We live in a very fast pace world and free time is often hard to come by. Most Americans are working up to 40 hours a week if not more. The process of purchasing and cooking a healthy whole foods meal as Michael Pollan the author of In Defense of Food suggests takes both time and labor. It is much easier for one to throw a frozen meal in the microwave and have it ready instantly. These frozen meals tend to be both inexpensive and easy to make.
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Not only are these foods easy for the consumer to prepare, but they are also much easier to mass produce than the organic whole foods Pollan suggests. Often times to produce the largest yields agriculture companies must use genetically modified seeds in order to effectively and efficiently grow a product. Then once these plants are ready to harvest they are often mixed with certain food additives and nutrients to improve taste, color, and to increase shelf life. The process of mass producing these items may be detrimental to our health, but they are much more efficient than naturally growing crops for sale.
The question is how do we make time for healthier food? The process begins both with civilians and with the government. Government food organizations such as the FDA and the USDA need to work together in order to create alternatives to chemically mass-produced food. Consumers must also be informed. According to an article written by Norah MacKendrick she describes how understanding the chemicals that enter into our bodies may help us, “shopping our way to safety is …more about claiming a bit of control over transient and unwieldy chemicals that pervade the consumer landscape.” When we realize that consuming chemicals is often inevitable but educate ourselves on the precautions we can take. We will be able to take the stress and time out of cooking. We are able to make decisions that on busy nights we can’t always consume a whole foods meal, but we can try our best to purchase and consume foods with low chemical products and still save time.
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MacKendrick, N. and Stevens, L. M. (2016), “Taking Back a Little Bit of Control”: Managing the Contaminated Body Through Consumption. Sociol Forum, 31: 310-329. doi:10.1111/socf.12245
The notion that good food takes time is absolutely true. Sure, a microwavable mac ‘n’ cheese dinner à la Home Alone probably tastes delicious, but I am skeptical as to whether the nutrition that we humans need might be present in such a meal. And although such food can be fortified with vitamins and minerals, the jury is still out as to whether this is sufficient enough for the complex bodily requirements of real nutrition.
At the end of the day, it is like you say: good food takes time. I think it’s really a shame that the concept of good food has become such a privilege. After all, we all have priorities, and must often place school, or work, or family above taking the time to cook a truly healthful meal. In an ideal world, this might not be the case, but alas. I suppose the question that this then makes me ask is whether our industrialized food system of mass production might be capable of somehow reconciling with the notions of “real” and “whole” food?
Good food totally takes time. I have been thinking about this applying to everything else too, not solely food. Everything good takes time. I think you’re right that a big issue with bad food is the fact that citizens no longer have time for healthy food. We sacrifice health for money in a sense and I think this is an underlying systemic problem that needs to be addressed in order for people to actually eat healthier. The problem is our capitalist society that deems success by GDP. We work tirelessly, emitting mass amounts of fossil fuels, we put our social connections on the backburner and we consume foods that make us sick and sad. It’s complicated because this problem can’t really be solved by enlightening the public. There are alternatives to processed foods, I disagree that this is something the government needs to be working on- vegetables and fruits are alternatives to “chemically mass-produced foods.” What I think they should be working on is a more social and economic push to slow down. Eat your food with your family, look at what you’re consuming. I also don’t want to disregard the food justice side of things and how a lot of times healthy fresh food is inaccessible or expensive. This is a really real issue, and something we also need to work on solving. My main point is that I don’t think this is an issue of misinformation or lack thereof anymore, I think people generally know that something is wrong with processed foods and that it is most ideal to eat healthy and fresh. I think it is mostly a problem of a system that doesn’t allow this choice to be easy.