1 hour ago, Deryn said:This is not necessarily true for the 'masses' though. The world's population continues to grow (so more to feed), the availability of good farming land decreases, the quality of the dirt decreases as time goes on (leading to fewer actual nutrients in the food - growing controversy ... is your food really as nutritious as it used to be, as the labels purport it to be, even if it smells/looks/tastes good?), more and more chemicals are used to prop up poor soils, shorten growing times and increase yields, fish that is still affordable for many is farmed and plied with antibiotics or captured from polluted waters, trade agreements mean that we no longer really know where many foods come from and how they were grown, etc., and what used to be locally produced and quickly consumed (i.e. fresh) foods are being shipped back and forth around the world for 'processing' purposes, now possible because of faster and cheaper transportation and 'preservatives' (both with 'additives' and with preservation 'techniques' to keep foods looking fresh or have them arrive at your store not looking as though they travelling thousands of miles from their place of origin). The small producer is, over time, being shut out while corporate conglomerates with the real power and money take deeper hold on the food world - and the food of the world - with profit as their motivator.
I too don't want to go astray. but I just wanted to hold this post up for special recognition; I feel it is one of the best statements of the problem that we have, and it's everywhere. Unless and until we refuse to see the earth as inert, dead material to stick things into to merely hold them up while they grow by false economies and long term devastation, we'll continue to see the world's living capacity shrink, all to cries of "we need to optimize more, and so....intensify production, pay them to do it!" - and agribusiness is only too happy to reap the false-market reward.
There's a ton more, but that is definitely the subject for another thread. I live in a very farm-to-table community, with a strong farmers' market; but I will say, in agreement with IndyRob, small and local does not mean it's of necessity going to be top quality. There's a reason Point, Bocuse et al roamed the stalls to pick out the best for their respective place, because although they were all local, some produced better asparagus better than the others. I find it's the same here.
In general, I think, the French have an appreciation for good food built into their collective unconscious; it's simply a happy marriage of land and history, and whether a chicken tastes like chicken actually mattered is different there than a good many places on the planet. But I also think that sadly, it's giving way to the same forces that have long shaped our world here in the U.S., and it all comes down to whether one works to create a living earth making living things that taste distinctive and good, or whether agribusiness, in collusion with regulatory personnel, continue to propagate the myth of concentration, "optimization" with modern fertilizers and their ilk; continue their literal stranglehold over production.
