The standard grocery store offers a handful of tomato varieties (cherry, “vine-ripened”) compared to a seriously long list of variations on the Oreo cookie (fudge crèmes mint, double stuff, reduced fat, mega stuff golden, chocolate stuff, just to name a few). And so the setup of the food industry provides an extensive selection of packaged goods that cater to our salt, sugar, and fat cravings, but that limit our exploration of fruits, vegetables, and other less processed foods. It is this kind of shopping setting that Pollan describes as providing an “extraordinary abundance” of food choices, the quantity of which is a key factor in complicating the American consumer’s grocery list (5). However, it is not necessarily the abundance of options that is the problem. Rather, the types of items we are given to choose from may be the root cause of the problems we face around our food selections.
As a result of nutrition information (Pollan 5) and the dominating role of science in our food system (Schlosser 6), we, as American consumers, are described to “no longer [be] confident of our senses” when it comes to choosing our food (Pollan 5). By forfeiting our knowledge to the industrial food system, we may have temporarily deactivated our food senses, but our innate ability to taste and decipher flavors remains a part of our human abilities. This is demonstrated in Trubek’s experiments with varieties of Vermont maple syrup, and her findings that consumers could, in fact, taste the difference between syrups produced in different places and by using different methods (229).
If we have the ability to differentiate between the varying tastes of a condiment normally overpowered by the presence of carbohydrates (think pancakes and waffles), then image the possibility for us to explore the array of flavors offered by purple carrots, tomatoes that are orange, and other fruit and veggie varieties that we are currently unaccustomed to. Pleasure is “deepened by knowledge” (Pollan 11), and knowledge can be expanded through taste. By allowing ourselves to experience new flavors, and by demanding an extended variety of fresh produce from the food industry, we can begin to rebuild our food knowledge and start our journey towards more pleasurable eating.
Camryn,
I love the way you start your response with the comparison between the variety of tomatos and variety of Oreo’s available in a grocery story. I found your point that it is the types of options rather than the number of options available to us which causes increased health concerns (among other problems) to be especially insightful. And while having many options when it comes to Oreo’s, a snack food that many find sweet and delicious, can seem like a great thing, I would ultimately find more pleasure in being able to choose between varieties of vegetables. In talking about “demanding an extended variety of fresh produce”, your response reminded me of the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver. The book details the story of one year in which the author and her family ate only local food, much of which they grew themselves or bought from farmers that they visited together. As part of this story, Kingsolver talks about heirloom varieties of vegetables and how these are being lost. She connects increased variety not only to increased pleasure in terms of the different tastes available, but also in terms of the environmental benefits because more varieties of a crop can mean more resistance to disease. More variety of the good foods, then, can be good not only for our satisfaction and pleasure, but also for our health and for that of the environment.
Your post also reminded me of my experiences last summer, growing heirloom tomatoes and different eggplant varieties. The tomato greenhouse with the heirlooms was my favorite to pick from because the colors were amazing, reds and yellows and purples and striped varieties that had a pointed end instead of being round. Your argument about pleasure seemed to hold true at the farmer’s markets and CSA pick-ups, when these varieties went over well with customers. I know I was excited to try the Purple Russians, or my favorite, the Striped Romans. (Heirloom tomatoes also have great names…I just found one that’s apparently called Michael Pollan?) The non-traditional varieties of eggplant, though, were harder to sell. We didn’t get large orders from the local co-ops or restaurants, since they couldn’t sell them fast enough to customers who wouldn’t buy these pink, green, or striped eggplant that didn’t look like what they were used to. People either didn’t know that these varieties existed, or didn’t know how they would prepare them. From this, it seems that the industrial food giants really have stripped away much of our choice, and with it, knowledge, about what vegetables we’re eating to the point that we’re often afraid to expand our palate and try new things. I think a huge part of demanding more variety from the food industry will be re-educating ourselves and others about the variety that exists, and learning to love all our vegetables. I see the local food movement, and as we’ve been talking about, the connections between people that it can form, as playing an integral role in this education process. To me, small local farms seem like a great space to start requesting more variety in our produce, and from here, both education and demand can grow.