Joshna Maharaj
Oh, Martha.
By Joshna Maharaj
I have recently begun tweeting, and one of the delights of
twitter is that you can follow celebrities. I know, I know, this is easily something that could be delegated to a publicist or assistant, and therefore inauthentic, you're right...but sometimes it's not, and those situations are quite interesting. Point is, I'm following Martha Stewart, and now know all sorts of things about what she eats for dinner and how much she LOVES her dogs.
Anyhow, today Martha tweeted about having seen the movie
Food, Inc. It's about the big business of food and farming, uncovering some of the seriously dirty workings of the government, food and business worlds. In her tweet, Martha said that the main message of the film was to buy organic, and only organic. What?! C'mon Martha, you've got to know that there's much more going on here than that. And you've got to know that an organic classification doesn't mean that the food is totally virtuous. While organic certification ensures that no pesticides or herbicides were used on the crops, there is no discussion of the labour standards on the farm, or that monoculture of conventional or organic crops is bad news...and that's just off the top of my head, there's so much more! Plus, this is not a situation that we're going to be able to shop ourselves out of. Sigh...Martha can afford to buy sexy organics, but I want to encourage a level of engagement that goes deeper than our role as consumers. We need to care about the lives of farmers, and be willing to invest in ourselves and our families by cooking food with whole ingredients. We need a revolution.
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