The surprising truth about the ‘food movement’

By Tamar Haspel

 

Let me ask you a question: When it comes to our food supply, what do you care about?  Think about it for a second. Make a mental list.   Now, let me ask you another question: Do you care about farmworker exposure to pesticides? I sure do, and I’m betting you do, too. But was it on your list? I’m betting it wasn’t.  And that difference, in a nutshell, is the source of a serious misconception about what we think of as “the food movement.” Ask people whether they care about a particular topic, and they’re likely to tell you — truthfully — that they do. But ask what people care about without prompting, and the fraction of people citing the issues that fall under food movement auspices – organics, local food, genetically modified organisms, farm subsidies, antibiotics, farmworker conditions, animal welfare — is actually quite small....The moral of this story is that it’s easy to make it look like people care a whole lot more than they do......

 

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