Ever wonder where your food comes from? Are you curious as to how fresh fruits and vegetables stock your grocery store? Do you ever ponder how meat goes from an animal to look like a juicy red slab? Or maybe, you never think about these questions at all and that is the problem we face today called food disconnect. There is a disconnect between consumption and production of food and this detachment is causing various underlying issues in our health and environment. Keep reading to uncover the dangers of food disconnect.
What is food disconnect?
Food disconnect describes the disconnect between the production of food, including farming and processing, to the end of the food chain which are consumers, people like us who buy and eat food from the grocery store. Food disconnect also includes the consumer’s blindness to what comprises their food, such as what nutrients build an apple versus a cupcake. Many people today have no idea what types of animals and where different cuts of meat come from, while others do not know that cherries grow on trees while blueberries grow on a bush. Even with food processing, many people do not understand how corn becomes corn syrup or how sugarcane turns into molasses or brown or white sugar.
What caused the food disconnect?
You may ask, what caused the food disconnect as it certainly did not happen overnight. On the one hand, consumers have become disengaged from their food. Way back in history, before settled agriculture, people interacted with their food on an intimate level by hunting and gathering it themselves. As civilizations became settled and grew in population, agriculture became part of the society. However, this type of farming was on a smaller scale, and a wide variety of crops and animals were raised to sustain each individual family. Today, only 1.4% of people are directly employed on farms in the U.S., meaning less than 2% of the population truly understands where our food comes from. Although we do not all live on farms, that does not mean we do not need to stay clueless about our food. Over the years, food disconnect has become a learned ignorance in our society and it is time to reverse that.
On the other hand, the agricultural revolution is also responsible for the food disconnect. Ever since the Great Depression and World War II, the United States has never had to experience a nationwide food shortage thanks to the evolution of our agricultural system. Today, there is factory farming or concentrated feeding animal operations in which thousands of animals are reared at a high pace to keep up with the demands of animal consumption. Crops are also grown on a massive scale with corn and soy predominantly in the United States. While modern agriculture is great for ensuring food security, it has also masked the transparency that used to exist in agriculture. Behind locked doors, animals are being raised unethically, chemicals and pesticides are being sprayed onto crops and infused into the soil, and more chemicals are being used for processing after the food leaves the farm. The food disconnect is not only a learned ignorance for consumers, but it has also become a safety net, insulating us against the hidden dangers of the food system.
What are the dangers of food disconnect on health?
One major concern of food disconnect is its effect on health. It is no secret that obesity and diabetes have become epidemics in the United States with nearly half of the population being overweight. Food disconnect plays into obesity by concealing the true composition of food so that many consumers are unaware of what makes food healthy or unhealthy. Let’s take a pack of granola bars for example. Many people will believe the marketing on a box of granola bars reading “heart healthy” instead of understanding where each ingredient of the granola bar comes from. This pack of granola bars may include high fructose corn syrup but since many people do not understand the processing operations of turning the corn crop seen out in the farm field into syrup, there is a likely chance that the consumer will overlook this ingredient and continue to think the granola bars are healthy. In this manner, a disconnect grows between food, the consumer, and health. In reality, the ingredients that create a granola bar are not truly hidden from the consumer, but rather it is the learned ignorance of the food system that contributes to this concealment. At the simplest level, soil contains minerals that help plants grow and photosynthesis works to supply the plants with macro and micronutrients which is how vegetables and fruits obtain their “healthy” status. This simple process of plant growth and cultivation is unknown to many and if more people understand how and why their food is healthy, then perhaps more people would consume those foods.
While the consumer’s contribution to food disconnect does impact health, so does the agricultural system’s contribution. The agricultural world has become controlled by the demands of the economy and is skewed towards the overproduction of energy-dense foods that promote obesity. Surplus foods such as milk are being turned into ice cream while excess corn is being used for corn syrup and to sweeten cereals and beverages. Similar to consumers, farmers have also become disconnected from their food to pursue profit. Food disconnect has created a tragedy in which farmers have lost their intimate relationship with nature and all the harmony and abundance it provides.
What are the dangers of food disconnect on the environment?
Not only do we not know where our food comes from, but we also do not know what growing our food is doing to the environment. Food disconnect has conveniently shunned consumers away from the detrimental environmental effects that modern agriculture has created. The chemicals used in fertilizers and pesticides have contaminated the soil while the waste from factory farms have added to the greenhouse gas emissions. The use of pesticides has induced evolution within bacteria and some insects to have higher antibiotic resistance which promotes the use of even more pesticides, leading to a downward spiral of contamination. Not to mention, the lack of crop rotation and the mass-scale farming of singular types of crops such as corn and soy, are eroding the soil to the point where no nutrients are left. Farmers and consumers have lost the purpose of growing their own food and the satisfaction it brings due to the enticement of money and convenience. Because of this food disconnect, the health of our environment and the physical health of our nation is being harmed.
How do we get rid of food disconnect? You may be asking, how do we get rid of food disconnect when it is on such a massive scale? Well, it starts with you, the consumer. The consumer has the power to control the economy, and if the consumer demands a shift to favor locally grown produce and meats rather than processed, energy-dense foods, then the government and agriculture will begin to accommodate this shift in consumer and economic attitude. The next question is, how do we get consumers to wake up from their food disconnect in order to create this shift in the food system? It all begins with education, such as this article, as well as in schools. Recently, the farm to school program instituted in public schools all over the nation has created a step in the right direction to educate young kids about agricultural practices and buying locally grown foods. Most importantly, we must realize that food is more than just a product of farming, it’s part of our family’s heritage, it’s a worship for our nature’s riches, and it’s a vision of our future.
