15 Memorable Quotes from The Leaders of the Real Food Movement
The world of food is changing. From agriculture to discussions on public health, foodies are working hard to get the public engaged in food issues and politics. If we want a better food system, we have to keep fighting for it. Be they journalists, farmers, or simply believers in the value of real food, here are 15 quotable quotes from some of the real food movement’s top voices.
1. “Let things taste the way they are.” – Alice Waters, chef, author, and owner of Chez Panisse
2. “The quest for slowness, which begins as a simple rebellion against the impoverishment of taste in our lives, makes it possible to rediscover taste.” – Carlo Petrini, founder of the International Slow Food Movement
3. “Like pornography, junk [food] might be tough to define but you know it when you see it.” – Mark Bittman, food journalist
4. “The shared meal elevates eating from a mechanical process of fueling the body to a ritual of family and community, from the mere animal biology to an act of culture.” – Michael Pollan, author, journalist and professor at UC Berkeley
5. “Omega-3s occur naturally in food like fish, chicken and eggs, and plants to a lesser extent. Why do we need to get it from bread?” – Marion Nestle, Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University, author of Food Politics
6. “The fast-food industry is in very good company with the lead industry and the tobacco industry in how it tries to mislead the public, and how aggressively it goes after anybody who criticizes its business practices.” – Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation
7. “Organic farming appealed to me because it involved searching for and discovering nature’s pathways, as opposed to the formulaic approach of chemical farming. The appeal of organic farming is boundless; this mountain has no top, this river has no end.” – Eliot Coleman, pioneer organic farmer, author of The New Organic Grower and Four-Season Farm
8. “This magical, marvelous food on our plate, this sustenance we absorb, has a story to tell. It has a journey. It leaves a footprint. It leaves a legacy. To eat with reckless abandon, without conscience, without knowledge; folks, this ain’t normal.” – Joel Salatin, farmer and author of Folks, This Ain’t Normal; You Can Farm
9. “The nation’s fiscal health is dependent upon the health of the next generation. When we consider the cost of inaction in a matter of national security, lives are at stake.” Debra Eschmeyer, Co-Founder of Food Corps
10. “Every aspect of our lives is, in a sense, a vote for the kind of world we want to live in.” Frances Moore Lappéauthor of Diet for a Small Planet
11. “Nature shrinks as capital grows. The growth of the market cannot solve the very crisis it creates.” – Vandana Shiva, Indian physicist and author of Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis
12. “Agricultural sustainability doesn’t depend on agritechnology. To believe it does is to put the emphasis on the wrong bit of ‘agriculture.’ What sustainability depends on isn’t agri- so much as culture.” – Raj Patel, academic, journalist, activist and author of The Value of Nothing: How to Reshape Market Society and Redefine Democracy
13. “Organic is something we can all partake of and benefit from. When we demand organic, we are demanding poison-free food. We are demanding clean air. We are demanding pure, fresh water. We are demanding soil that is free to do its job and seeds that are free of toxins. We are demanding that our children be protected from harm. We all need to bite the bullet and do what needs to be done—buy organic whenever we can, insist on organic, fight for organic and work to make it the norm. We must make organic the conventional choice and not the exception available only to the rich and educated.”
― Maria Rodale, CEO and Chairman of Rodale, author of Organic Manifesto: How Organic Farming Can Heal Our Planet, Feed the World, and Keep Us Safe
14. “The worms also made me reflect again on what it took to improve the lives of people. You couldn’t place folks in the middle of a blighted neighborhood — without a strong family unit and without easy access to healthy food — and expect them to thrive. If you could create an environment in which people felt secure and healthy, though, you could provide the possibility of a better life.” – Will Allen, pioneering urban farmer and author of The Good Food Revolution
15. “We need a new definition of malnutrition. Malnutrition means under- and over-nutrition. Malnutrition means emaciated and obese.” Catherine Bertini, Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Programme from 1992 to 2002.
Related on Organic Authority:
Women: Meet the New Faces of American Farming
Mark Bittman’s ‘Food Manifesto’: Outrageous or Contagious?
Alice Waters Leads More than 125 Chefs in Support of California’s Proposition 37
image: ilovebutter
