Fork In Review

Wilson wrote this book to point out what is wrong with our food system.

‘It’s now becoming clear that the way most people currently eat is not sustainable – either for the planet or for human health. If we want to stop getting swallowed up by our own food and to re-establish eating as something that gives us both joy and health, it makes sense to find out where we are at right now, how we got here, and what is it that we share.’

This book connects these issues: climate change, shrinking biodiversity, global industrial food complex, large retail marketing, our nutrition, eating habits and changing diet.

Chemicals which are being bombarded on to farms, destroy the necessary insect life. A lot of our foods are over-processed. We often eat it in an anti-social manner, perhaps in front of a screen. Too many of us lack knowledge about food and cooking. A lot of us eat too much, and are attracted by food fads, eg. kale, pomegranates, cauliflower, nut milks, turmeric etc.

Regarding food trends, they sometimes have a dark side eg. Mexican avocadoes are known as ‘blood guacamole’ because the profits have led drug cartels to tax farmers who grow them; those who don’t pay are threatened with violence.

According to Wilson obesity is not totally the fault of our lack of willpower; it’s also the result of a triumph of marketing which most of us are susceptible to eg. sugar-laden breakfast cereals. Large corporates, subsidies, and trade agreements have colluded to create a worldwide food system that concentrates on increasingly large agglomeration of monocultures resulting in narrowing variety and nutrition. Cheap snacks, fizzy drinks, and junk food have penetrated even very traditional cuisines such as in France, India and China.

Eating is not as social as it once was. It’s less likely that we’ll eat at a table of people including family. Some people prefer to watch food shows on TV rather than get off the couch and do it themselves. Delivered food such as from Deliveroo, contributes to this result.

Wilson describes a study of Japanese men who settled in the US. Most assimilated to the western lifestyle resulting in increased heart disease; but not those who stuck to the Japanese traditions and rituals around eating.

Wilson is not judgemental about food or cooking; it appears that she is a reformer. She believes that public policy is the most efficient route to improvement. She explains that Chile and Amsterdam have instituted rules against marketing to children, and strictures to reduce sugar and salt. So it’s not all hopeless !!

Having attended the Climate Strike at the Domain in Sydney on Friday  (20 Sept 2019), I started thinking about whether going vegetarian would help not only the planet, but my health as well.  It sounds pretty easy, taking into consideration some nutritional points such as consuming enough proteins and the right vitamins and minerals.

I’ve been reading around this topic and it’s not just about the body’s need for good nutrition. And nor is it about displaying food fads on social media, along with endless selfies.

A meat-free diet, whether vegan or vegetarian, is also about the health of the planet and cruelty to animals. Our beef comes from cattle which have a digestive system made for grass, not grain from ‘finishing’ in intensive feed-lots. These environments are bad for the health of the animals’ stomachs and the increasing emission of methane.

It would make more sense if farming methods included regenerative agriculture. This means keeping native grasses rather than introduced pasture grasses. If these pastures are mixed and perennial, there is permanent ground cover, and the nutrients remain in the soil. If trees are not recklessly clear-felled, they provide shade for the animals. You can read about regenerative agriculture in the books of: Charles Massy, Bruce Pascoe, and Bill Gammage.

Broadscale cropping is often a monoculture which requires annual ploughing using lots of petrol, and petroleum-based fertilisers. After years of this, the biological activity in the soil becomes inert, therefore requiring increasing amounts of fertilisers each year. This is similar to humans trying to exist on constant sugar hits. It’s not sustainable over the long term.

Another writer, Joel Salatin, runs a farm in the US and rotates his crops and animals. And because it’s so successful he has a lot of speaking engagements.

Apart from increasing emissions of methane from cattle, eating less read meat is not going to harm us. Also, this sounds strange, but some people think killing animals is not cruel, and some think it is cruel. If they are slaughtered very quickly and painlessly, that is a lot better than the alternative.

A vegetable-based diet does decrease the carbon foot-print, but there are trade-offs.

If we all eat less or no meat, that will decrease the cost of and emissions from transportation to and from other countries. It is the same with vegetables; importing them is also costly and therefore unsustainable. And for this reason there has been a recent increase in domestic and community gardening, apart from the traditional market gardens on the periphery of most cities.

But when expansion for growing legumes and lentils (vegetable protein), means clear-felling native forests and rainforests, to make way for crops, that’s not always sustainable either.

It helps sustainability and reduction of air miles if we choose food, not so much on what we like, but on what is local and seasonal. Food waste doesn’t only happen at home; it also happens in the supply chains, including retailers.

So, whether vegan or vegetarian diets are better for the environment can only be assessed if the production systems and supply chains are sustainable. Airfreighting raspberries from, say, California in the middle of our winter does not make a lot of sense, delicious as they are.

As consumers, we need to understand and keep up to date with information about what to buy and eat, without wastage. Here are a few tips for us to remember when we go shopping for food:

• Remember what you have left in the fridge
• Try to buy vegetables and fruit which can combine with these above-mentioned foods in your fridge.
• Try to buy fruit and vegetables which are imperfect. Just because a capsicum looks fab in a photo does not mean that every capsicum is going to look perfect. They all taste the same. Imperfect produce is always cheaper, and nature is hardly ever perfect.
• Try to buy goods which are local and seasonal.
• Try not to buy too much at once; that can lead to wastage if it sits in the fridge for weeks.
• Be sceptical about food fads. Think of the poor farmers who have to grow this stuff, eg. kale, cauliflower are seasonal, not on permanent supply.

This book is very readable. It looks at the emergence of a national cuisine, and examines traditions and definitions until we arrive at a ‘Mongrel’ cuisine.

My mother was a traditional meat and three veg cook. She knew how to make decent gravy without the adulteration of the commercial packet variety. However, she did not enjoy baking; it was a chore and endured out of obligation if visitors were looming on the horizon.

Unlike the colonial cohort mentioned in this book, she was not frightened or repulsed by garlic. Up to the influx of immigrants post WWII, garlic was largely considered unseemly ‘wog food’.  Before garlic (BG).

I was peeling vegetables and stirring the gravy at primary school age. Later I was monopolizing the kitchen in shared flats; the guinea pigs did not complain.

As I appeared to be so keen on cooking a flat mate suggested I enrol in a Cordon Bleu course. Bedtime reading was Elizabeth David and Claudia Roden et al. By this time, it was the Post Garlic (PG) era. I had developed what Newton describes as Essengeist, or eating spirit.

The chapter titled “The Multiculinary Society Emerges” is about traffic going the other way: people travelling the other way, mostly backpackers towards UK and Europe.

But before I left the Antipodes, I was already in love with garlic prawns, which at the time was the quintessential garlic dish. Goodbye blandness – the era was now PG (Post Garlic).

Working as a cook, I read the restaurant critiques, just to see what restaurants were being disparaged and why, and what were worth considering, income permitting. The reviewers, I felt, had too much influence; it seemed they had the power to force the closure of some perfectly reasonable restaurants. Unfairly, the restaurateurs had no right of reply, but most of them were the ones who knew how to cook, not the reviewers!

In the 19^th century the dominant cuisine was French, but it wasn’t until the 1980s when the cult of the celebrity chef appeared, that Mod Oz was influential. It was basically French techniques, with simpler and more natural presentation.

Our celebrity chefs were heavily influenced by French celebrity chefs. Although none was using Australian indigenous foods, there was a lot of borrowing, or bricolage.

The food writers and restaurant critics (mostly male) over-estimated their influence. They could have been encouraging the use of indigenous foods but they failed.

The food writers and reviewers could not influence the leap to television food, then social media. But later in the 2000s the TV celebrity chef became dominant, their shows being accompanied by their cookbooks.

A lot has been written about the Masterchef effect; as Newton states it’s a fan-based food culture. So what constitutes a real cuisine?

Apparently, the appearance of a tradition including an abundance of ingredients, and a set of attitudes about foods. Also a critical mass of enthusiastic eaters with a willingness to try unfamiliar food.

Australia qualifies with these criteria, but the problem is that they were imported from UK over 200 years ago. Newton states “To be Australian is to be multi-cultural, multi-culinary – a mongrel”.

But until recently we were stuck in a rut, usually due to fear of the unknown, mutual mistrust from both Anglos and Indigenous peoples.

It seemed very strange that a foreign chef, Rene Redzepi, had to tell an Australia audience that native foods were all around us, but had been ignored for far too long!

Back to garlic – here’s Newton’s final sentence, quoting  Boulestin in Elizabeth David’s A Book of Mediterranean Food:  “It is not really an exaggeration to say that peace and happiness begin, geographically, where garlic is used in cooking.” Amen to that.