Another Spinach is Possible
By Grace Lee Boggs
Michigan Citizen, Oct. 22-28, 2006
Like global warming and high gas prices the recent E.Coli spinach scare suggests that the time has come for us to stop depending on agribusiness for fresh vegetables and start growing our own produce in gardens or greenhouses and/or buying them from local farmers.
The main reason for the three deaths and 200 illnesses in 26 states from spinach E Coli contamination is that food production has become industrialized and concentrated in one region.
The agricultural area of California where the contaminated spinach originated produces three-quarters of the fresh-market spinach and other vegetables grown in the United States. It is contiguous to many Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations where E.coli is a byproduct of feeding grain to dairy and beef cattle in an attempt to fatten them up more quickly at a lower cost.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that this food supply concentration now sickens 76 million Americans every year, puts more than 300,000 in hospitals and kills 5000. It also makes our food supply extremely vulnerable to a terrorist attack.
By contrast, a locally-based food system would not only mean greater food security. It would help to retard global warming because industrialized agriculture requires huge amounts of fossil fuel for fertilizers, to power heavy farming machinery, for elaborate plastic wrappings, to refrigerate foods during shipping, and for the big trucks burning diesel fuel on their transcontinental trips.
In a locally-based food system an outbreak of contamination could be contained quickly because local farmers and their facilities could be visited and assessed in a more timely manner.
Most important, a locally-based food system would help to bring about the radical revolution in values that MLK advocated and that all of us, and especially our young people, so urgently need..
Last February, in a column entitled “Food for Thought,” I described how Alice Waters has been engaging schools and school children in solving some of our most challenging problems, including how to change our values.
Waters is the owner of Chez Panisse, a restaurant in Berkeley, California, which uses only fresh ingredients grown in accordance with the principles of sustainable agriculture. Opened in 1971, it has been described by Gourmet Magazine as the "best restaurant in the U.S."
Ten years ago Waters helped establish a gardening and cooking project called the “Edible Schoolyard” in the local public schools because she believes that "every child in this world needs to have a relationship with the land...to know how to nourish themselves...and to know how to connect with the community around them."
The program began at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School with a kitchen classroom and garden full of fruits, vegetables and herbs.
Today 1000 King School children are involved in growing, preparing and sharing fresh food, and food-related activities are woven into the entire curriculum. Math classes measure garden beds. Science classes study drainage and soil erosion. History classes learn about pre-Columbian civilizations while grinding corn.
The food program has not only become a model for a district-wide school lunch initiative. It is helping to combat the epidemic of obesity and Type 2 diabetes which currently threatens millions of American children addicted to a fast-food diet of fries and burgers.
"Not only are our children eating this unhealthy food," writes Waters. "They're digesting the values that go with it: the idea that food has to be fast, cheap and easy; that abundance is permanent and effortless; that it doesn't matter where food actually comes from. As a nation, we need to take back responsibility for the health of not just our children, but also our culture."
Just imagine how much healthier our children would be, both physically and spiritually, if we approached the schools crisis with Alice Waters’child-friendly philosophy.
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