by frog
There is a vibrant food debate going on between New Zealand blogs Object Dart and In a Strange Land on the politics of food.
It began last week when No Right Turn pointed to this Guardian article about Jamie Oliver’s latest television show, where Oliver attempts to teach people to cook and eat healthy food.
Beginning with the Guardian and Oliver:
Natasha feeds her two children takeaways most nights. Aged five and two, they have never eaten a meal that has been properly cooked at home. Instead, they sit on the floor – no table, no cutlery – and eat shavings of doner kebabs or chips with processed cheese from polystyrene boxes with their fingers…
Natasha turns out not only to have a big cooker and TV but debts large enough to make her a pawn-shop regular, and depression deep enough to make her give up trying. When Oliver finds this out he confides to the camera in his car, “I don’t blame her … but I’m fucking angry. I’m fucking angry and I don’t know who with or what with.” He has just met poverty in all its 21st-century complexity – and it has a profound effect.
Of course food, or to give it its scientific term, diet, is closely related to the multitude of barriers that poor people need to overcome to succeed – diabetes, heart disease, obesity, poor educational outcomes, crime, exclusion… All the same problems about class, food and deprivation exist here in New Zealand as well as Britian.
Which is where Che at Object Dart picks up the debate:
And in an age where food has never been cheaper and easier to get, that’s nothing less than a tragedy.
It appears natural at this point to cast about for someone to blame. Someone must be responsible for these people learning about the basics of life and nutritional tidbits like “an apple is better than a bag of sugar”. In a place like New Zealand the blame eventually settles on “the gubbermint”. Poor people can’t feed themselves properly because they haven’t been educated right. The middle classes don’t feed themselves because taxation is forcing families to work two jobs to make ends meet. The very wealthy eat badly because flash restaurants don’t always serve healthy options between the foams and the other stuff.
And his prognosis:
This leaves me thinking that the tragedy of the people Oliver is depicting isn’t one of money. You can still eat healthily on a very low income (though not necessarily in volume). The tragedy is that they’re not participants in a society that routinely values making an effort to learn how to make the culinary most of what they have. After all, why make the effort when you’re told that you can get by with takeaways?
Meanwhile Deborah at In a Strange Land objects:
It ain’t so easy, even with all the knowledge, and all the resources… So what do I want, from Jamie Oliver, and other concerned foodists?
A little understanding. A little realising that preparing good food three times a day, every day, takes a huge amount of effort. A little thinking that adding one more social pressure to working parents may result in nothing more than parents who are even more stricken with the thought that somehow, they are not doing it right.
Poverty is a key part of the problem and cannot be easily dismissed. We need to ensure that everybody has the financial resources to make healthy sustainable food choices for themselves and their families.
Personally I think the a lot of the focus we put on food politics is at the eating end, after all the high fructose corn syrup, grease and endosulfan has already made its way onto our shelves. We spend relatively little time at the other end – agriculture – deciding what sort of food it is we want to eat and thus should promote. It maybe that part of the solution lies on our farms and in our waters rather than in the hands of celebrity chefs.
Published in Health & Wellbeing | Society & Culture by frog on Fri, October 10th, 2008
Tags: , class, Food, jamie Oliver, poverty
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
I’ve also heard some people tell me they don’t bother to cook because takeaways are so cheap it’s not worth it. Now that may be self-justification to avoid the fact that they don’t know how to cook, but it may also be that they really believe it.
If they really believe it, then they need to learn how to budget. And I think it is the government’s responsibility, through schools, to make sure people learn how to budget. Sure, it would be nice if everyone could learn budgeting from their parents, but that’s theoretically true of anything taught at school, and we have schools because we recognise parents can’t teach their children everything.
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Isn’t the reality that we have given up appropriate life-style for THINGS? The bigger house, newer car, 54th pair of shoes, new outfit, etc., have driven us to the point where the average family needs two incomes to keep up with their consumption targets. Hence the demise of the ‘family home’ and the rise of the Mall.
When my wife and I were raising our children (the youngest is now 27) I was out working, she was at home nurturing – despite being a highly qualified professional. We had fewer ‘things’ but somehow we had more! Buying something that wasn’t for everyday use was a treat. At Christmas and holidays the kids were ecstatic to receive something for them.
Now I look at my grandchildren and see how vapid their life has become. They get toys and new clothes all the time, it’s what their parents think is ‘normal’. When birthdays or Christmas come around there’s no thrill – it’s just another day with a presents; OK, so there’s a lot more than one, but they’re just ‘things’.
The best thing that could happen in the current financial melt-down would be an end to credit and an end to the pursuit of possessions rather than happiness.
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strings on ‘things’ – spot on.
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How can schools recreate an entire culture that’s been systematically trashed?
You just can’t have it all – community, capitalism, commodities, free markets, culture – and somehow pretend it can all be fitted together without bits of it being killed off by the other parts.
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sam buchanan – it’s a matter of clear sighted teachers. As in most situations, the answer lies in the ‘grass roots’, not the infrastructure. When government and it’s ministries stop tampering/reformatting systems and look at the capabilities of the teacher/deliveres, the problem will begin to resolve itself from within.
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What is the green party policy posistion on school kitchens and gardens?
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this does remmind me of my cooking classes in school; I dont think we ever accually cooked anything that could be classified as healthy; we baked choclate cakes, muffins, kiwi cookies, made hokey pokey, made pizzas, nd thats about all I remmber, though it was about 8 years ago.
The schools sure encourage it…
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sapient – they are behind the ‘Enviroschools’ project, which you’ll know goes way beyond gardens in schools (and kindergardens – love that name!) but certainly has had an enormous effect on the re-ignition of the growing of food at schools by children. This is one of my roles – establishing gardens in schools with children as the gardeners (not me or their teachers) I’m also involved in re-starting the good old ‘grow a garden at home’ that was once part and parcel of school life. Of all the parties, only the Greens have any idea at all about the value of this kind of education and more than that, they’ve been driving it quietly and constantly for some time now. As well, the Greens support (especially that of Rod Donald) for environment centres has contributed greatly to the ‘growing in schools’ programmes as a lot of supportive projects with schools (high, primary, pre) are run out of those fine organisations.
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greenfly,
I suspected as much, though I couldint find anything that dirrectly expressed it; this is the kind of thing that i joined the party for, things that are practical and accualy work to enhance the quality of life of the citizens and ensure greater equality of opportunity, and health, for the next generations.
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“this is the kind of thing that i joined the party for, things that are practical and accualy work to enhance the quality of life of the citizens and ensure greater equality of opportunity, and health, for the next generations.”
hear hear.
and let’s not forget preparing them to survive the coming apocalypse
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sapient – I entirely agree with you. It is frustrating to me that those kind of initiatives that the Greens are behind (and fronting) get largely ignored or overlooked by the media and commentators (we have some classics haunting this blog) in favour of trite quibbling. Are you aware of the eel tour Metiria has done, the wetlands work and Nandor’s permaculture/resilient communities work and a raft of other smaller projects that greens and Greens are running? It’s the real thing.
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Greenfly,
.
As a conveiner ive been involved in facilitating a number of those projects, though admittedly not very succesfuly, lol. Metirias eel lecture was wonderful, particuarly when Mike Joy was talking alongside her, though some of them only had afew people turn up
Admittedly, I spend alot of time criticising the party, though it is ment to be constructive criticism I do, fairly frequently, get carried away (some of the policies are really not well thought through or more ideolgicaly driven than practical).
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sapient – good on you. Those projects give ‘greens on the ground’ like me, a huge boost and backing when it comes to the wider public. The eel tour was a huge success where I am, as the talk drew in a broad group from across the board and it was really something to see them all in one room with a Green MP driving the process. It was high powered and the ripples from that …are still ripping
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greenfly,
).
lol, yup, those kind of things can be alot more interesting and inspiring than the rather drab local meetings which tend to be dominated by greys (but i didint say that
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Greenfly The stuff that you are doing is impressive, I think it is right on the mark and should recieve alot more support. But I have to say from an outsiders perspective the green party seems to have alot of this stuff hiden behind a much stronger social agenda.
Why on earth don’t the greens consolidate some of the good ideas they have and sell them as a common sense rational move towards sustainability?
The greens come across as radical as any fundamentalist christian group yet they seriously want people to trust them. If the green party were to re assess its priorities and pull back the socialist agenda a tad you would probably be in a real position to make a difference.
I suspect though there are one too many staunch political activists that have gained control of the party, and are unable to see past their own particular ideology.
I also suspect that if the greens don’t moderate some of their more extreme policy, the door will eventually open for a rival green movement in NZ.
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I never thought this would happen but for once I find myself in complete agreement with Shunda.
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Thanks …….I think?
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Shunda, ALL the active members of the Green party I know well are fully involved with some other grassroots activity involving sustainability and the environment – community gardens, organics, sustainability courses, transition towns, permaculture, environmental education, active transport issues, and more. They don’t do this stuff as Greens, they do it quietly, without political labels BECAUSE the passions and values that lead them to work politically for environmental good, lead them to work for environmental good in their local community as well.
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pingpong (is that a Rupert the Bear thing?) that’s so it! That’s the real oil.
Shundra – How you could think that a green-livin’ person could not consider issues like ‘how to manage the raising of children’, and put it aside because it’s not an ‘environmental issue’ is beyond me. We are real people. What do you expect us to do? Have no opinion? Do nothing? As for your proposition that there is a ‘rival green movement in NZ’ – that’s rubbish. There is a powerful green movement here now and it is the Green Party. Attempts to paint it red are simply designed to undermine, and those attempts arise from fear. Don’t be fooled by the rhetoric of the desperate. I recognise your genuine efforts to engage in the discussion. More power to you.
sapient – agreed on the meetings experience, but it’s up to the likes of you to beat the drum and get going.
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Greenfly,
there have been other green parties during the time of the Green party, one of which (the progressive greens) was a splinter from the Green party itself (they, mush like myself, were unhappy with several of the irrational policies). I personally feel that if we were to have two green focused parties, one focusing on social and environmental issues like the present party and one focusing on environmental and more practical issues then we would be able to attract a much larger vote for the green movement as a whole.
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No Greenfly, I was sort of riffing off “frogblog” and this is what came out and I’m sort of stuck with it now. I’ll look up the Rupert Bear connection though.
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sapient – all voters who hold the environment above all else have views on other real issues to do with every day life ( how to mange criminal behaviour, how to engage with other groups/communities/economies/cultures etc. ) Those issues must be faced and decided upon. No political party can exist for a single issue and pretend to ignore all else that goes on in the real world. The Greens are doing exactly this., engaging with the real world and making decisions based on their core beliefs. Those calling for an ‘ environment – only’ party are dreaming and the greatest noise is coming from outside of the party. They don’t understand. They should pull their heads in.
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greenfly,
I know, im not calling for the Green Party to change in any way, what I am saying is that I beleive that if there were a second party able to focus on issues in a traditionally right manner then more voters would be attracted to vote for the green movement as a whole. BP has said he would be willing to do so (or was it BB?) and I know a large number of individuals who would do likewise. It may cost the Green party afew votes, but the benifit to the movement as a whole is, i beleive, justified; that and we would probally never have to listen to rodney making a fool of himself again!
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sapient – you are following advice and direction from BP and BB ?????? O..k ……..
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Greenfly,
No, I have not yet reached a state where I should commit myself to an asylem. My point was that there is an electorate for a less left green party outside of the present Green Party voters, and a electorate within also.
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“Shundra – How you could think that a green-livin’ person could not consider issues like ‘how to manage the raising of children’, and put it aside because it’s not an ‘environmental issue’ is beyond me. We are real people. What do you expect us to do? Have no opinion? Do nothing?”
Not at all, everyone should have a voice on these issues, but the greens should be putting their best foot forward, not having what many consider to be radical social policy as the public face of the party.
Whether you like it or not people fear change, and fear those who want rapid change the most.
People can understand the “don’t crap in your own nest” idea very well its these areas the greens could be exploiting.
The programs you are doing should be more visible especially with the current economic outlook, growing your own food is a good common sense approach to sustainability.
Ideas like these are where the greens could build trust with the NZ public, then people might listen to the more controversial ideas (assuming they have any merrit).
The whole light bulb thing and now the shower heads , not to mention S 59 , leads people to think the greens are just a bunch of bossy control freaks who think they know best.
I really don’t understand why the party dosn’t push the grass roots stuff more, I originaly came to frog blog expecting a complete socialist agenda but have been suprized to find at least some good ideas that are worthy of support.
“As for your proposition that there is a ‘rival green movement in NZ’ – that’s rubbish.”
I never said there was, but people are getting greener and eventually there will be the numbers to possibly form a more socially conservative green movement . The green party could cater for these people but I doubt in its current form.
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My uncle got married last year; ive had never seen so many ‘hippies’ in one place, or so much weed for that matter, they were all (except for my relatives) atleast vege’s, most were vegan, they were all happy, dancy, intune with the environment types that one would expect to vote for the Greens.
I sat down with my new aunt that night, talked politics, and learnt that she voted Libetarianz, i was kind of shocked, imagine my awe when i found out the next day (yes, it was a several day long camping thing by a river) that almost every other ‘hippy’ there did too.
Thats some votes the green movement could do well with.
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The Green movement has been gutted and is nothing but a shell. It’s been taken over by totalitarianist activists. Sure it spouts all the rhetoric, but its real agenda is neo-communism.
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shunda – the crew that calls for a ‘socially conservative’ green party is really trying to emasculate the party that exists now. Their claim that they would ‘vote for a Green party’ that was more moderate, conservative and ‘safer’, is, I think, a great delusion and deeply dishonest. I’m not taken in by the ‘settle down, don’t be so bolshy’ line and thankfully, the Green MPs aren’t either. I’m proud that they have the courage of their convictions and don’t fold under pressure from the ‘sensible Dunne-ites’ that try to chip away constantly at the Green core. The Greens aren’t wishy washy, they’re up-front and raw.
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wat the hell! wat a clever guy you are to see through the cunning green veil of deceit and misinformation. All this talk of food safety, clean rivers, toxic chemical use, animal welfare, fair trade, justice and all that Green clap trap. Well done, watty, you’ve saved the country from the Green Peril!
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Is that red raw?
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haw haw! Killer come back!
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Damn, we’ve been found out. Should’ve known we couldn’t hide from wat’s superior intellect. Guess I’ll have to go join the Illuminati.
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That maybe so greenfly, but to me it dosen’t seem all that progressive.
Its just more of the same deeply polarised politics that has become part of traditional NZ society. Its probably our achilles heel as far as the country goes.
It is increasingly looking like NZ is about to go through the most difficult period in its history, politically and socially, and none of the political parties really seem even remotely prepared for it.
If we cannot return to the inovation and determinantion that NZ is founded on we could be in serious trouble, the petty squables going on in NZ now will quickly become a luxury of the past.
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shunda – don’t panic. There are people who know what to do. Many of them are in this party, top to bottom. Watch and listen. G’night.
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greenfly, Valis,
Let me remind you again of the quotation from Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace:
“The environmental movement I helped found has lost its objectivity, morality and humanity. The pain and suffering it is inflicting on families in developing countries must no longer be tolerated.”
Are you laughing now?
Please explain the humour to the rest of us.
What’s it like to be you? So sure you know what’s best for everyone else that you feel obliged to impose your will on the rest of us? To remove our choice and freedom and replace it with state dictats?
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Of course. How imbecilic of us! “Pollute to help the poor” should be our catchphrase. Consume to drop and, while you are about it, squander the resources of the ‘developing countries’ – for how else can they be become developed?
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kjuv,
Grow up.
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>>“The environmental movement I helped found
I doubt very much that Patrick Moore ‘founded’ the environmental movement. True, he was an early member of Greenpeace which dates back to 1971. BUT the modern environmental movement can be traced back to the late 1940′s (Aldo Leopold) or at the very latest to Rachel Carson’s ‘ Silent Spring’ in 1962. Our friend Patrick is rather presumptuous, don’t you think?
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“The environmental movement I helped found has lost its objectivity, morality and humanity. The pain and suffering it is inflicting on families in developing countries must no longer be tolerated.”
Are you laughing now?
Please explain the humour to the rest of us.”
One man’s view and no doubt he is reacting to some real problems. On the other hand he seems to be a AGW denier, thinks we should go nuclear and embrace GE food, so forgive me if its not obvious how his plan will save the environment.
“What’s it like to be you? So sure you know what’s best for everyone else that you feel obliged to impose your will on the rest of us? To remove our choice and freedom and replace it with state dictats?”
GE? Nuclear? What are you talking about?
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To Quote your Patrick Moore: ‘I think one of the most pernicious aspects of the modern environmental movement is the romanticization of peasant life. And the idea that industrial societies are the destroyers of the world. The environmental movement has evolved into the strongest force there is for preventing development in the developing countries. I think it’s legitimate for me to call them anti-human.’
Can’t this be considered as rather patronising? Is it really the (presumably) Western world’s responsibility to ensure that all other peoples conform to the modern economic/industrial model? Is it heretical to question global industrialisation? Why should we regard it as a panacea for the world? I fear that these are legitimate questions that the likes of Mr. Moore are not prepared to consider. He, and his ilk, seem to think that, as industrialisation has been successful for the bulk of the Western World, it must therefore be successful for all. The problem here is that the West’s success may well have been at the expense of the rest. I appreciate the simplifications of this argument BUT I really do not see that Mr Moore engenders any substancial respect for the traditions of what we may regard as the traditionally non-industrialised nations of this world. For instance: were they really that impoverished prior to their contact with the Western Industrialised nations?
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wat – I don’t imagine that I’m ‘imposing my will’ on anyone here, just offering my opinion. Isn’t that what we are all doing?
I’m curious about your use of Mr Moore’s words as the touchstone for your beliefs about environmentalism. He sounds very jaded and so do you. The ‘environmental’ people and groups that I know are very different from that: enthusiastic, positive, effective, dynamic. Perhaps you and I and others on this blog are each thinking of different things when we discuss ‘environmentalism’.
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One standard lie of the battery egg industry is that their unhealthy, battery farmed eggs are the cheapest form of protein for the poor. It is a way the corporate culture uses divide and conquer. Set the very poor against the totally wretched (battery hens). If you are against battery cages you are anti-the poor!
This is an insidious lie on two levels. Firstly nutritious and tasty vegan food actually contains more protein per unit cost than eggs (compare protein levels and prices of eggs, lentils, peanuts and pulses from reputable scientific talbes like the Ministry of Health/Crop and Food ones, and it assumes that poverty among humans is some sort of inevitable law of the universe, that it is not possible to build a just society; a society where nobody has to be hideously cruel to animals in order to eat enough to survive.
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kjuv,
Moore is not talking about imposing anything on anyone, he is talking about leaving them the freedom to choose for themselves. Big difference.
It is activism by rich well-fed greens and their two-car Western families which actually seeks to impose a particular ideology, which keeps most vulnerable people in dire poverty.
- “were they really that impoverished prior to their contact with the Western Industrialised nations?”
Er, yes actually.
greenfly
- “I don’t imagine that I’m ‘imposing my will’ on anyone here,”
“You” being the aggressive green/communist ideology you represent so, yes, you are very much seeking to impose your will on the rest of us. Witness the endlessly increasing list of restrictions and prohibitions you seek to force on people.
- “The ‘environmental’ people and groups that I know are very different from that: enthusiastic, positive, effective, dynamic.”
What of it? I think you’ll find that all extremist groups – whatever their cause – say precisely the same thing (particularly other religious groups.) Try substituting the word “Scientology” for “environmental” in your statement.
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So we need to get rid of the well-fed, two-car, Western communist greens. Now that makes sense.
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“I don’t imagine that I’m ‘imposing my will’ on anyone here,”
What a really, really odd thing to say.
The Green Party modus operandi. Get involved in peoples lives, and tell them what to do. That is the left, yes?
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Try substituting the word “Libertarian” for “Scientology” in your statement.
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wat – oh THAT ‘you’. It’s sometimes difficult to read your mind. I’m startled to learn that I represent an ‘aggressive ideology’ – I’d imagined I was speaking on my own behalf, but there you go!
Your suggestion that I insert ‘Scientology’ into my seemingly harmless and encouraging statement just doesn’t work, as I’m not a Scientologist. Are you just messing with words here? Are you really wanting me (and anyone following this thread) to believe that my ‘environmental’ friends and groups are extremists? wat a clot you are sometimes!
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BP – That is left, yes. That is right, no.
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Kevyn – are Libertarians extremists?
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