| Thomas Pawlick wants you to be scared shitless about the food you’re eating. And he wants nothing less than to lead a revolution against the food industry, that he argues in his new book The End of Food, (Greystone Books, 264 pp.) is destroying our food supply.
His book laments the loss of quality, nutritional food, the demise of the family farm and is a vitriolic attack against the practices of large agribusiness. He calls on his readers to revolt against the food we’re being offered and to start seeking out alternatives such as growing our own food when possible, frequenting farmers’ markets and boycotting major grocery stores, among other options. He raises some important questions about the current state of our food supply. Unfortunately, the book too often deteriorates into angry diatribes and rampant hyperbole rather than dispassionately offering readers the straight facts.
When you meet Pawlick in person, it’s obvious this is a subject that he, as an organic farmer and science journalist, cares deeply about and he’s unafraid to come out with his guns blazing.
"I’ve been watching this crisis develop and grow. It’s sort of like a meteorologist watching a storm centre build," says Pawlick. "You know in a couple of weeks it’s going to be a hurricane, but at that point nobody else recognizes it as a hurricane. Well, I could see the hurricane coming. The hurricane that’s coming is a total collapse of our food supply."
Pawlick begins the book by offering some startling statistics about the reduction in nutritional value in fruits and vegetables. He found that tomatoes analyzed in 2002 had 30 per cent less vitamin A and 17 per cent less vitamin C than in 1963. They also had less phosphorus, potassium, niacin and iron.
"It has no flavour and very little nutrients, but God it looks great on a shelf," he says.
He points out that tomatoes are simply one of the fruits and vegetables in grocery stores that have less nutritional value than they once did, and argues it’s due to modern farming practices such as intensive irrigation, the use of manmade fertilizers and artificial ripening techniques.
"The most common foodstuff in Canada is the potato. Everybody loves Yukon Gold potatoes. They’re the variety developed in Canada. Yet, the potato has lost 100 per cent of its Vitamin A. There is no Vitamin A at all in potatoes," says Pawlick.
Pawlick also describes a disturbing list of "additives, pollutants, adulterants and poisons" that can now be found in meat products and decries the inhumane treatment that many animals suffer before they end up on our plates.
"The real horror story is the way animals themselves are treated. I’m not a vegetarian. I’m not an animal rights nut. I freely admit that the methods by which they raise and then kill almost all the livestock is horrible and if you go into any of these poultry or hog or cattle raising places it’s like walking into Auschwitz," says Pawlick.
Pawlick is a passionate defender of the family farm, but he says agriculture is now largely under control of the mega corporations, which only care about the bottom line.
"They’re steadily increasing their profits, but at the cost of nutrition, flavour, health and the environment," he says.
His book gives the reader a lot to get depressed about. But Pawlick wants people to take action rather than just be alarmed. He argues at the conclusion of his book that consumers do have power because they can boycott the mainstream food industry.
"We need to take back control of our own food supply, our own meals, and our own humanity," he writes. |
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