Our Food Philosophy

It used to be we got our instructions about what to eat from our parents, grandparents, and culture. But these days it seems like everyone feels like they have a right to tell us what to put in our mouths.

Of course, we do think it’s important for people to know what’s in their food, where it comes from, and how it was raised. We also think that the best way to do this is by talking to people, facts in hand; not by by being judgmental or bossy. That’s because we’re pretty confident that no single food ideology– vegan, vegetarian, omnivore or carnivore– has a monopoly on the moral high ground. (For example, we’re not so sure that vegans who rely on heavily processed foods or well-traveled, petro-chemical-dependent fruits and vegetables harvested under exploitative conditions are any more ethical than meat eaters who rely on CAFO-sourced meats.)

The US food system is a complex thing. In fact, calling it the “US” food system is a misleading simplification–food has gone global. As such, eating ethically is a complex thing.

In ICARE’s ideal food-ethics scenario, the food people eat is mostly place-based. Those foods that aren’t (do we really want to ask average Americans to give up their morning coffee?) would still come from farms that treat their workers, animals, and land with respect, and where farmers receive a living wage.

At the moment, the structure of the food system (unfair domestic subsidy programs and unbalanced global trade policies) can make these choices very expensive. If you have access to or can afford to buy sustainably-produced food year round and do, you have our heartfelt thanks: you are making an important statement, and growing the sustainable food market.

But, while it may be reasonable for well-nourished people to chalk these extra expenses up to necessary or even beneficial trade-offs– sacrificing comforts or convenience for the sake of the cause, or trading future health bills for current food bills– we don’t think anyone has a right to harp about “consumer buying power” to the already undernourished poor or those who rely on SNAP benefits to eat. And we think these people have just as much right to healthy, ecologically sound food as wealthy and middle class people do.

Since buying power alone isn’t responsible for the current state of our food system, buying power alone can’t replace it with a safer, more equitable and sustainable one. And, as the middle class continues to shrink (and the ranks of the poor and hungry continue to grow), so does the likelihood that our individual consumer dollars will make a substantial dent in the food system.

Chemical, biological, and technological tweaks (i.e. GMOs) won’t solve this problem either. We need imaginative structural change– not just to food policy, but to farming as we know it.

As daunting as these obstacles seem, imagining alternatives to industrial agriculture’s factory farms isn’t very difficult. All it really takes is a little creativity. How much different might our food system look, for instance, if we had farmers for every school, university, hospital, prison, and court? What if those farmers farmed on-site, on rooftops, or vertical farms? What if suburban lawns made room for a new era of Victory Gardens? What if we instituted “farm days” for workers– a given number of days in the year, like sick days, that employees could use to volunteer on a farm? And what if we revamped farms so that volunteers and/or workers received a portion of the harvest, profits, or a discount? How much money would we save and how many more people could we feed even if all we did was stop wasting food?

It’s certainly true that implementing these ideas takes more than a little fortitude, but that hasn’t stopped people all over the world from trying. And so far those people have racked up some impressive successes. Just think what could happen if a few more of us joined in!