Eat the Rainbow
The case for small and diverse.
Do you think Facebook and Google have gotten too big? They're not the only ones.
Much of what we eat is governed by just a handful of companies. I learned about this from a recent investigation (interactive and worth exploring) from the Guardian and Food and Water Watch, which found that
"for shoppers, it might seem like choices galore at the store, but most of our favorite brands are actually owned by a handful of food giants, including Kraft Heinz, General Mills, Conagra, Unilever and Delmonte.”
This study really alarmed me (PepsiCo controls 88 percent of the dip market? huh?).
It's not that I think big companies are inherently bad, and small companies are inherently good. But I do think that our economy's hyper-focus on the bottom line, combined with the relentless, often merciless cost-cutting required to scale, screws us over. We've all experienced the harms caused by companies that scale with impunity (referring back to my first sentence).
Bringing it to Climate Cookery: consolidation of food companies is directly linked to a monotonous, consolidating agriculture industry, whose parallel focus on cost-cutting, efficiency and scaling has led to the neglect of thousands of nourishing, regenerative plants.
You may have seen the IPCC report — we need these climate-smart plants. They feed us well without destroying the habitats in which they grow. And they’ll help continue to feed us in an uncertain climate future.
So what can we do? We need a robust economic and policy overhaul that's beyond my expertise to describe. But we're not powerless as individuals. With Climate Cookery, I'm working to help people:
Eat small: Something I've learned this year is that small businesses support other small businesses. So when you buy a small-batch food product (like, say, I don't know, Kick+Tang), you end up supporting many small businesses, which are often women-, immigrant-, BIPOC-, middle and working-class owned.
Eat diverse: Think beyond rice, wheat, and corn. Try that grain in the bulk section at Whole Foods, or that unfamiliar vegetable at the farmer's market. When you eat new-to-you foods, you’re taking an important action in support of agricultural biodiversity.
I titled this post “Eat the Rainbow” because I’ve been thinking of a weather metaphor (apt) throughout writing this: After weathering a big, destructive, opague storm, we have an opportunity to look for small rainbows - opportunities for new, delicious, healthful experiences everywhere. Let’s do it!