Gara’s Weblog

I go through phases with the books I read- if I become interested in a topic, I’ll spend most of the time reading only about that, until my curiosity is satisfied and I can then jump onto the next subject.

A couple of years ago the topic was food. I mean, food as such has always been a very central matter in my life, but I mainly kept the hobby within the kitchen space, the walls of restaurants, and the pages of cookery books. I’m a compulsive buyer of these, and quite proud of a collection that I would probably save from a fire before anything else (or, rather, after the pictures, but because sometimes these are the only source of memory), but they are unfortunately split between Madrid and London, all these wonderful books, although perhaps the day I finally settle down -should that day ever come!-, I’ll be able to put them all together in some special bookcase. Ah, I sometimes find myself with a big grin of anticipation imagining that moment, but who knows if they’ll ever get to meet.

In any case, as I was saying before I got sidetracked, I then broadened my field of interest to the way food is produced, which inevitably lead to realising how much damage it causes, in all possible directions (meaning to ourselves and to others, and to those who are not even here yet), and to wondering about how on earth we can educate people to be aware and responsible for what we are doing. I read several authors, who anyone familiar with the topic will of course know about, like Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser and Peter Singer, among others.

The other day I went to the cinema and the tickets for the film I wanted to watch were sold out, so I randomly decided to go to see Food inc. It’s pretty much the same stuff that I had been reading about back then (to the point that two of the authors I mentioned are interviewed in it), but of course one has to take into account the fact that images can have a very strong impact- it’s not quite the same to read about how McDonald’s meat is processed than to actually see it, and it’s both fascinating and important to do so.

Because I know about the dangers of preaching, I was very much hesitating whether to publish this post or not, but then I decided to do so because apart from the obvious fact that it has now become massively trendy to be food-aware and to eat tofu and seaweed for dinner instead of roast chicken and chips, the actual fact is that it is possible to be in a healthy middle-point where you can be aware and make a positive change, but at the same time be able to laugh about all the trendiness and frivolity around it. This, by the way, always reminds me of that great scene in Annie Hall when Woody Allen goes back to California to try to get Annie back, and he arrives to just any street café where he will wait for her while having a bite, and after going through the menu he resignedly orders “Alfalfa sprouts and a plate of mashed yeast”. It’s just brilliant. Ah, the trend was very much already there back in the seventies!

So anyway, if you’re interested in what you put inside your body (I’m talking about food here ;), and the chain reaction that may derive from that, either read a couple of books or go to watch this movie.

I’ve also decided, after giving it some thought, to upload this talk Jamie Oliver gave in the US fairly recently. I’m warning you- it’s deeply demagogue and clearly presses all the right buttons to move the audience by appealing to their most basic feelings -and they love him for that, of course, as masses do-, but all in all the message is good. So if you’ve got twenty minutes to spare, you might want to give it a go and draw your own conclusions.

http://www.ted.com/talks/jamie_oliver.html