The Pleasures of Eating
used by permission
I’m having a Wendell Berry summer—not just his fiction and poetry, but also some of his profound essays. In his piece “The Pleasures of Eating,” he laments the change from agricultural eating to industrial eating. The food industry, he insists, is concerned with volume and price rather than quality and health.
“They will grow, deliver, and cook your food for you and (just like your mother) beg you to eat it. That they do not yet offer to insert it, prechewed, into our mouth is only because they have found no profitable way to do so.”
To Berry, eating with full pleasure “is perhaps the profoundest enactment of our connection with the world.” Here are his suggestions for how to return to wholesome, joyful eating:
1. Participate in food production to the extent you can. If you have a yard or even just a porch box or a pot in a sunny window, grow something to eat in it. Make a little compost of your kitchen scraps and use it for fertilizer. Only by growing some food for yourself can you become acquainted with the beautiful energy cycle that revolves from soil to seed to flower to fruit to food to offal to decay, and around again.
2. Prepare your own food. This means reviving in your own mind and life the arts of kitchen and household. This should enable you to eat more cheaply, and it will give you a measure of “quality control”: you will have some reliable knowledge of what has been added to the food you eat.
3. Learn the origins of the food you buy, and buy the food that is produced closest to your home. The idea that every locality should be, as much as possible, the source of its own food makes several kinds of sense.
4. Whenever possible, deal directly with a local farmer, gardener, or orchardist.
5. Learn, in self-defense, as much as you can of the economy and technology of industrial food production. What is added to the food that is not food, and what do you pay for those additions?
6. Learn what is involved in the best farming and gardening.
7. Learn as much as you can, by direct observation and experience if possible, of the life histories of the food species.
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To complement this, I want to add this post from last year:
“Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.”
Those were the words of Michael Pollan that struck a chord a few years ago in the New York Times. He suggested then — and carries it further in his wonderful new little book Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual — that the diets that rocket to fame and then flame out aren’t helpful. What’s helpful is a disciplined approach of eating that learns how to enjoy food.
In Food Rules, he offers 64 “policies” to help people enjoy their food rather than be owned by it. Here are a few of the suggestions:
SECTION 1: What should I eat? (Eat food.)
Rule 2 – Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food. (She wouldn’t recognized most of the complicated food products in the grocery story that have chemical additives and are designed to push our evolutionary preference buttons of sweetness, fat, and salt.
Rule 7 – Avoid food products containing ingredients that a third-grader cannot pronounce.
Rule 13 – Eat only foods that will eventually rot.
Rule 21 – It’s not food if it’s called by the same name in every language. (Think Big Mac, Cheetos, or Pringles.)
SECTION 2: What kind of food should I eat? (Mostly plants.)
Rule 24 – Eating what stands on one leg [mushrooms and plant foods] is better than eating what stands on two legs [fowl], which is better than eating what stands on four legs [cows, pigs, and other mammals]. (Note: this is my least favorite of the rules. But I at least appreciate that he isn’t insisting on cutting out meat — just eating less of it. Same thing my doctor says.)
Rule 36 – Don’t eat breakfast cereals that change the color of the milk.
Rule 43 – Have a glass of wine with dinner.
SECTION 3 – How should I eat? (Not too much.)
Rule 47 – Eat when you are hungry, not when you are bored.
Rule 57 – Don’t get your fuel from the same place your car does.
Rule 60 – Treat treats as treats.
And, importantly, RULE #64: Break the rules once in a while.
Thanks for writing this! I first came across Berry (shameful, I know) while reading Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. I highly recommend that book as it covers many aspects of food ethics (especially meat related) that I fear Pollan glosses over. I try not to push my eating habits on others, but it’s hard after having read Foer’s book.
Like what (I think) Berry is getting at, many of the problems in our food culture could be solved by greater connection with what we eat and those who cultivate it.
You can get much of this same type of thought from Mark Sisson, the author of The Primal Blueprint, at marksdailyapple.com. After reading his book and adopting this style of eating(paleo)I am the healthiest I’ve been in 30 years. Not to mention over 100 lbs lighter!
I highly recommend his book.
Thanks so much. Will you be following up sometime with more on Berry’s fiction and poetry?
Thanks for the recommendations. Yes, Amy, I hope to write more about Wendell Berry. Those who’ve followed my tweets have noticed that he is really capturing my imagination.
It’s been a busy six weeks, which people have probably noticed by my inattention to the blog!
*sigh*
“The food industry, he insists, is concerned with volume and price rather than quality and health.”
This, dear reader, is a thinly veiled, anti-imperialist concern only the affluent can be troubled with. High volumes and low prices feed the Third World – and would feed it better, were it not for the problems of corruption, distribution, war, and failed states.
Pollan despises corn (_The Omnivore’s Dilemma_) and the industrialism that centers on it. Too bad; C4 cereals, of which hybrid corn is the undisputed Goliath, do an incomparable job of harvesting solar energy and converting it to energy-dense stuff we can metabolize…and ship overseas to people who are in deep, caloric deficits.
Further, an unholy alliance between farm-state RINOs and tree-hugging Democrats is using our tax dollars to subsidize even MORE corn, even in ecosystems where it does not belong (i. e., because of the volumes of drinking-quality ground water required to grow it), for the sake of a biofuels dead end known as “corn ethanol.” Ironies, as they say, are delicious.
Finally, from a carbon-footprint perspective, “buying local” is a big-time loser. Modern freight trains, as an example, can haul a ton of freight over 800 miles on a gallon of diesel fuel. Running your Lexus across town to the Farmer’s Market to buy a couple of pounds of locally grown rutabagas, seaweed, and alfalfa sprouts that you could have gotten from California during yesterday’s trip to Wal-Mart is, well, not quite as efficient (though it may confer a pleasing sense of self-satisfaction).
Don’t get qb wrong: he likes Wendell Berry (AND Garrison Keillor, AND Annie Dillard, AND…). But let’s get some salient facts on the table, too!
So if you want to eat organic vegan (or “CO2e”-intensive range-fed beef!) and eat local, great. But don’t pretend it’s saving the planet. Industrial agriculture may not suit us wealthy Westerners who hold our pinkies in the air while we pontificate with Dr. McKnight about the silky, dense crema gracing his cup of fair-trade, shade-grown coffee, but innumerable others don’t have the luxury of worrying about where their food comes from.
Good-naturedly,
qb
Mike, I found you on a podcast because you preached at The Branch, that I found through Josh Graves…but anyway…have you read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver? A great read.
You might be interested in a resource I found during the Lenten season this year entitled Food as Holy Provision and Simple Gift. It’s archived here:
http://archive.cacradicalgrace.org/lenten/2011/
Wendell Berry is quoted and referred to often!
Stunning film called “Food, Inc.” that is available on Netflix instant. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food,_Inc.
qb, There is more to eat locally than just fuel efficiency. There are many who believe that many of our allergy issues are connected to the fact that we do not eat locally anymore. When you ingest the food that is grown locally it might just be that you are building a good immune response to those foods. Don’t know how much of this has been proven yet but do know that it makes perfect sense.
Mike, thanks for often bringing up food for thought (get it), and qb, thanks for your counter view. It seems to me that for most of us, the first step to a sensible approach to food would be if we would eat just half of what we are currently eating everyday. Then we would look better, feel better, be healthier, and strain our planet much less.
Julie, I don’t dispute that possibility. Farm kids generally have stronger immune systems because of their broader and longer exposure to low levels of things that kick city kids’ butts when they venture beyond their sanitized homes. (Interested readers should Google “tachyphylaxis” and ponder the implications for all kinds of environmental stressors.)
Whatever the virtues may be of eating locally, environmental quality and resource conservation are not necessarily among them. Victor Davis Hanson has argued in _Fields Without Dreams_ that the disappearance of family farms has robbed us of a deep, nutrient-rich sediment of cultural influences; he is certainly no left-winger. But we do ourselves a disservice to pretend that the environmental claims of the vegan, eat-local, and grass-fed-beef advocates are to be taken seriously…even more so to pretend the claims are self-evident.
In the meantime, family farming, organic farming, urban farming, and other niche farming approaches that are set forth as practical alternatives to so-called industrial farming cannot be relied upon to feed the millions and billions of hungry, innocent souls across the world. It will take long-term political and social progress in those nations, coupled with shorter-term benevolence and medium-term technological progress (irrigation, etc.) secured by *gasp* military power to get those people to a modicum of self-sufficiency. Until then, the kinds of high-level, ethics-based food choices Berry is advocating here are predominantly the luxury of the affluent.
When a colleague of mine – trying to help the Afghanis develop a workable strategy for water resource development to support agriculture and municipalities and schools and all kinds of cultural resources – has to wear a bullet-proof vest and helmet as he travels from place to place to lend a hand, it’s clear that industrial agriculture in the West and in Australia will be needed for quite a long time to come. The poppy-based tribal economies – to say nothing of the women-oppressing, violence-driven, religiously chauvinistic Taliban – are doing their part to keep “buy local” strategies in Afghanistan an unalloyed fantasy for the masses.
qb
BTW, you Neoshites oughta head home, and thence to Landreth Park in Joplin, MO, to enjoy the big iced tea celebration on Monday evening, the 4th of July.
As a bona fide “Dan’s Bake Sale” alumnus (Ft. Collins 1993), qb can assure you it’ll be a great time. And who knows? Maybe you’ll change your mind about dem evil, selfish, greedy, heartless Repubbicans.
Jealous,
qb
Ha! Don’t really need to change my mind. We’re talking about half my family — and they’re certainly not “evil, selfish, greedy, heartless.” Nor is the other half unAmerican, weak-brained, or socialist.
What both sides have a hard time figuring out is an Anabaptist among us.
I’m not an anabaptist but we independent baptists identify ourselves with the historical anabaptists. We didn’t adopt “baptismal regeneration” That’s why in early christian history, they were called anabaptists – they did not accept the Roman theocratic view of baptism – thus the name anabaptists. We baptize but it’s an act of obedience and has nothing to do with our salvation.
Mike,
The idea that I get to see, touch and feel where my food comes from is the most appealing aspect. Knowing that I am eating pasture raised pork that is free of antibiotics, that have had a good life and were killed ethically and with dignity is important to me. The same can be said about our locally sourced beef.
Secondly, it also provides my local pig farmer, baker, cheese maker and vegetable farmer with a living and keeps the money in my local community.
I went in with a local farmer last year on two Gloucester Old Spot/Tamworth cross sows and they produced 10 heritage breed piglets each this summer (20 totally hilarious piglets!) and we are not having any trouble selling them.
People want to eat good local food.
So from my perspective, knowing what I am eating and keeping my money in my community are two important pluses.
*chuckle*
Pasture-raised non-ruminants (pigs) eat the same stuff as non-pasture-raised non-ruminants, right? The grass has nothing to do with the pigs’ dietary options. It’s always, “today, well, shall I eat corn, soybeans, or mixed grocery slop with a side of restaurant goo? Why yes, I think I will.”
Maybe the allure is that the pigs enjoy themselves more, have a better quality of life or something. Tough call. I asked one the other day about this, and he said…
…wait for it…
…”oink.”
qb
Actually the answer is “No.” they don’t eat the same stuff.
Our pasture raised pigs eat only what they find in the pasture/woods. With the exception that in the fall I feed them all the pumpkins they want. Otherwise, no grocery slop, no restaurant goo. Just roots, grass, and acorns. And they flourish.
So nothing artificial, nothing man made. Just what they would find in the field.
They do have a better quality of life and they squeal with delight!
Your pigs eat…grass? OK, whatever you say.
hindgut fermenter qb
qb,
It’s a practice that was common years ago. Hogs on grass.
Pigs are omnivores, which means that they eat plants, dead insects, worms, trees, and bark.
Pigs on grass fell out of practice for quite a while, but all natural, pasture raised pigs are making a come back.
Google “grass raised pork,” they are even doing it in Texas!
Interesting. Your account, as well as the account of the Sustainable Table (http://www.sustainabletable.org/issues/feed/), directly contradicts the National Pork Board (see e. g., http://www.pork4kids.com/AskAFarmer.aspx), which states unequivocally that monogastrics cannot metabolize cellulosic feeds like grass. All the wallows out at Palo Duro Canyon State Park where feral hogs are rooting around, tearing up the place, they seem to leave behind the grass itself. Maybe they just don’t like big bluestem.
So I guess if you’re right, both qb and the NPB owe you an apology and a retraction, JA.
qb
BTW, JA, notwithstanding qb’s post that is still awaiting moderation because of embedded URLs…
…how precisely does one measure “swine delight?”
empirically,
qb
P. S. qb wants to eat *good* food, whether it’s grown locally or not. Virtue, or vice?
By the smiles on their little faces…
“There was a time not so long ago when pigs were afforded no respect, except by other pigs.
They lived their whole lives in a cruel and sunless world.
In those days pigs believed that the sooner they grew large and fat, the sooner they’d be taken to Pig Paradise, a place so wonderful that no pig had ever thought to come back.”
Some of us pig farmers believe that pigs can have life ever lasting in the here & now and the then & there.
qb, I think it is a virtue to eat good food.