Journalist Eric Schlosser delivered an address titled “The Future of the Food Movement” and took questions from a capacity crowd at McCullough Social Space last Tuesday night, Feb. 15.
In addition to being the executive producer of There Will Be Blood and Food Inc. and producing two plays in London, Schlosser co-wrote the bestselling book Fast Food Nation. His talk culled material from the book, published in 2001 — specifically passages detailing the way in which the fast food industry has encouraged obesity, propagated food-borne illnesses, marketed to children with disastrous results and committed systematic offenses against animals and humans alike.
Since the two are similar in motives, actions and rationale, Schlosser began his speech by comparing the food movement to the modern day environmental movement — a familiar subject for most Middlebury students. As Schlosser moved deeper into his discussion of the food industry, however, he made the point that Americans’ lack of familiarity with food issues is part of the problem.
“It is the bedrock of our society,” Schlosser said, “yet our food system was radically transformed in an incredibly brief period of time without most Americans even knowing it.”
Schlosser said, “The massive transformation of food system began to occur literally 40 years ago as the fast food industry began to spread, and an entire new form of pollution entered our society and our bodies.
If the food industry has such a profound effect on American culture, why are we still in the dark? Because, according to Schlosser, food companies’ advertising campaigns are designed specifically to mislead us.
Schlosser focused on how the food industry’s advertising is targeted at children, showing that among children we see the two worst effects of fast food. In our nation, the poor children are severely obese, but the children of the wealthy and the upper middle class are developing eating disorders.
“Today in the United States we have a deeply, deeply unhealthy and perverse relationship to food,” Schlosser said. “It’s a society that tells us to be thin, but promotes food to make you fat.”
Eating habits begin very early, and so the fast food industries aggressively target young children. As evidence, Schlosser shared the fact that McDonalds is the world’s largest distributer of toys.
“Both McDonalds and Burger King have done promotions involving Teletubbies,” Schlosser said. “Teletubbies are PBS characters that are aimed at preverbal children.”
Obesity rates among American children have consistently increased — a trend portentous of increasing obesity among adults, since children who are obese by the age of 13, will most likely be obese for the rest of their life.
Similar trends have presented in health issues associated with obesity. Diabetes used to be extremely rare among children, but now, Schlosser said, one out of every three children born in 2000 will suffer from the disease.
Schlosser also emphasized the deplorable living conditions are raised in.
“Cattle, hogs and chickens are living creatures that have been turned essentially into industrial commodities,” said Schlosser. “Conformity and cheapness is applied to living beings. It’s amazing that anyone could treat intelligent living creatures this way. It’s out of a bad science-fiction movie! If you saw these places, particularly if you heard them and smelled them, you wouldn’t want to eat this food. So they have to hide it.”
Our food system may be flawed, but Schlosser sees in the flaws opportunities for change.
“If you want to solve the problems, you don’t have to be a saint,” said Schlosser. “Here’s what I think you do need to do — you have to become conscious. You can’t live in denial. And as a society, we all have to try and become more compassionate again, and acknowledge how we are all linked, the richest to the poorest.”
Social injustice, according to Schlosser, is one of the main issues that need to be addressed regarding the food industry, but it is often left out of the movement. The people who work at fast food restaurants typically earn minimum wage, and the food preparation processes are so mechanized the human beings are treated as if they are utterly disposable.
Schlosser brought the issue of social injustice particularly close to home. In Vermont, one out of every six people is on food stamps and one in every five children lives below the poverty line. The average income for a family of four is less than one year’s tuition at Middlebury College. But again, Schlosser saw hope amid the problems.
“There are four times as many people living in Queens as there are living in this entire state,” Schlosser said. “But that’s what can make [Vermont] useful as a social laboratory for the future. Things can be tried here, and when they work, they can be adapted elsewhere.”
Schlosser ended his speech quoting a Buddhist monk:
“Once there is seeing there must be acting. Otherwise, what’s the point of seeing?”
Schlosser helped his audience to see, and then he called on us to act, to make a difference about how our food industry works. Many Middlebury students attended the speech, and the consensus seemed to be that as a college we should focus more on the food movement.
“I thought his speech was good,” said Ashley Guzman ’13, “But still, there was a lot of shock value.”
“I wasn’t as interested in his environmental time line as his food time line,” said Olivia French ’14, “I liked the speech a lot though. I thought it was really applicable to your own life. You feel as if you can actually do something.”
“The school has such a strong environmental program,” said Danielle Gladstone ’13, “and I’m sure food comes up in many classes in enviro[mental science] as a whole. But I don’t think there’s anything really dedicated to food.”
Maybe Schlosser’s lecture was the first step toward a stronger focus on the food movement, and maybe we can take the necessary action to bring about reform. It’s our generation that needs to do the reforming — it’s the youth that can initiate social change. We can be the generation to stop ordering Big Macs and Double Whoppers.
Eric Schlosser speaks on our nation's flawed food culture
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