children with problems of self-esteem and poverty related issues. Community gardens have been known to heal communities and stop many of the social ills that crop up when we stop growing living things. (no pun intended.)

Mr. Bliss returned to the land not just because of the fond memories of his childhood, but because he understands that we are connected to this Earth and when we treat it in balance, we can not only live well, we are sustainable. We need to move from this life of fast food, fast jobs, and fast cars before we destroy this world and its future completely.

When the department head for the ag department at a local college tells me that he does not teach anything about growing food or soil or animal husbandry, but teaches only about agribusiness marketing because that is where the fast, easy money is for students, you know you have a problem. This instructor told me that young people were not interested in growing anything only simple, easy ways to have it all now, so why should he bother with the basics of agriculture. He went on to say that with the industrial and chemical components of agriculture today, they would be better off studying biotechnolgy and chemistry if they wanted to produce food! With that kind of attitude from the department head, it is no wonder that this school, in the heart of farm country, is not turning out farmers and ranchers who understand business.

Our souls, if I may digress, need connection, and Mr. Bliss realized that and connected. I have never lived on a farm in my life, but I have always felt that connection. It used to drive my family crazy, with my mother often commenting that I was a genetic throwback. I don't think so, but I have always had a closer tie with the animals in my life, with nature, and with the land than my upbringing would suggest. I have always understood the Amish way of life better than the modern day world, and I have always understood that without the land, we will die out as a race and as a planet. Our souls are connected. If you do not believe it, watch a child's face at the zoo in a large metropolitan area. Children know that we are connected, and petting zoos are popular for a reason.

So for my baby boomer generation cohorts, it is time to lead the way back to the land. Our parents or grandparents understood the lessons we have forgotten, and now we need to relearn those lessons for the sake of our children and their children. Follow Mr. Bliss to the land, and we might all find what it is we are searching for in all the wrong places.

by djnoll at 7:08 AM on 19 Nov 2006

Becoming Vegetarian

Over 18 years ago, I became a vegetarian and it wasn't easy at first. I really didn't do it for animal cruelty--but I became more aware and felt more respect to other creatures. It was hard to explain to others why I became a vegetarian. I felt it was to honor something deep inside of me--something like a sparkler on the Fourth of July.
The first Thanksgiving was torture because I wanted the turkey and dressing. Each time I wanted meat and had to give it up, I felt a little pain inside--like I was being deprived. I thought of dead, rotton meat to neuro-associate and cancel the "deprivation" feelings. However, after about a year, I didn't feel deprived--but felt much healthier. I also felt that there was something more spiritual inside of me. My now ex-husband and his family made fun of me because I had decided to be a vegetarian and my ex-mother-in-law would put meat in all the dishes when we were invited over to eat (I would put bananas or fruit in my purse to make it through the meals).
It was tough, but I held my ground and stuck to my beliefs. My family thought it was strange, but honored my beliefs. Although at first my mom was worried that I would die because I didn't eat meat, she even started making me vegetarian dressing on Thanksgiving. So many vegetables and foods are available for us to eat, why should we eat cows, or pigs, or birds, or cats, or dogs--any animals? Actually when you think about it, cooking and eating a cow is the same as cooking and eating a human--it's similar meat--especially if that human eats at the fast food restaurants. (Why should any meat eaters be the least bit worried about fingers in the chili? Meat is meat).
I'm really happy that I made that decision so many years ago. Happy Thanksgiving and good luck to those of you out there who want to give up the meat.

by Zebe at 3:25 PM on 20 Nov 2006

I second that...

the transition to a plant-based diet was the best personal decision I ever made- Thanksgiving is a great time to make the switch as we think about how good we have it in a country where we have so much food at our fingertips and plenty of options besides the meat-industrial madness.

J.S.

Economic Illiteracy Harms The Planet! www.voicesofreason.info.

by Jason D Scorse at 3:38 PM on 20 Nov 2006

I never thought about it in this way...

Zebe wrote:

"Actually when you think about it, cooking and eating a cow is the same as cooking and eating a human--it's similar meat..."

I'm currently reading "The Ancestor's Tale" by Richard Dawkins and I'm going to go take another look at when the ancestor of our bovine burgers diverged from our own family tree. I'd like to know how genetically similar they are to us.

Dawkins raises an interesting issue in that whether one considers and animal similar or different really depends on which genes you look at. The extreme example is blood type... looking only at blood type, a human with type B would be closer related to a chimpanzee with type B, than to a human with type A. I know... it would be nonsense to view the world in such a way -- you have to look at the entire genome -- but it is thought provoking.

If a typical human carnivore learned that bovine or other animal muscle was very similar to human muscle at the molecular level... at what point would it creep him or her out. Fifty percent match? Seventy-five percent match?

by wiscidea at 3:46 PM on 20 Nov 2006

Foxfire books...

Someone mentioned ag students not being taught anything about simple farming techniques, only industrial ones. I recommend reading the Foxfire series of books (you can read about them at foxfire.org) that record agricultural traditions in Appalchia.

by Roz Cummins at 3:49 PM on 20 Nov 2006

how about this...

male humans have more genetically in common with male apes than they do with female humans

Economic Illiteracy Harms The Planet! www.voicesofreason.info.

by Jason D Scorse at 3:52 PM on 20 Nov 2006

Men are apes, Jason?

You said it, not me. :)

KIDDING!!! (lest anyone get upset...)

by willa at 7:49 AM on 22 Nov 2006

fee fie foe fum

WiscIdea, the earliest fossils of the principal groups of hoofed mammals, the perissodactyls (horses, rhinos, tapirs) and the artiodactyls (camels, giraffes, pigs, hippos, deer, sheep, goats, antelopes, cattle, etc.), date from between 60 and 50 million years ago. The earliest primate fossils date from around 50 million years ago. If human flesh resembles beef, that must be coincidental, a matter of convergent evolution.

Probably the greatest and most sophisticated cannibal cuisine in history was that of the Aztecs, in the 15th and early 16th centuries. It is a pity that the Spanish conquistadores were too squeamish to try any, in the interests of science. It would have been interesting to compare and contrast the taste of native Mexican to that of Spaniard.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 1:37 PM on 22 Nov 2006

a disturbing thread

The topic is "You Are What You Eat", not "You Eat What You Are".

But since caniscandida actually introduced the phrase "cannibal cuisine", I'd like to bring up my favorite topic, GMOs, again.

Out of respect for cannibal culture, should we genetically engineer beef to taste like people? Then they can enjoy their family recipes without threatening their human neighbors.

On a slightly more serious note -- only slightly -- if something like zucchini was genetically engineered to taste like beef and have the texture of beef, would it help wean humanity from the consumption of animal flesh? I've tried meat substitutes and they are no match for a real burger. Furthermore, GMOs actually seem more natural than the fake meat out there.

There could be a whole range of exotic zucchini out there... flavors from throughout the animal kingdom!

Just one more of my wacky ideas. But I've seen more-absurd posts on this website, so it must be okay to put it out there.

by wiscidea at 2:37 PM on 22 Nov 2006
[ Parent ]

on a more serious note

I think the problem of fast food has deeper roots than the simple addiction to high-calorie food. The addiction itself will be difficult to overcome because we are genetically inclined to crave the products fast-food restaurants sell. But evolution never selected for a tendency to stop eating high-calorie food... since we generally did not encounter an excess of such food.

Anyway... THE DEEPER ROOT... or I guess MORE-SHALLOW ROOT since it is a modern problem... some sort of extensive difficult-to-eliminate root... like a weed that spreads rhizomally...

Our entire American way of life -- for better or for worse -- depends on fast food. The economy depends on getting people to work as soon as possible and keeping them there as long as possible. It depends on two-income families that use a large part of their non-working hours running errands, moving their kids from place to place, taking care of their home. On top of this, we are supposed to invest time in our communities, volunteer to solve problems the Republicans refuse to let the government handle, keep up with the news so we can make informed political decisions, AND SO ON.

It is difficult to give up fast food for preserving health, ending abuse of workers, and spending more time with family and friends when we live in a society that demands more and more productivity for fewer and fewer wages.

If predict a domino-effect of positive change if we focus on making it possible for one person (or two people each working 50% time) to take care of a family. There will then be time for slow food, educating ourselves about other issues, and caring for our communities. Until then, weaning America from fast food will be VERY DIFFICULT.

by wiscidea at 3:04 PM on 22 Nov 2006

one-earner families

That's a nice fantasy, but historically it's just that, a fantasy. The few decades after WWII when that was possible are only accepted as the norm because they were the right amount of time ago to seem like "back then" to people now. We had a lot of money, companies offered a lot of benefits, and... it broke them. In the long run, even a non-greedy company (were there such a thing) couldn't sustain the kind of benefits offered in the 50s.

Before WWII, it's true that it was somewhat rare for both parents to work outside the home (except for millworkers and such), that doesn't mean one income was sustaining the family. It used to be much, much more common for there to be home-based industries--small farms, etc--which were small enough to allow one parent to also work outside the home, meaning really it was more like a 2.5-job family, rather than a 1- or 1.5-job one. Of course, none of this has ever applied to wealthy families, but for regular people, living on one salary and taking lots of vacation has never been and likely will never be a reality.

by willa at 5:29 PM on 22 Nov 2006

regarding one-income families

I fully expected someone to say this, which is why I carefully crafted my comment to NOT suggest going back to a time when one income supported a family.

As I posted regarding the poll about the nature of time, I do not believe there ever was a better time or place to be born. And people who long for that are really longing to be part of the 1% that made up the upper class and happened to avoid death at young age or perhaps death during childbirth. But that is an aside.

I am not an econonmist and there are plent y of people here who will rip apart my theory. But I believe the 50's and 60's in America showed that a better life is POSSIBLE, but corporate greed, ending import tariffs, sending work abroad, reducing investments in infrastructure, WASTING MONEY ON FOREIGN ADVENTURES, rewarding industry for moving money around rather than producing useful products, trickle-down economics, and not maintaining a reasonable minimum wage pulled the rug out from under a GROWING middle class that had time and resources to invest in caring about their community.

(I realize it is anecdotal, but my grandfathers, each born about 1905, one installing floor covering and the other a milkman (as in a horse-drawn wagon on the streets of Milwaukee, WI) managed to take care of their families, each with one income.)

Regardless of whether it was normal for one person to earn enough to take care of a family at any time in the past, that does not matter now. Our civilization should be able to do so NOW.

Are you saying that we cannot strive for something better than humans had in the past?

In that case, we cannot have any jobs what-so-ever unless we continue to harvest resources at an unsustainalbe rate. That is what supported that past several thousand years of civilization. Also, we cannot have any jobs what-so-ever unless we continue to expand agricultural land, moving on and cutting down another forest after we exhaust the soil. After all, I suppose that was what was necessary to sustain several thousand years of civilization. So how could we POSSIBLY IMAGINE ANYTHING BETTER?

A one-income family???!! HA! If this is the general attitude out there, I GIVE UP! I am going to hop into my car and burn gas like there is no tomorrow... because that is how it has always been done and always will.

Is this more realistic?

by wiscidea at 7:54 PM on 22 Nov 2006

I propose a poll question...

Like the environmentalist/animal welfare question....

Should environmentalists make an effort to advocate a living wage for people, or is that a separate issue? The theory being... people who can afford to care for their families are more receptive to preserving nature.

by wiscidea at 7:58 PM on 22 Nov 2006

families

WiscIdea, I appreciate the way you are thinking. Your suggestion that the fast-food habit in the U.S. is inextricably connected to the country's economy makes perfect sense. And I agree with your suggestion that there is something inhumane and unwholesome that typically in the U.S., both parents must work full-time to support themselves and their families.

DJNoll, at the top of the thread, wrote a lovely message in reaction to the story about the McDonald's cook, eliciting the nostalgia for a simpler life closer to the land that so many of us feel.

It seems that for most of history, most people were most of the time pretty close to home. Whether agriculture was involved or not, men and women were both engaged in food-production or some other practical work, usually never in so hectic a way that they were prevented from regular encounters with other members of the household or with neighbors and friends. Households tended to hold more than two generations, and older members regularly took care of children.

Hanging around with the family is not always the greatest thing in the world; e.g., intellectually it can be pretty stifling. There have always been activities that took men (not women usually) far from home for long periods: hunting, long-distance trade, military service, higher education. (Not for nothing have universities been so long associated with progressive thought. And it is curious that teachers have mostly tended to be celibate, or otherwise detached from a family. The Jewish pattern, with married rabbis living in close communities, is unusual -- and possibly an ideal.) These long absences from home can be destabilizing: they are often associated with sexual adventures, for example, both on the part of the wandering men and on that of the womenfolk left at home. But then, the men come home, with new knowledge and new ideas. And, on balance, that has been enriching, and good.

Since the Industrial Revolution, however, most people in the industrialized West spend most of their day at some distance from their homes and families, with no access to them, or to anyone else among their familiars, virtually locked into a work space, within a regulated schedule. That newer economy has always required of workers unpleasant, even brutal personal concessions. Is that always bad? Well, yes and no. That is: yes, it is destructive. But no, or at least it is not clear, because in the past few decades in the U.S., within very many typical business-related or professional work formats, apparently many people thrive on the intellectual stimulation, the new extra-familial social relationships, the game-like activities, full of competition and the hope of "glory," or whatever. So, is that good for these people? I do not know, and I do not think anyone does. But if they are OK with it, let them have it.

What is more important to understand, as you do, WiscIdea, is that there must be a place for people who do not find that kind of work at all appealing. Half-time employment (or however you want to quantify it) should really be a practical option for those who do not like giving themselves 110% to their careers. That would be good for the quality of life of many people, who want to be able to think, and explore, and create, at leisure. And it would be good for society, as your poll question suggests: thoughtful people who can avail themselves of a decent piece of leisure will surely be able to do some very good things for our society, for our civilization, and for our world.

So, should environmentalists advocate a living wage? Sure. More generally, though, environmentalists should recognize that their causes are a definite part of social justice; and social-justice activists should recognize that social justice is a part of environmentalism.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 3:41 AM on 23 Nov 2006

"you eat what you are"

Apologies to Dr. Hannibal Lecter, if I earlier unfairly overlooked his own remarkable contributions to cannibal cuisine. I saw "The Silence of the Lambs," and was impressed more by the brilliance of the escape than by the tastefulness of the cannibalism (I have no problem with the pasta course, but I suspect I would want a light red wine, not a white). I have not followed up in that series thereupon. It would not surprise me if a credit at the end of one or another of those movies said, "No animals were harmed in the making of this motion picture. However, the original best boy, and the assistant director of wardrobe's assistant, were removed for experimental purposes, at the request of one of the producers, and of most of the cast. Recipes available at our website."

On evolutionary relationships, and eating "locally": It would be interesting to know if human beings in Africa, or elsewhere, have always made primates an important part of their diet. Now that the extraction industries have opened up new roads into formerly remote areas of central Africa, the "bush meat" issue has become very important for environmentalists. The meat of primates, not just of monkeys but of apes, is available in African markets. So, one wonders: how does one know how to shop for chimpanzee? Is one part of the body better than another, for a certain dish? How does one prepare it? Has a cuisine developed yet? Does one know what to do with chimp haunch? Would it be very different, if one could work with human haunch? Or, say, scrambled eggs with finely chopped liver, and mushrooms: would it matter, taste-wise, if the liver pieces came from a chimp, or from a human being?

Back to Darwin: Otherwise, we should observe that we are much more closely related to bats than to any other non-primate. And yet, I am not sure any human culture has ever developed an appetite for bat.

Also, we are more closely related to rodents and lagomorphs than we are to the hoofed animals that we usually eat. Rabbits and hares have always been important prey-items and menu-options for human beings.

Rodents are more obscure. Guinea pigs? So we are told. "It tastes like chicken." Or whatever. No thanks. Rats? "It tastes like inner-city street-wise chicken"?

Far be it from me to recommend anything in the direction of rodentivory. Sure, the cultivation of, say, rats can be done, I have no doubt. But it must also be considered that rats are excellent, intelligent, affectionate companion-animals.

For the record, I am not in favor of any killing of animals by humans for human ends, in principle. But ethical situations are complicated, and the competing kinds of good ends and the competing kinds of bad ends must be assessed carefully.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 5:21 AM on 23 Nov 2006

Response to the Poll Question

While the answer is quite simply yes, they should, the reason is perhaps more involved than just being more receptive to nature because of the ability to care for their families.

I have recently been doing a great deal of research on the question of oil depletion, climate change, and agriculture. The three are inextricably linked, and unless the question of how to preserve agriculture in a natural, organic state can be answered, now and quickly, the other two may be moot points. There is currently a movement to relocalize not ony politics, but agricultural production so that communities once again have locally produced food available to them. This is partly because of the need for healthier food, but also because of the need for a secure national food supply. With a living wage that is above the poverty line, which no bill in Congress is setting, a more significant amount of money could be put by the average family into the producing of food for themselves, as well as paying for the locally produced food which may be more expensive than the industrially produced food.

Further, by encouraging the family to grow part of their own food, like the Victory Gardens of WWII, they can offset some of the other higher priced foods that they could buy from local sources. Since most families in America are two income families, there is nothing wrong with having the children be responsible for this garden. Children who have worked in community gardens around this nation have been less likely to get into trouble than other children, so why not create co-operative neighborhood gardens where children can work together under the guidance of parents to create rather than destroy thier lives, and share in the responsiblity of helping to feed thier families.

A basic living wage will help cover expenses, but only a healthy agricultural community that is based on organic, living principles on a national scale will help to feed this nation the way it should be fed. A healthy agricultural community, whether in Los Angeles or rural Iowa, can help to address issues of cleaner air, water resource conservation, and oil dependency by limited transportation to market of production. When you take the costs of excess water usage and transportation out of the food production equation as practiced by industrial agriculture, you reduce the cost of locally produced food by nearly half. On that basis alone, a living wage can help a family pay for food locally produced.

So, yes, a living wage should be part of the argument, because with it the people can afford to feed their families, but not just because they are more receptive to nature, but because coupled with a movement to localize food production, they can afford to eat locally and better.

by djnoll at 8:23 AM on 26 Nov 2006
[ Parent ]

HELP!

Several Gristmill topics -- the value and morality of a vegetarian diet, righteousness, motivating through fear and other emotions, value of reason, the effects of global warming -- were bouncing around in my skull last night and a series of questions emerged. I have admitted previosly that I view consumption of meat as an addiction of sorts. But it is also natural; perhaps our ancestors were drawn to the roasted carcasses littering the savanna after an intense grass fire. It is difficult to override such genetic heritage. So...

Let's suppose you want to persuade someone to embrace a vegetarian life-style. Please SUGGEST A BOOK that uses one of the following strategies to motivate him or her...

(1) Fear ... fear if environmental destruction, fear of being poisoned, fear of disease, and terrible things I'm not even aware of.

(2) Pleasure ... the pleasure of consuming good vegetarian food and why, independently of any other value, nothing could be more enjoyable.

(3) Reason ... the logical reasons for being a vegetarian, especially selfish reasons (such as better health or saving money), but also the downstream effects that improve our quality of life and reduce the damage we inflict on the planet.

(4) Passion (rather than reason) ... a thoroughly in-your-face argument, perhaps even disregarding any facts to the contrary, a lecture on the evils of eating meat and why anyone who does should be flogged!

You can email your suggestion to wiscidea@yahoo.com if it will reduce the noise on this discussion thread.

Then consider one more questions ...

Which of the above strategies will win more converts?

by wiscidea at 2:32 PM on 03 Dec 2006

noise?

Frances Moore Lappe's "Diet for a Small Planet" appeals in different ways to all of those motivations, dear WiscIdea.

But your fourth one, "Passion," needs to be analysed a bit. Lappe certainly did not recommend that anyone be flogged. But she did indeed lay on the suggestion that one was morally irresponsible to take no thought for the hunger of people outside the First World.

I do not recall that she had anything to say about animal welfare, but I could be wrong.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 3:06 PM on 03 Dec 2006

why cut the noise?

Whoa, wiscidea, do not dismiss your own ideas as ones unworthy of gristmill discussion. Please don't tack "this is noise" onto one of the most intriguing starts of a discussion I have seen on gristmill.

Onto answering the questions: I laughed at vegetarianism for years, but...
I became a vegetarian about a year ago after reading "Diet for a New America" by John Robbins. The reason it convinced me was because it was a comprehensive and REASONED account of a hundred reasons why eating less meat is a good idea. It might be the animals people are eating, but it's humans we are putting through the meat grinder.

So here's my analysis:

Fear won't work. If fear kept people's personal habits in line, smoking would have been eradicated years ago.
Pleasure is a good reason. I certainly love vegetarian food and think being a vegetarian has been a good way for me to discover good food. I live in New York City where there are tons of amazing veggie restaurants. New Yorkers have every reason to go veg, but I would argue for those who live in small towns or towns filled with chain restaurants, it's going to take more than a pleasure argument since the most vegetarian they can get in public is an iceberg lettuce salad.
Reason worked for me. And probably anyone who isn't open to reason isn't going to be open-minded about much else.
Passion is an amazing tool. And there is a time for passion which shames people into acting right. Some of my favorite feminist literature is a speech by Andrea Dworkin of amazing passion decrying men for their inattention to the possible and real rapes of the population of more than half our country.

But for the most part, I think people get defensive and shut down when you accuse them of being bad people. I think passion can be incredibly postive as well and that the time for positive passion is 99.9% of the time. If you believe something with your heart and soul and you tell someone about it, they will remember your passion maybe because it was shameful for them but definitely because they could see it light up your soul.

Please, others add to this!

I used to think that if I cared about one thing, I would have to care about everything. Now I know I do.

by lyrivyzy at 9:08 PM on 03 Dec 2006
[ Parent ]

Definitely, focus on the pleasure...

i host vegan bbq's every year and blow people's minds with the food- it works!!!

Economic Illiteracy Harms The Planet! www.voicesofreason.info.

by Jason D Scorse at 9:36 PM on 03 Dec 2006

vegan bbq

That would work extremely well here on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, if one were feeling rich and philanthropic, in the more out-doorsy seasons of the year. In the course of our regular farmers' markets, inspired culinary artists could set up tables on Riverside Drive, under the trees, and, after the intervention of one or more neighborhood kitchens, provide a vegan banquet to all who show up with a bit of hunger. And of course everyone would be offered information on the inhumanity of carnivory, especially as practised in the US, and on the healthfulness of the vegan diet.

Here on Broadway, between 114th and 116th Streets, the farmers themselves would be advised as to what was going on, and how their produce was being featured.

Amongst those farmers is a good-looking lad, on whom my husband has a tremendous crush. I have never laid eyes on him myself, so cannot judge. And so, I am torn: Should he be excluded altogether from this veggie fest, kept in darkness? Or, rather, should he be made the center-piece, the very champion of veganism?

As for the dogs: Little Dog has a number of friends among the farmers'dogs, who generally move pretty freely beneath the farmers' tables, so that should work out OK.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 3:38 AM on 04 Dec 2006

Thank you for this article!

Your thoughts can be helpful to many people. You are absolutely right about all the food we eat. Fast food ruins our health and those who get money on it never care about our health. That's the cruel reality...
In our age of processed, pasteurized, and devitalized products, it is critically important to include in the diet a fair amount of traditional healthy food. In this article you will find a surprising list of some of the healthiest traditional beauty products - lacto-fermented foods and beverages.

by Fabulous2007 at 2:45 AM on 07 Jul 2007

The comments of Grist users reflect the opinions of those individuals only, and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoints of Grist, its staff, its board members, their psychotherapists, or their aestheticians. Got it?

Fast Food Damnation

Eric Schlosser on America's food industry and his delicious new film