Food production and distribution in a capitalist society distorts our approach to eating. Food and diet is a central part of any culture. The food culture that capitalism promotes and enforces throughout the world is based upon the needs of their system, not the needs of the people. For capitalism, we are just cogs in the wheels of profit making. We are only useful as long as we can work to make a profit for someone else. After that, they don’t need us anymore. So our long term health is of little concern. In fact, better for them that we shuffle off as soon as possible once we are done working. They only seek to fuel our labour. It matters little if that fuel is poor quality and clogs up our systems to the point of killing us.
When we falter from exhaustion because of lack of nutrition, poor metabolism, inflammation and energy imbalances then they market us quick fixes that intensify our health imbalances. For example, excessive caffeine intake and energy drinks are part of the dominant food culture. It is often treated as a joke, but this persistent artificial energy stimulation can do serious damage to both body and mind.
The predominant “Western diet” has no balance. The balance and healthfulness that is at the heart of traditional diets has been developed over thousands of years. The “Western diet” is borne from colonialism and imperialism – which has always and everywhere denied people access to their traditional foods and diets. In the height of imperialistic and colonial arrogance and cruelty, many of the foods that were once actively destroyed by invading and occupying colonial forces around the world are now being appropriated and labelled as “superfood”. They are sold by food mercenaries for highly inflated prices – and in most cases the profits don’t reach the people from whom the knowledge of these foods came from.
The “Western diet” is a product of capitalism. It has no basis in culture or the history of people’s knowledge about food. Just as the system that it is borne of, it has one goal – profit. It is about feeding workers as cheaply as possible – just enough to keep us working, but not enough to allow us to think and flourish. This means low nutrition, cheap and nasty carbohydrates, high fat and poor quality proteins, primarily from animals that are treated with unfathomable cruelty and pumped full of disruptive hormones and antibiotics to speed their growth. As well as sugar and salt, processed foods are also packed with fillers like wheat flour and corn. The predominance of these highly processed foods contributes to inflammation and resulting intolerances and digestive weaknesses – our bodies are just not designed for this lack of variety in our diets.
Even the “fresh food” in the supermarkets is far from fresh. The use of artificial growing and preservation technology makes bright and uniform looking fruit and vegetables, but it robs them of their nutrition and energy. It also means we are eating foods out of season, which brings more imbalance to our diets.
On the other hand, there is the “health food revolution” – driven by middle-class demand for healthier lifestyles for their own selfish benefit. They drive the prices up and out of reach of the majority and create an ignorant health snobbery that creates yet another barrier to making healthy food choices.
Rejecting their systems
Fast “food” culture is about more than corporate profiteering. It is a reflection of the spiritual shallowness of a society that is dominated by selfishness and greed. It is a reflection of the wilful denial of the place that food has had in developing social connections. These fast “food” poison profiteers care nothing about the devastation of the land, air and water created by their food production practices. They are a central part of the systems of oppression and exploitation. They are one in the same as the imperialistic and colonial warmongers and the pillagers and destroyers who are ripping the earth to pieces to fuel their war machines.
The system wants us to work hard and die young. They fill us full of cheap and nasty energy that destroys our bodies and diminishes our soul. They create a socially devastating disconnection between us and our food. They acclimatise us to their rubbish “foods” and make us want more of their filthy poisons.
Resisting the addictions to their poisons is not easy, especially when we have been denied knowledge of our own food histories and cultures. But for those who believe in a better world, this resistance is necessary, not an optional extra. Resisting the systems of oppression and exploitation takes energy and it takes spiritual and emotional health. The healthfulness that we need cannot be fuelled by the oppressor’s poisons. Their poisons might stop the hunger in our stomachs but they are gradually sapping our strength and our life force. If we are hungry for justice then we have to fuel our struggles with life giving energy. We have to find the ways to resist their poisons and their selfish and profiteering food culture.
It take consciousness and determination to break these chains. This means taking a deliberate approach to finding our own ways of living and eating.
At the heart of all traditional approaches to diet is the social aspect of food production, preparation and eating. If we are to return to a healthful way of living and eating, we need to regain this sense of social co-operation and sharing.
The specific foods or types of foods are largely secondary in re-establishing healthful diets. The primary aspect of traditional diets, which flows from the long history of social development of food knowledge, is their balancing of many different aspects. Long before the advent of western dietary science, traditional approaches to diet contained immense knowledge about the balance between the primary nutrients we need as well as food combinations to enhance absorption and nutrition. There is also the balance that is struck between hot and cold, cooked and raw, as well as foods for each season and for certain imbalances and illnesses.
Acknowledging and reclaiming this knowledge can be challenging, especially as there is so much misinformation and so much disconnection with our histories. There are immense social and economic barriers that have to be overcome in developing skills and accessing healthy foods. However, if a collective approach is adopted, healthy eating can take far less resources and money than relying on processed and fast “foods”.
Rebuilding our own systems
Building a healthy diet is not about going to the “health food” section of the supermarket or the health food shop to find a “superfood” that will overcome all ills and make you want to run on the beach at dawn with a labrador. These rip-offs will just burn a hole in your pocket and leave you feeling hungry. In fact, most of the foods that can form the basis of a healthy diet are still available very cheaply if you know where to look, especially if you are able to pool your resources with others to buy in bulk.
It also means we have to learn to cook for ourselves. This is a crucial skill and when communities work together we can learn and share from each other. Organising food preparation and eating in households instead of communities is highly inefficient and isolating. It also leaves a lot of people behind, especially those who are unable to cook or prepare their foods for so many different reasons. This is what happens when food production and eating is separated from its social roots.
There is more information on this site that aims to give suggestions and ideas on how to put some of these principles into practice. However, re-building a healthful approach to food is a process that will develop differently for every person and every community. For some of us and for some communities, there is already a strong framework to hold onto and the main challenge is in not giving in to the invasiveness of McFastFood. For others there is a necessary process of re-building required to reestablish the processes, skills and social connections required to rebuild a healthy approach to food.
Whatever the details of these processes, the challenges are very similar. It begins with recognising and rejecting the dominant society’s approach to food. It is about recognising the interconnections between the profit-making and commodification of everything that is basic to being human – whether that is labour, emotions or food.
It is also about rejecting the way in which the dominant culture tries to separate us from our own bodies and our spiritual health. We become distant from our own bodies and health because we feel that we have no control over it. We are denied access to knowledge about our own bodies and our own health. When we become so distant from our own selves, it is also so much harder to connect with others.
We lose a sense of connection with our own bodies and we forget that what we do to our body, we do to ourselves. We are highly integrated beings – body, spirit and mind are one. What you do to your body and to yourself affects your place in this world. As we are wholly social beings, what you do to yourself also affects other people. It is in this way that the selfishness that the dominant culture promotes is also reflected in the dominant food culture.
In this light, if you reject the selfishness, commodification and inhumanity of the dominant society, then it is time to look after yourself and it is time to work with others to rebuild better systems of taking care of each other.