Sitting here on my bed. Drinking a glass of red wine (okay . . . a second glass), thinking about the Papa John’s pizza in my stomach. Somehow I have ended up eating pizza four times in the last six days. One of those was homemade with weird flour. It ended up shaped like a broccoli tree. I like to think that the homemade factor means I’ve only eaten unhealthy pizza three times.
Food of all varieties has been on my mind. Earlier this week, my New York Times app decided that the new farm bill going through Congress was breaking news, so it displayed the headline right underneath an incoming photo of my sister’s cat: “Farm Bill Compromise Will Reduce Spending and Change Programs.” I clicked it. The article said some things about cutting down subsidies and parts of the food stamps program, savings in the range of 23 billion dollars. Other news sources alternately emphasized the bipartisan nature of the bill or denounced the lack of consideration paid to low-income families who rely on food stamps.
I’m not very up on politics and I admit that I have done very little research here, but the words “farm bill” have sent up a ping in my brain for the last–well, I have no idea how long it’s been, but definitely many years since I read The Omnivore’s Dilemma. My understanding of Michael Pollan’s arguments is no longer comprehensive, but here’s what I remember from the first section of the book, about corn: in the ‘50s (?), a farm bill was enacted to help struggling farmers by subsidizing their crops of, among other things (?), corn. So lots of farmers grew corn to get money from the government. Then, duh, there was lots of corn. Too much corn. So scientists and industrial food people had to come up with ways to use the corn. Things like corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, meat filler, vegetable oil, corn starch. Chickens and cows eat corn because it’s cheap, so when we eat them, we eat corn. You can analyze a piece of our hair and find corn. At the time of Pollan’s writing, corn farmers could no longer make enough money selling corn, even with subsidies, because there is just so much of it.
Pollan is a much better arguer and also more knowledgeable than I am, but even typing out that nondetailed paragraph reminded me of how mindblown and upset I was on first reading of this book.
I don’t think these new proposed spending cuts are going to overhaul our national food system. I do hope that other people’s phones think this bill is breaking news as well, and that people click that link to see why. As a vegetarian, I do already spend a lot of time thinking about what I’m eating, or not eating. In New York City, it is such a small deal to find vegetarian cuisine, but I have been asked about my diet more times in the three years I’ve lived here than in my whole vegetarian life to this point (ten years?). And my answer has changed: usually I just tell people I don’t really like meat, something about the texture. This is true. But it’s also true that I am concerned about factory farming, and that Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals was what finally convinced me to stop buying standard conventional eggs.
In my neighborhood in Brooklyn, there are Mexican and West Indian markets selling cheap produce on the street: scotch bonnet hot peppers, 10/$1; bell peppers, 2/$1; blackberries, 2/$1. All of the items in that nearby photo were purchased for about $10. I always wonder where those fruits and vegetables come from. They certainly aren’t organic. But they’re often fresh and always cheap and the markets accept WIC/EBT. And yet, here I am with all the pizza.
True, pizza week was an exception. I have been cooking almost every meal for the last month, as a tried-and-true means of saving money (for things like, oh, a wedding). I pin recipes like “Lentil Caraway Soup and Pistachio Herb Pesto” and fail at things like a savory tart with ricotta and kale and potatoes, also made with the weird flour, so the crust crumbled apart in your mouth like damp sand. I’ve been eating peanut butter sandwiches for lunch this week because I’ve maxed out my grocery budget for January. I try to eat whole foods and avoid processed foods and buy organic and cage-free things. Generally, yes, I feel pretty good about how I eat.
The bill that passed the House on Wednesday will apparently save more in the range of $1.65 billion annually (where’d you get your figure from, NY Times?). It will preserve many of the subsidies and cut food stamps. I saw one article that said the average family of four on food stamps in NYC will lose about $36 per month.
That’s why I’m paying attention to this bill—it might have impact I can see, which yes, is self-centered, but at least it is a push. I don’t know yet if there’s anything I can do, but at last I feel the need to stay informed.
After graduating with an English degree, Amy (Allen) Frieson (’10) moved to New York City and spent several exhilarating years working in children’s book publishing. Now, she works as a career consultant and has much more time for writing, reading, wandering the city, cooking non-vegetarian meals (a new thing), dreaming about apartment renovations, and leading worship along with her husband at their NYC CRC.
