Food Security

I think I'm probably just dumb, but I thought food security would be about making sure that food supply was safe. I didn't realize that it would revolve more around making sure that everyone has enough food. I do understand how food banks in a way promote the continuation of social injustice because basically the rich get the good food and the poor get whatever is available for donation or cheaper. I think it is better than the poor starving, but there is an undertone (that once noticed becomes much louder) of the greedy champagne glass going on here.

I like the idea of communities becoming more self sufficient and trying to grow more of their own food in their homes. It would be great it there could be more community gardens and a local food initiative; however, I do understand that if a family is having trouble with its income, that they will probably also have trouble with taking time to grow their own food.

I've heard somewhere that people now spend more time working for their food than they did when they were living off the land. And what do we get for it? GM foods, corn fed cows, chickens raised in the dark... yea I watched food inc :). But we are working harder (or at least longer) to eat potentially worse food.... and often food that we can cook quickly so we don't have to work even longer for it.

Yes we are working for other "privileges" like housing and schooling and medical technology and transportation, but it seems like their are other ways than our exclusionary society to achieve those goals

In our intro to sustainability class we read about the Papa New Guinea Islanders and their bottom up approach. It worked really well for them because they all grew their own food, sometimes helping one another out, and they lived very democratically. Every decision that was made completely together. There were some people who had more influence just by the nature of their personality, but no one lived more extravagantly than anyone else. There were no rich people taking all the good food and leaving the rest to those who made less money than them.

We need stronger communities. People need to work together. Our exclusive society isn't going to get us very far. It will come back to bite us in the butt no doubt about it.

Also people need to stop popping out so many freaking babies. Unless everyone wants to eat hormone cows and GM corn we have to decrease the demand for food. The world cannot naturally support all the people who are coming to it, and it will become a very freaky GM hormone injected place if people keep shoving their mini-me's into the world. If every woman had 1 baby the population would 1/2. If every woman had 2 babies the population would stay the same. But probably no one is going to do that, so you have to think about all the babies other ladies and families are having. If you have 1 baby and adopt a kid you might be being neutral... but if you just adopt you're helping a little more, I think.