“…the boat has not only been for our civilisation, from the sixteenth century until the present, the great instrument of economic development but has been simultaneously the greatest reserve of the imagination”. [Michel Foucault: “Of Other Spaces” (1984)]
And maybe imagination and economics have combined to shipwreck us all. A supermarket system that allows those of us with sufficient means, access to food from around the world, whenever we like. A system that encourages waste both at home, and by those that sell it to us. A system that expends enormous amounts of energy and water in order to grow, package, process, transport and cook food that never gets eaten. In a food system increasingly driven by the logic of the market, there is an increasing belief that food has to be cheap, regardless of its intrinsic value.
“The system has broken the bond between the people who produce food and the people who eat it, leading to a decreased sense of mutual responsibility; the dwindling of a vital store of knowledge; and the impossibility for consumers to access information”. [Source: Slow Europe]
Footnote: With thanks to Chris Lawrence for the title “food for the soul, not wreckreation” … :-)