As a student, I don’t have the money to buy most of my food from farmer’s markets or small businesses that source their foods locally. I can get food from larger chains like Safeway, which sell food (especially produce) at a lower price because it’s part of a food system that relies on exploitation of labor and of the environment because of the fossil fuels and low wages it demands.<\/p>\n
If only I had more money, I say. I could buy healthy, local, ethically sourced food and save workers and the planet with the power of my dollar. But realistically, is this what would happen?<\/p>\n
Andrew Szasz<\/span>‘s theory of “inverted quarantine” investigates how consumers control their diet when many foods are contaminated with industrial chemicals. This theory can also explain how consumers opt out of participating in a food system that’s harmful for others and the planet. By choosing which foods you consume, you choose the food’s impact on the world around you, right? However this form of ‘action’ has an effect larger than impacting the world with the power of your dollar- political anesthesia.<\/p>\n The people who can choose to live a life of inverted quarantine with their food choices are those who can afford<\/em> to. Author Michael Carolan tells readers we can’t afford ‘cheap’ food, for the cost of cheap food is too high- our population is growing too unhealthy, the planet’s climate too hot. Similarly, we can’t afford to let the wealthy opt out of political action and pressure when we live in a world where disadvantaged people can’t opt out of eating cheap food. When the system is broken, it won’t change regardless of how smart your food choices are, especially when you opt for buying local arugula to fuel your body over the labor that fuels political and systemic change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As a student, I don’t have the money to buy most of my food from farmer’s markets or small businesses that source their foods locally. I can get food from larger chains like Safeway, which sell food (especially produce) at a lower price because it’s part of a food system that relies on exploitation of labor and of the environment… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=448"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":538,"href":"http:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448\/revisions\/538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}