An Update on Spinach, and the Root of the Problem
Michael Pollan, author of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals”, wrote one of the better digestions of the whole spinach problem in last weekend’s NYTimes Magazine. You can read the article on his website.
In “The Vegetable-Industrial Complex”, Pollen hits on the big problem - that, as poet-farmer (and underappreciated American treasure) Wendell Berry points out, when we took animals off farms and put them into feedlots, we had, in effect, taken one elegant solution - where crops feed animals and animals’ waste feeds crops - and created two new problems: a fertility problem on the farm, and a pollution problem on the feedlot.
It’s the American way to then address these problems with everymore technically complex solutions (Pollen says look for a call to irradiate all fruit and vegetables..), rather than waking up to the simple reality that, as far as food goes, the simple old way may be better.
You’re worth the time and energy.
Our food supply is getting more centralized and more processed by the day. What can you do? Eat local and get to know the farmer that grows your food whenever you can. If it interests you, read about the issue in the growing number of books exploring food quality. A few fascinating reads to start with include Fast Food Nation, Food Politics, (look them up on Amazon) and Pollen’s book.