This image was taken at Dalew Farms. Run by Dave and Chantal Lewington using sustainable growing methods, they are our Community Shared Agriculture (CSA) provider. Our thanks to them for making it possible for us to resist the atrocity that is corporate food.
Access to food
is overwhelmingly operationalized in terms of edibility, as though all
food is created equal. In both the Global North and South, traditional
foods have been severely curtailed in favour of corporate food: food that
is produced by large multi-national corporations. This has resulted in
a revolutionary change in the availability of nutrients in food.
In The End of
Food, Pawlick (2006) documents the erosion of nutrients in our food supply.
The potato for example, one of the most consumed foods in Canada, has lost
100 percent of its vitamin A, an important nutrient for eye health; 57
percent of its vitamin C and iron, co-factors in blood health; 28 percent
of its calcium, which is crucial for bone and teeth health; 50 percent
of its riboflavin; and 18 percent of its thiamine. Similar findings were
discovered for more than 25 fruits and vegetables tested (Pawlick, 2006,
p. 15). This categorical nutrient extinction is overwhelmingly the result
of a host of reckless farming and production practices which favour obligations
to shareholders over population health.
Rachael Charbonneau