Our food system of farming and production was at one time one to celebrated, how amazing the strides forward that it made to feed the population. The scale of production meant that foods became less expensive to produce, and it increased the abundance that we now see around us. It released many of us from having to grow and then make our own foods, enabling people to move from one role in the rural landscape to following careers in many other fields. Hunger has been removed from the Western world instead we now have malnourishment, and chronic diseases caused by diet and lifestyle choices. Eating is now full of guilt, guilty pleasure, secretiveness, hedonism, frustration, confusion, happiness and anxiety, a simple act of feeding the body to enable it to continue its important function is laden with emotion.
Without the seasons and dietary environmental influences to follow any more, structure has given way to dietary approaches, where we start one diet after another in the hope it’s going to give us the answers we are in search of. There is now obsession where previously there was just a good balanced meal the three meals a day, simple and locally grown. Additives, allergies, and algorithms dominate our food landscape, we are lost without a plan, a calorie counter and a set of scales to guide our next eating decision.
Social structures once built around this one concept of feeding ourselves together collectively has moved to individually wrapped portions, whilst watching and reading the individual screen, with our individually chosen food. Reducing a tradition of creating, cooking and eating that held people together to now pushing people further apart for the convenience.
Has the food landscape really improved our lives, we have more food than ever, but we have more health issues driven by the landscape we have embraced into our kitchens which remember should be the heart of the house.
