Microwave Generation: Let's Change

I walked out of Trader Joe’s on Friday night with $96 worth of groceries. A few moments prior, my boyfriend’s eyes had widened as he uttered a loud Lamaze-like “Whoo!” when the cashier finished ringing up my purchases.

“You could have gotten all of this at Walmart for so much less,” he said as we walked, armed with brown paper bags, to my car. He’s the epitome of spendthrift, especially when it comes to, well, everything. For me, good food is not an indulgence; it’s part of my upbringing. It's how I've been taught to keep myself healthy and happy.

I was raised by a mother with French inclinations and a godmother who worked for one of the forerunners of truly modern medicine. Weaving together allopathic and naturopathic treatments, this physician was committed to creative comprehensive and holistic plans for his patients, which included my mother at one point in time.. Needless to say, her work experience carried over into helping my mother raise me. I’m pretty sure that vitamins were one of my first solid foods.

My mother made baby food for me before it was the hip or cool thing to do. You better believe I was breastfed. I used to take a wheatgrass shot in the morning before elementary school and up until high school. At home, our cupboards were always stocked with rice cakes, quinoa, Ezekiel bread and other whole grains. Opening our refrigerator door was an adventure into Mr. McGregor’s garden.

The importance of whole foods, balanced diets, buying local and being holistically healthy comes naturally to me because of how I was raised. That’s not to say I don’t recognize that some people were brought up differently. My boyfriend is a Walmart man; I’m a Whole Foods girl. The world needs us both. What the world doesn’t need are uninformed or malnourished people.

About three weeks ago I read an article in The Week about America’s problem with food deserts, “communities in which residents must travel at least a mile to buy fresh meat, dairy products, and vegetables.” The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) defines a food district a bit more specifically: any census district where at least 20 percent of inhabitants are below the poverty line and 33 percent live over a mile from the supermarket. I say this as I am within walking distance to Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, Harris Teeter, Bi-Lo and Publix. I am a bike ride away from two farmers’ markets.

As a side note, farmers’ markets aren’t included in the calculation of food deserts, which is unfortunate for several reasons. First, farmers’ markets, in my experience, are less expensive than traditional grocery stores, which make them ideal for those living below the poverty line. In addition, quite a few farmers’ markets have begun accepting EBT as a form of payment, which makes it easier for those with less to buy more fresh produce. Finally, the economic implications of farmers’ markets include a greater percentage of dollars spent returning to the community—which can improve job availability, schools, etc.

The U.S. government believes food deserts are contributing to the sad statistic that one third of American adults are obese by making it more difficult to buy fresh foods as opposed to more processed choices easily found in fast food chains and convenient stores. Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!” campaign has convinced Walmart, SuperValu and Walgreens to open 1,500 grocery stores in food deserts, making fresh foods more available.

Is accessibility is the real problem? While I do believe that, for some, accessibility is culpable, it’s only a small slice of a much larger, involved pie.

In addition to inaccessibility, we’re all addicts. Did you know that studies have shown that the huge jolt of fat, salt, and sugar fast food delivers can be almost as addictive as hard drug? One bite from a hot, freshly fried perfectly salted French fry sends messages along the same reward pathway in the brain as cocaine, meth and heroine. Fast food restaurants also spend $4.2 billion dollars on marketing; propagating idyllic images through our television sets, magazines and newspapers. No wonder we are a nation of unhealthy people. 

As a country, we prefer the taste of junk food. As a country, we have greater access to fast food or convenience stores than supermarkets (that sad ratio is five to one). As a country, even when shopping at grocery or health food stores are options, we sadly don’t know how to prepare fresh produce. As one southern Baptist pastor who outlawed fried chicken from his congregation, puts it, "We are in I-can’t-cook deserts.”

Yet again, I think there’s more to it.

Anthropologist Robin Fox, who teaches at Rutgers University, argues that our relationship with cooking and eating has changed. “Making food is a sacred event, he says in a TIMES magazine piece. “It’s absolutely central—far more central than sex. You can keep a population going by having sex once a year, but you have to eat three times a day.” Food comes so easily to us now, he says, that we have lost a sense of its significance. When we had to grow the corn and fight off predators, meals included a serving of gratitude. “It’s like the American Indians. When they killed a deer, they said a prayer over it, says Fox. “That is civilization. It is an act of politeness over food. Fast food has killed this. We have reduced eating to sitting alone and shoveling it in. There’s no ceremony in it.”

How do we reintroduce ceremony into eating? How do we learn to appreciate what goes into our bodies? 

The answer is simple: education.

Let’s reintroduce home economics into our national curriculum, like this op-ed piece from The New York Times argues. Math and science are important, but how are you going to ace that physics test unless you’re properly fueling your brain? Let’s teach our elementary, middle, and high school youth about the importance of good eating habits, good exercise habits and what real food tastes, looks and smells like. Home economics doesn't need to be remembered only in movies; it needs to be remembered at the dinner table.