Food Fight!!!
I used to call myself a “recreational diner,” proud that I’ve eaten pretty much what and when I’ve wanted in some of the world’s most diverse eateries. Now that I’ve learned “what wags the world” (T.H. White) I don’t call myself that anymore. Neither do I use the term “food insecurity.” Both phrases affirm that living in a culture of plenty is a right I’ve earned. It’s not! Worse, both devalue food’s real purpose. Not recreational! Not for entertainment! Not a privilege! Life sustaining!
Colombia, Costa Rica, Thailand, the Philippines, China are just a few of the countries I’ve visited or lived in over the past twenty years. I’ve seen people living in ways, I will never forget. The cardboard and metal shanty’s, refugees fleeing conflict; kids naked in the streets; women washing clothes in rivers; people with disabilities waiting for help to arrive before death does; babies crying for lack of care and nutrition claimed by neglect! Knowing how others live, while I watch The Great British Bake Off, makes me feel hollow. Like going from a homeless shelter to a banquet. Still, it took a casual conversation with my wife, Lina, for me to “get it!”
Out of curiosity, I asked my wife if she’d ever fasted. Perhaps, I’ve thought, for the same reason many Muslims’ fast during Ramadan, that food denial might nourish my soul better than sitting down to overly abundant meals. That food, our most basic of needs, has become a multi-billion dollar industry while people around the world go hungry or starve disturbs me.
Besides Lina being Catholic, knowing fasting can be a part of a Catholic’s religious rituals, asking my wife’s counsel to help me understand the world is typical for me. “Yes, I’ve fasted before.” she said casually, without missing a read of the subtitles beneath the movie she was watching. “When we had no food, I fasted.” The look on her face, contradicting the nonchalant tone in her voice, was like a dagger to my heart.
Both Lina and I both grew up poor. The standards of our poverty was very different though. For her, there were days when only rice was the only offering. Days when eating depended upon what her brothers brought home from the local river. Perhaps sometimes a classmate would sneak food from their plate to give to her. Such generosity however, if found out, would’ve brought punishment for both the giver, and the taker. Indeed, as she recounted, there were too many days of no food at all. And though, I knew her country, the Philippines, is a land where extreme poverty is a fact of life though conquering nations and dictators have amassed extreme wealth I had no idea that those realities had affected my wife’s life so profoundly.
I was born and raised in West Virginia. And though it was one of the poorest States in the country, expecting to eat three times a day, at least, was a norm never interrupted. That each meal (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) contained a protein, a starch, and vegetables was the indoctrination. And having dessert was not an unreasonable expectation. Preferably a fruit, but hey I was raised southern and, well, believe me bread pudding is way better than an apple. Even in poverty, food abundance was my baseline. Still is! There were few if any birthday presents. The present you got was to eat what you wanted for dinner. And typically, though there may not have been what I wanted to eat in the house, there was always something to eat. Even when my family was at its lowest, government safety nets, like free school lunch, food distributions and public assistance, made sure no one went hungry.
My question, in hindsight, had casually assumed the posture cultures of plenty presuppose, and advance, burdening those who’ve been made subservient through conquest and conflict with continued servitude to institutions and ideologies they did not erect. The fruits of a Protestant ethic transported to the land now known as the United States of America, portends, at its existential core, that an abundant and worthy life is achieved through hard work, perseverance and faith. In the U.S. birthright is the only right of passage for the dominant class. And laziness and unworthiness are often assigned to all others.
Lina’s reply laid bare how deeply this culture of plenty ingrains these beliefs in us all. Beliefs, we dare not reject so as not to dishonor the much propagandized sacrifices of those who fought for and defend our liberties. Which is why the phrase “food insecurity” makes it easier for those who live in cultures of plenty to pretend that we’ve actually done something deserving of our food security. Nor do we have to consider that our disproportionate use of the world’s resources leads to hunger and starvation for others. So let’s call why people in a world where “cultures of plenty” exist go hungry or even starve what it is: food maldistribution.
Food maldistribution, a reality that includes: the entrenchment of food classism into the world’s social order; institutionalized food waste, meaning thrown away before it can get to hungry mouths; and price regulation/ branding dictating what people eat, all, help define a world where, as a growing number of people know, no amount of hard work and perseverance will lead to living in a culture of plenty.
Even though we now live in the United States, a culture of plenty, Lina’s food behaviors are not dissimilar to many who survived the Holocaust. She throws no food away. It can be a three-fourths eaten sandwich; day before yesterday’s dinner or a bit of juice that one of the kids has left in their glass: in the fridge it goes. And stays until eaten, drank or I sneak and throw it away. On most days she eats for breakfast the leftovers of the day or night before. Not because we have no other choices, as she says, “If I don’t eat it you’ll just throw it away.” And she’s right. It’s just my habit. I don’t do leftovers. A luxury I know. More like a sin to her. And the looks I get when I tell the twins they don’t have to finish a meal cowers me. And I’m a pretty big guy, especially standing next to her.
Like hoarding, the emotional connection is real and deserving of neither ridicule or scorn. The fear of now having anything to eat — of her children not having anything to eat — is very real. I take food for granted. And that’s a very bad habit. And so does this culture of plenty. A culture where farmers are subsidized, growing crops that will not get to a highly controlled marketplace. Where the bottom line determines what enters the supply chain and leaves for store shelves. A country where small farmers’ are dwindling because access to the hungry and starving is cut off for lack of profitability.
It’s both true and ironic that fasting, the denial of food, is predicated upon food security. That’s been my second most significant illumination. My first, is that food maldistribution, seeing others with plenty while you have none is damaging to the soul. Which, on a spiritual level, cuts across ego states of entitlement and consciousness damaging low self worth. Deservedness is the devil. Delinking the abundant living people in cultures of plenty enjoy from divine ordination is essential to countering the belief that somehow we deserve these blessings.
To the contrary, as billionaire businessman and philanthropist Warren Buffett put it, our birth into cultures of plenty is more like us winning the Great Ovarian Lottery. Cultures of plenty have been forged, and are sustained, by colonization and nationalism. The maldistribution of resources, food maldistribution specifically is the result. It’s like a karmic test that we’re failing. I need look no further than the eyes across my own table to understand that food security is not my birthright. It’s my opportunity to ascend to a level of consciousness where giving is more valued than consumption.
