Michael Pollan, who has written three of the most important food books of the recent past — Omnivore's Dilemma, Food Rules, and In Defense of Food — answered readers' questions in a New York Times Magazine special on Food and Drink.
One of the questions, and his answer, intrigued us enough to post it here. Good food for thought, as they say.
Q: What will our food system be like in 100 years?
A: My best guess is that the food system will look very different in 100 years, for the simple reason that the present one is — in the precise sense of the word — unsustainable. It depends on fossil fuels that we can't depend on and exacts a steeper price in human and environmental health than we can afford. So it will change, whether we want it to or not.
We certainly won't be eating nine ounces of meat per person per day, as Americans do now — there won't be enough feed grain, worldwide, to continue that feast, and presumably we will have faced up to meat-eating's disastrous toll on the environment. If we haven't, we'll have much bigger problems on our plate than what to have for dinner.
What do you think? Crystal ball or ignorant negativism?
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That's easy. Ignorant negativism; and that's being kind. Nothing more pushing an extremist activist agenda. What they're saying is that they advocate massive starvation. They'll take that over meat. Meat, particularly beef, allows us to produce food from marginal lands that is not suitable for grain production. Furthermore, the American Farmer has proven time and again that, along with modern technology, they are able to continue to increase food production that outpaces demand. And they can do so without sacrificing the environment. To the contrary, American Farmers are the original environmentalists -- their livelihoods depend upon it.
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