What
people call "fast
food" or "convenience food" is the slowest,
most inconvenient food consumed by humans. It is also the
most wasteful and polluting use of resources on a daily
basis. In order to understand how "fast food" is
really "slow
food" we must rethink the concept of the "food
chain" because human eating habits have changed
since food supply became industrialized and global.
In the old, biological model of the
food chain, plants are the starting point. They directly
convert sunlight into food. Sunlight is the ultimate "fast
food." What
we are in the habit of calling "fast food" is
determined at the point of consumption, but it ignores
the chain of production up to the point of consumption
as well as disposal after consumption. We call it "fast" because
of the illusion that it takes little time or work.
The new measure of whether food is "fast" or "slow" should
now be based on the whole amount of energy and labor needed
to get it to the final point of consumption, and then to
dispose of non-food by-products.
Returning to the biological food
chain, organisms are ranked to whether they eat "high" or "low" on
the food chain based on what they eat. Meat-eating predators
eat highest, while plant eaters eat lowest. It has to do
with the distance from sunlight, the source of all food
and energy, and whether the organism is a "producer" or "consumer." With
industrialization and globalization, we have to factor
additional energy resources into the food chain.
If I pick an apple from my apple
tree and eat it, I eat low on the food chain. That apple
is "fast" food.
If I drive to the supermarket and buy a New Zealand apple,
that is "slow" food because the chain of consumption
is long. It includes production and shipping energy: farmer
to wholesaler to shipper; New Zealand to United States
travel; United States point of entry to distributor; distributor
to market; my home to market to my home. It also includes
packaging in boxes, handling and refrigeration all along
the way. Thus, eating the New Zealand apple is eating "high" on
the food chain. Therefore, not all vegetable foods are
equal in the new food/energy chain. In fact, if I hunt
or fish, the meat I consume is lower on the chain and hence "faster" than
eating a raw apple from New Zealand.
The new food/energy chain proposed
here is the measure of energy used from point of origin
to consumption plus its environmental impact. In human
society farmers, gardeners, hunters and gatherers eat
lowest on the food chain, while those eating strictly
from packaged goods obtained from the supermarket are
eating highest on the food chain regardless if the foods
are meat or vegetarian. It turns out that currently named "fast food" is
the slowest, based on the chain of intensive energy consumption
in its production, packaging, transportation and waste.
New consumer labeling must go beyond
current efforts to certify food as to nutritional value,
relative naturalness of production, and origin. There
needs to be a "food
chain" label based on an energy use and pollution
coefficient. Processing, packaging, shipping and waste
disposal need to be considered in addition to contents.
One liter of purified water in a plastic bottle is "slow" and "high" on
the food chain, and would be labeled based on the energy
used in bottling and shipping, plus the energy used in
manufacturing the plastic bottle, plus the raw materials
in the plastic, plus the energy cost to dispose of or recycle
the bottle. To receive the highest ranking of certification
certified "fast food" would be locally grown
and not packaged. The more processing, packaging and distance
from the point of origin, the lower it’s ranking.
In calling food "fast" in today's market we
do not even factor in the time and energy costs of waste
disposal or recycling. The new food/energy chain would
take into consideration post-consumer energy used. Our
current addiction to "slow food" that travels
far, that uses many natural resources for packaging that
we travel to buy, that contributes to the depletion and
pollution of nature, that threatens human and global health
and survival is too costly to continue. It is worse than
ironical that people want to protect a "way of life" that
endangers them.
We must change the
mental concept of what is "fast" or "slow." Our
vocabulary of food consumption needs to reflect the energy
reality of the industrial and global food chain. More
energy spent in production, transportation, consumption
and waste disposal equals "slower;" less energy
spent equals "faster."
The biological food chain inserted
humans as producers and consumers on an equal basis with
plants and animals. In this food chain waste breaks down
and becomes food for decomposers and nutrients for future
growth. This model only works where humans are still
a part of the natural, biological cycle: sunlight — plants — plant-eaters— predators — food producers/consumers — decomposers.
It only works if people are hunter/gatherer/agriculturalists
who live off the land and are able to compost all their
waste.
The new food chain proposed here
is an energy consumption chain and takes into account
the real costs of human consumption. It could be applied
to other energy uses and products as well. If scientists
could develop a certification label that reflects the
total energy used, choices could be made that will help
survival. There would emerge a new psychology where sustainable
living will be seen as "fast" or
efficient, and non-sustainable or energy intensive living
as "slow" or inefficient. A “fast” lifestyle,
contrary to being stressful, would be a lifestyle more
in harmony with nature, more healthy, and less wasteful
of time and energy. “Slow” would be a lifestyle
where one creates obstacles to survival, where one’s
actions stress the already overburdened ecosystem in which
we live, and which requires extra time and energy to undo
the negative consequences of consuming less wholesome food
at the end of a long food chain.
©
2006 Richard Sidy |