There is a battle being waged today over the future of our planet, and the battleground is our dinner plates. For some of us, the choice is so simple it’s laughable. But, this is no laughing matter.
As it becomes more and more obvious that our current dependency on industrial agriculture is not sustainable over the long term, two divergent choices are emerging.
One choice will lead us down a path of continued and growing dependence on biotechnology. Science (the kind that can only take place in a lab) will be the answer to all of our problems. “Food” can be created for us with little to no impact on the health of the planet with the added bonus of being “cruelty-free” because no animals will be needed.
Down this path, food consists of “impossible” “meats” made from genetically modified vegetables or “grown” from the chicken’s DNA found in a feather. These are actual products making their way on the market today that sound much more like Science fiction than something the FDA has or will actually approve for human consumption.
This is also the path that leads to further dependence on corporations for our food. This is a path toward corporations - people who make a profit - controlling what goes into our bodies, deciding what is “healthy”, what will be available to eat, and how much we will be required to pay to have access to it.
This is a top-down system where very few will profit and those few will have immense power. This move for power over our very life-giving sources - seeds and water - has already begun.
But thankfully, there is another choice.
It seems like the obvious one. And I hope it will seem that way to most people, but I’m not willing to take that for granted.
There is a path that leads to natural foods - vegetables, fruits and meats - produced from more vibrant soils. This path leads to better health, cleaner environments, more nutritious food, more freedom and greater independence.
This path winds its way through healthy pastures without chemicals and with greater biodiversity - more plant, animal and microbial life. It passes through smaller and more localized farms taking advantage of organic, sustainable and regenerative practices.
This is a path that focuses on the lessons that nature can teach us (also Science, by the way). Down this path, we acknowledge that everything on this planet is part of a system. We understand that regeneration, death and rebirth are natural processes that we can “exploit” for our own good in harmony with the earth.
This is a path that goes in circles - closing loops in systems so that “waste” from one participant becomes the needed inputs of another - thereby creating waste-free systems where everything has a use.
The time to choose which path we take is now.
The good news is that as consumers, we have the power to choose our own future. We can choose the kind of world we want to live in and the kind of world we want to leave for future generations to inherit.
Shop wisely.