The phrase "vote with your fork" sends chills down my spine. It sounds like a child dragging a fork across a chalkboard. It is a duller than a plastic butter-knife made to spread hydrogenated vegetable shortening… blacker than the absence of light—the absence of hope. It is so discouraging because it comes from a movement with such a proven capacity for creative problem-solving. I mean really, can't we do better than Meadow Gold vs. Horizon Organic milk (both owned by the same parent company Dean Foods)?
The San Francisco Chronicle Insight section on November 30,2008, "How Safe is Your Lunch" revealed how irrational our global food system is- sending chickens raised in Mexico to be processed in China and sold to Americans, for example. It showed how the best way to ensure quality food is to eat local. The collection of articles did a fantastic job exposing marketing gimmicks—no, organic does not mean domestic. Yet, when it came to offering solutions to transform our food system, all the reader got is the same tired old "vote with your fork" and even "vote with your pocketbook." How can the solution to the current food crisis be to consume and how can the individual diets of affluent people change the system?
Increasingly, affluent Americans are willing to pay more for traditionally-produced foods. This is paramount, especially in light of the current economic situation, and it is so far necessary to support agricultural production domestically. But it can really only do so much. It can only reach those with the resources of time and money. When looking at something as universal and necessary to basic survival as food, shouldn't we as a society be most concerned with those who face the greatest health risks from unhealthy diets and malnutrition?
Within the local foods movement there is a growing sentiment of elitism and a backlash of discredit coming from ordinary working and middle class people who can't stretch their dollars any further without going further into debt or falling behind on monthly housing payments. When the only solution is to "vote with your pocketbook" power is isolated and given only to those with the funds, education and access to buy local. And the rest—people who don't live near a farmer's market, who don't own a car to drive across town, who are already dependent on emergency food assistance, who don't know how to cook from raw ingredients, who face any number of barriers to the Slow Foods Movement, are excluded. And worse off, they are made to feel that they are supporting a system they may not choose to support EVERY time they eat—voting with their forks. Well, if it's macaroni and cheese, easy dinner and paying the heating bill on time—or a bunch of vegetables you’re not quite sure how to cook or when its gone bad and now you've run over your budget and your kid is hungry, you’re just going to drive through the dollar menu.... What would you choose? And if these are your choices can you really be participating in any meaningful way?
Thankfully there are other ways to voice your concerns about your food. You can get involved in improving your child's school lunch program to include more farm-to-cafeteria food. Or ask the PTA to sponsor a school garden if the school doesn’t already have one (and sell cookbooks or nuts instead of candy and cookies to raise money). You can talk to your local elected representatives about supporting urban farmer’s markets. You can talk to your friends, your church, and community groups about what starting a buying club with a specific truck farmer, dairy, or cheesemaker. Or join a food buying coop that may already exist. You can educate yourself and others about food sovereignty. Your voice matters and needs to be heard. You can vote with more than just your fork. You can also vote with your hands and your ears and your mind, and whatever creative force that moves you.
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