Healthy Food, Healthy Planet

Do our eating habits support
Friends' values and visions for the future?

WHEN WE pause to give thanks before a meal, we are acknowledging that the food we eat is integral to our spiritual journey. It is also communion with the body and blood of the Earth. What we eat and how we produce it are fundamental ways that we demonstrate, or fail to demonstrate, right relationships with the natural world.

As Kathleen Plunkett-Black notes, abused land, broken families, poisoned water, and miles and miles of highways paved are part of what makes most meals possible. (The food on most dinner tables travels and average of 1,500 miles.) Can we see the paths by which food comes to us and ask how things might be different?

Everyone is affected by agriculture because everybody eats, yet currently the power over food is distributed very unequally. At the same time, we affect agriculture: We send powerful messages through our food purchases about what we want produced and how. Jeremy Rifkin says, "Eating is the ultimate political act."

Why should we be concerned about current food production practices?

The food we eat may cause:

• Soil erosion, overgrazing, chemical contamination. (Wendell Berry says that in the past two centuries North American farms have lost half their topsoil.)
• Degradation of fresh water.
• Degradation of oceans (overfishing and contamination).
• Global climate change and ozone depletion through agriculture practices, especially excessive energy use in production, processing, packaging, and transport.
• Loss of biodiversity, through habitat loss, genetic degradation, and poisoning by agriculture chemicals.

• Is contaminated by bacteria and molds due to current food production and processing methods, which can promote antibiotic resistance.
• Exposes farmers, farm workers, and farm workers' families (including infants via breast milk) to known carcinogens and endocrine-system disruptors.
• Is causing birth defects from nitrate contamination of groundwater.

• Imbalance of power over food supply by corporations.
• Violence within and between countries because of scarcity of food or unequal access to means of food production.
• Inefficient use of land due to trends toward meat-intensive diets in industrialized and developing societies.

• Human-caused environmental degradation and loss of biodiversity violate rights of other species.
• The right to adequate food is denied for at least 1.2 billion people; food security needs are unmet for millions more.
• Access to land on which to grow food is an issue both in subsistence societies and more affluent societies.
• Many farm animals suffer greatly.
• Increasing loss of control over food choices deprives us of autonomy.
• The use of new agricultural technology and the race to "own" genetic resources is driven by profits for private companies, not by democratic decisions.

The Earth is generous in her bounties and deserves our thanks and care.

The testimony of simplicity calls us to a life filled with the spirit, rather than things. Though food can be a joyful community experience, too much and too rich food, and food which is potentially dangerous to our bodies and to our planet, may be a barrier to a spirit-filled life.

What alternatives are consistent with Friends' values?

• Learning more about the consequences of our own food choices, and encouraging others to do so.
• Eating lower on the food chain to promote energy efficiency in agriculture, as well as for our health. Grain-based diets generally require fewer natural resource and have less saturated fat.
• Encouraging health and Earth-friendly potlucks in our Meetings and communities.
• Recycling food waste by composting or worm beds.
• Supporting local farmers using organic methods, integrated pest management (IPM), and humane livestock practices.
• Supporting farmers markets and community supported agriculture projects (CSAs).
• Avoiding highly processed and overpackaged foods.
• Buying "fair trade" products.
• Supporting local, state, national, and international policies to improve food and land equity (e.g. living wages, farmland preservation, research on agricultural practices.)
• Supporting organizations working on sustainable agriculture, such as the Consortium for Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education and the Pesticide Action Network.

Resources

Bradley, Fern Marshall and Barbara W. Ellis, eds. 1992. Rodale's All New Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening. Emmaus, Pa.: Rodale Press.

Fox, Michael W. 1997. Eating with Conscience: The Bioethics of Food. Troutdale, Oreg.: NewSage Press.

Gussow, Joan Dye. 1994. Chicken Little, Tomato Sauce, and Agriculture. Who Will Produce Tomorrow's Food? New York: Bootstrap Press.

Humane Society of the United States. 1998. Choosing a Humane Diet: How to Get Started. (Information at www.hsus.org)

Kneen, Brewster, 1999. Farmageddon--Food and the Culture of Biotechnology. Gabriola Island, B.C.: New Society Publishers.

Lappe, Frances Moore. 1991. Diet for a Small Planet, 20th Anniversary Edition. New York: Ballentine Books.

Plunkett-Black, Kathleen. 2000. "Eat it as long as you can." BeFriending Creation, 13:5, pp. 1-2. Burlington, Vt.: Friends Committee on Unity with Nature.

Rifkin, Jeremy. 1993. Beyond Beef. New York: Plume Publishing.

Robbins, John. 1987. Diet for a New America. Wallpole, N.H.: Stillpoint Publishing.

_____________. 1993. May All Be Fed: A Diet for a New World. London: Avon Books.

Robertson, Laurel. 1986. The New Laurel's Kitchen: A Handbook for Vegetarian Cookery and Nutrition. Berkeley, Calif.: Ten Speed Press.

Shiva, Vandana. 1997. Biopiracy, the Plunder of Nature and Knowledge. Boston: South End Press.

Worldwatch Institute publications (World Watch magazine, State of the World reports). www.worldwatch.org

Other pamphlets in the QEW
Simplicity as Spiritual Exercise series

• Freeing Ourselves from Possessions
• Friends and Renewable Energy
• Living Lightly on the Earth—In the City
• Traveling Gently on the Earth

Helpful articles on simplicity also can be found in QEW's Earthcare for Friends, a Study Guide for Individuals and Faith Communities.

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