The Cleaner Plate Club

So I’m still not cooking, still not eating. But soon? Hopefully soon. Yes. Hopefully soon. For the time being, my abdomen has stumped the experts. For that I would feel proud if only I felt better.

Reading, though? Yes. I can do that. So I must steer you toward this excellent series on the food crisis from the Washington Post. They’ve done a great job connecting the dots between malnourished toddlers in Mauritania, riots in Bangladesh, the move toward biofuels, and recent uptick in coupon clipping in the U.S., a reverse of a 7 year downward trend. The series is absolutely worth a read.

Three things stood out while I read this. First was simply an awareness of how connected we all are, every one of us, all across the globe. It’s like the old butterfly-flaps-its-wings-and-causes-a-tsunami story. We think we are so far away, here in the U.S. We think we are far away from a desperate goat farmer in Nouakchott, or a grain producer in the Ukraine. We hear about a prolonged drought in Australia, or hungry Haitians, and we think, “that’s elsewhere. That’s some other land, some other place, some other issue.” But then you pull on a single string, just one, and find that we are all connected. That string is food, or perhaps at its most basic level, it is the planet that we all live on.

The second thing that struck me is the thing that strikes me always, whenever I read this stuff: how fortunate I am. Even as I cringe as my own groceries ring up, I must remember that over a billion people — a billion. Like, take every person of every age in every town and city everywhere in America, and then triple that number — live on less than a dollar a day. Those people are already spending 70% or more of their income on food. Not to eat lavishly, but simply to get enough sustenance to stay alive. Here, we spend 10%. Not even. So, yes, it hurts when the prices of eggs rise by 35%. I don’t want to minimize that for anyone. But my God…what happens to those people who are already giving everything they have toward basic survival?

The last thing to strike me is how commoditized food has become. The article series opens with financial traders in big cities watching the computer screens at America’s great grain exchanges. These people in suits, watching up-to-the-instant tickers about rice, wheat, corn. Same as the folks who are watching tickers about GE, or about Yahoo, or Pfizer. And yet these commodities, these grains, are so much more than what they seem on the big boards. It’s not like watching Microsoft, really, even though in so many ways, it is. It’s food.

As Jeff Voge, chairman of the Kansas City Board of Trade, is quoted in the article: “We have never seen anything like this before. Prices are going up more in one day than they have during entire years in the past. But no matter the price, there always seems to be a buyer. . . . This isn’t just any commodity. It is food, and people need to eat.”

The whole thing is sobering, and it will really make you stop and savor whatever it is you’re about to eat, or just ate. (yes, even if that thing is simply some dry toast, as it’s been in my house for a week).

Once you’re done with that serious reading, you might be in the mood for something to make you laugh. Not ha-ha laugh, mind you, more like WTF? kind of laughter. Like, say, some $3,000 tours of Whole Foods? Sounds crazy, but this New York Times article highlights the work of Nancy Weiser, a lifestyle coach to those wishing to adopt a more wholesome approach to eating. Nancy promises to permanently change clients’ relationship to the food supply, and I’m sure she does; as a society, we have gotten so far away from any kind of healthful relationship to food that any informed discussion about food choices is bound to open eyes. Weiser’s goal is to teach people how to return to a simpler set of food choices, like not eating anything that “wouldn’t grow in the ground.” Along the way, she teaches people how to make stuff with, say, kale.

And bless her for that. Really. But just a word to those folks who are paying $3,000 for 12 classes? Pssst. There’s plenty of good information online, and you can get lots of it for free.

Like cooking with kale? A brief visit to Nancy’s web site shows that she’s got a great recipe for krispy kale. And the recipe seems…somehow…familiar. Because, oh, that’s right! You saw it here. And here. And here. And elsewhere, with poetry.

Anyhow, it makes me laugh, because Nancy’s would be kind of a dream job if I lived in a neighborhood where people actually had $3,000 to spare, instead of where, say, the guy who owns the property next door once lived inside a school bus. And it makes me cry, because, well, the job is hers. Not mine.

I promise I’ll be back in the weather (as opposed to under it) soon, with more recipes and more fun. And I won’t even charge you three-grand for it.