Food Politics and Popular Culture
Much in the way that the problems with throwing out recyclable goods
made its way into popular consciousness from the environmental movement
in the 70s and 80s, concerns over food waste, global warming and
increasing worldwide hunger are sparking conversations in popular
culture today. Several documentaries have surfaced in the last few years
which discuss the importance of food, where it comes from, how it’s
produced, and who has access to the freshest items. These films connect
food consumption with human health concerns, environmental degradation
and social justice.
Forks Over Knives
argues that a healthy diet of fresh, unprocessed, plant-based food can
prevent degenerative diseases and in some cases reverse their effects.
Similarly, Food Matters looks at the connections between our consumption patterns and illness. According to their website, Food, Inc. “exposes America’s industrialized food system and its effect on our environment, health, economy and workers’ rights.” What’s on Your Plate?
follows two eleven year-old girls as they look into food politics in
New York City, speaking with farmers, store owners, food activists,
friends and family to better understand how food is grown, how it gets
to our plate and what it all means.
Jeremy Seifert’s 2010 documentary Dive!
looks at the practice of dumpster diving in Los Angeles, CA. Dumpster
diving, the act of “rescuing” trash from dumpsters, is for Seifert a
means to feed his family, save unnecessary waste from entering
landfills, and, by the end, a call to action to help end waste and
hunger in America and the rest of the world.
Hunger and Food Loss
Worldwide, there are over 925 million people going hungry. Bread for the World,
a non-profit working to end world poverty and hunger, estimates that
every day, almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes. That’s
one child every five seconds. In 2005, the last year we have accurate
data, the 1.4 billion people lived in extreme poverty, or on less than
$1.25 a day.
In the United States, a 2008 USDA Economic Research Service (ERS) reported
17 million households in America, or 14.6%, were “food insecure,”
struggling to put food on the table for their families. These were the
highest numbers the ERS had seen since they began the national food
surveys in 1995 and represented a massive jump from the year before,
when 13 million, or 11.1% of households, experienced food insecurity.
In 1997, 96 billion pounds
of edible food in America, about 27% of food available for consumption,
was “lost” during one of three stages: on the farm, on during
processing and marketing, and in foodservice and consumption. Examples
of food loss include: misshapen or blemished produce not deemed
cosmetically appealing, dented cans, overstocked or seasonal packaged
goods, and food that molds in our refrigerators. The report states that
if just 5 percent of Americans’ 96 billion pounds of food scraps were
recovered, it would represent one day’s worth of food each for 4 million
people.
In terms of food waste (as opposed to loss), the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) estimated more than 34 million tons of food were
thrown away in 2010, making food waste an environmental and economic
issue. According to their website:
“Whether you are an individual, family, or business, chances are a
considerable portion of your budget goes towards buying food — either
for you, your family, or your customers. That means we are throwing away
a lot of our money. Often, simple changes in food purchasing, storage
and preparation practices can yield significant reductions in food waste
generation. Not only will this reduce waste, but it will make your food
dollars go further. Food waste cost savings have even greater potential
at commercial establishments. Saving food means saving money.”
Dealing with food waste is costing Americans an estimated $1 billion a year, according the 1997 ERS report
on food loss. “If 5 percent of retail, foodservice, and consumer food
losses in 1995 were recovered rather than discarded as solid waste,
about $50 million annually could be saved in solid waste disposal costs
for landfills alone, “ the researchers state. “If 10 percent of food
losses were recovered, savings for landfill disposal costs would be
about $90 million. These savings would increase to $200 million with a
25-percent recovery rate.”
Dumpster Diving: Local Solution to a Global Problem
Solutions to food waste in the United States are popping up in
organized and organic ways. Dumpster diving, like Seifert documented, is
a popular practice for people interested in reclaiming waste and is
practiced by people all over the world. Reclaiming food by rescuing food
from dumpsters, trash bins, rummaging through the dump yard or gleaning
leftover fruits and vegetables in the fields, are not uncommon
activities. According to a 2009 UN report,
scavenging is on the rise in Côte d’Ivoire, a country in West Africa,
as slightly under half the population is living in poverty. In Quetta,
Pakistan, an estimated 10,000 children
as young as five years old pick through the garbage, harvesting
recyclables in order to earn money for food for their families. In
Delhi, India, every 100th person earns a living from recycling part of the country’s 16 million truckloads of annual waste.
As waste becomes more pervasive and people are pushed farther into
poverty, people all over the world are organizing. In March 2008, the
Bogotá Association of Recyclers, which itself had over 18,000 members,
hosted the First World Congress of Waste Pickers. Funded by
international non-profits, informal trash recyclers from over 40
countries gathered for the four day event which allowed waste-pickers to
create national and international alliances and share strategies which
could help move them from the margins of society.
The logic and need of dumpster diving is inspiring people in the
United States to organize and call attention to food waste and its
broader connections to hunger, environmental problems, economic and
social justice. Everyday Trash is a blog that looks at trash as artistic and political. Gary Oppenheimer founded AmpleHarvest.org,
a non-profit which connects gardeners with local food pantries,
increasing access to fresh, nutritious food to people in need and
keeping edible food out of the trash.
In Oakland, CA, Dana Frasz is creating Food Shift
to help systematize the salvaging of food from retailers that would be
tossed into dumpsters and divert them to agencies which help feed the
hungry. Her goal is create a food waste reclamation sector, similar to
recycling programs, which incentivize businesses to donate a larger
variety of food. (For example, currently many grocery stores donate
canned goods and bread, while edible meat, dairy and produce are tossed
in the trash.)
The rising attention and responses to food waste offers
anthropologists a wide variety of avenues for further inquiry and
activism: How does (or doesn’t) dumpster diving disrupt our ordering of
dirt and waste (ala Mary Douglas)? Affect cultural capital? Help create
an archeological record of waste? What influence does greater access to
fresh, less processed food have on low income areas, food deserts,
childhood obesity and nutritional education? How are communities
organizing and articulating their concerns over food justice? I would
like to hear what other anthropologists are doing in this realm in terms
of theory and practice; it’s an arena of research and activism that
could benefit from our perspectives and methodologies.
This column also appears in the online edition of Anthropology News, the official newspaper of the American Anthropological Association.
