In today's, Modern Food world, have we really created more opportunities?

[AdventureMarc]

Studying some of the changes in our cultural perception over the last 80 years, I have observed that in the 1930’s, the average household grew much of its own food, refined most of it’s resources grown on their property, and depended very little on outside production. People’s homes were more of a “homestead” than a suburban, modern appliance home. Chain supermarket stores and the like were not even widely available until the late 1930’s and 1940’s (see http://www.groceteria.com/about/a-quick-history-of-the-supermarket/). Much of this was due to the lack of mass produced, long term food storage technology (modern pasteurization, vacuum sealing, & freeze-drying), as well as low cultural acceptance of these “non-fresh” foods.

The need for convenient, packaged, non-perishable food was accelerated by the evolution of the modern worker. In the 1940’s and 1950’s, more people went to work outside of the home, and less people stayed at home to be able to grow and prepare meals. This reduction in the home labor force helped to fuel the need for modern appliances for convenience, automation and time efficiency: e.g. refrigerator, washing machine, dishwasher, etc. The convenience of not having to produce and prepare your own food through the efforts of a garden or livestock became synonymous with “modern” and people shunned these traditional farm resources. Cities and suburbs with smaller plots of land gave way to our modern urban landscapes, as people wanted less land to have to maintain. With the advent of these modern appliances/technologies and cultural acceptance of these practices, there has been a steady move for people to rely less on their own home resources, and rely more on the packaged, prepared, but somewhat limited resources that are supplied by our modern markets.

What is wrong with this, you might ask? I am not against the modernization and acceptance of these new practices. I just advocate that we still maintain an understanding of our history and thus prevent some of the modern ills that our ancestors never had to deal with. I seek a balance between having the current modern convenience, but the opportunity for other options besides those that our limited market provides. For example, there are literally hundreds of varieties of tomatoes. Our ancestors would typically grow their own tomato plants, selecting from a wide variety of species based on what grew well in their local area, what fit with their families taste and usage preferences (certain tomatoes are better for fresh salads than for sauces or sun-drying for other recipes), and what had the best return on an investment of seeds, water and time. This provided the best tasting, freshest, and most nutritious tomatoes for a family without any unknown influences (unknown chemicals or pesticides). This also provided secondary benefits: physical exercise by working in the field; knowledge of how to propagate, nurture, cultivate and harvest tomato plants; awareness and understanding of the seasons; choice in harvest time (peak ripeness), etc.

Today, if someone wants a tomato, they can go to the supermarket and purchase from a selection of only THREE SPECIES: Beefsteak tomato, Roma tomato or Cherry tomato. Purchasing at the supermarket means they do not have to invest the time, resources, labor or knowledge, but they have limited their selection to 3 species, they do not know the origins of how that tomato was cultivated (using chemical fertilizers and/or pesticides) or harvested (unripe and using ethylene gas, then irradiated and transported hundreds of miles in refrigeration). The reason for the limited selection of tomatoes in supermarkets is usually catering to shipping and transport restraints. Tomato varieties that are available in stores are usually the ones that ripen the easiest during transport, bruise the least for packaging, and have the best pricing for the supermarkets. All of these factors are for the benefit of the supermarket, not the individual family. Tomato plants are a very easy plant to grow and make for an easy gateway into small gardening, ideally reducing the reliance on external resources (e.g. supermarkets) and gaining a small bit of Self-Reliance.

So do we really have more food opportunities/choices today?

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