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Local notes
Eating, and drinking has been inextricably tied to the bounty of the landscape around us since time immemorial. We hunted and gathered from streams and forests then we ploughed fields and pastured animals. Our prowess at agriculture and husbandry, our mastery of fire and fermentation would change yields, palatability and storage life but not the essential ecological relationship that bound us with the natural world.
That did not breach until industrialisation and its global expansion facilitated changes that would redefine how we eat. Factory farming would make what was once scarce - the dense nutrition of meat and dairy, more easily available and we no longer needed to wait for the dictate of seasons or suffer the limits of geography to enjoy eating whatever, whenever and cheaply. Global sourcing, economies of scale and the abuse of an invisible labour force allowed for a defining feature of modern food, cheap prices.
As the consequences of these changes became apparent, diminishing flavour, poor nutrition, failing health and the new cultural phenomena of eating fast food alone in a car or in front of a TV, it triggered a civil society response on both sides of the Atlantic that would evolve into a full fledged food movement, joining other great social movements of the 20th Century - labour, environment, civil rights, climate and feminist.
The Malaysian Context
Here in Malaysia triggered by concerns of toxicity and food safety grow your own food has gained momentum. Green markets are enjoying popularity as urban folk seek out organic produce from farmers utilising sustainable methods. But there are still more ideas from the bigger tent of the food movement that have yet to gain ground. There are also philosophic underpinnings to the movement that have yet to translate into our own cultural context.
For example, I often hear the term food security used to describe imminent threat to our food system but it is not an accurate take on our local situation. Yes we are seeing the beginnings of the problem as neighbourhoods get colonized by fast food chains and hypermarkets displace our sundry stores, food stalls and traditional wet markets. But we have yet to see the desiccation of neighbourhoods into food deserts where no fresh food is available at all or the complete disappearance of local agricultural systems.
Our real issue here is food sovereignty which relates to the cultural aspect of heritage food systems. It is actually what precedes a food security problem when local culture and neighbourhoods become overwhelmed with globalized ideas about food and lose ground to the economic power of the corporations that colonize these urban landscapes.
We’ve traded a heritage of complex recipes full of locally sourced ingredients many exhibiting reparative and even medicinal properties to one of limited non native ingredients that actually cause harm. The nutritional wisdom embedded in heritage foods like noodles in collagen rich bone broths and the complex plant based offerings on a banana leaf are in stiff competition with burgers, chicken slime nuggets and super foods with incredulous nutritional powers. It doesn’t help also that we are awash with conflicting information about food as new studies declare new villains and heroes every week.
Its an abstract idea to grasp but the food we choose to eat can be acts of land conservation. What was once pictured as our native landscape of coconut trees, pineapple farms and kelongs is fast disappearing from view. The coconut milk we buy comes from coconuts grown in Batam the barren sand filled Straits devoid of kelongs and the few remaining pineapple farms far from view of our new highways. I hear from friends who once owned fruit orchards that they have converted them to palm oil because of higher returns and lower management costs which demonstrates the simple economics of what is happening here - as we change our tastes and values away from our heritage and geography, we also change the views of landscape that we once enjoyed.
As we shift our taste for produce that can only grow in the cooler climes of Cameron Highlands and want it cheap as well, we adversely affect the local communities there who suffer flooding as a direct result of deforestation. Hidden in those farms are also illegal immigrant farm workers deprived of lawful protection of their rights and proper protection from chemical exposure. If cheap food is blind to the inhumane treatment of humans, animals are even further back in line. Ideas of social justice, that what we eat should not impact marginalized communities and other living beings has sadly not found sufficient articulation here yet.
That did not breach until industrialisation and its global expansion facilitated changes that would redefine how we eat. Factory farming would make what was once scarce - the dense nutrition of meat and dairy, more easily available and we no longer needed to wait for the dictate of seasons or suffer the limits of geography to enjoy eating whatever, whenever and cheaply. Global sourcing, economies of scale and the abuse of an invisible labour force allowed for a defining feature of modern food, cheap prices.
As the consequences of these changes became apparent, diminishing flavour, poor nutrition, failing health and the new cultural phenomena of eating fast food alone in a car or in front of a TV, it triggered a civil society response on both sides of the Atlantic that would evolve into a full fledged food movement, joining other great social movements of the 20th Century - labour, environment, civil rights, climate and feminist.
The Malaysian Context
Here in Malaysia triggered by concerns of toxicity and food safety grow your own food has gained momentum. Green markets are enjoying popularity as urban folk seek out organic produce from farmers utilising sustainable methods. But there are still more ideas from the bigger tent of the food movement that have yet to gain ground. There are also philosophic underpinnings to the movement that have yet to translate into our own cultural context.
For example, I often hear the term food security used to describe imminent threat to our food system but it is not an accurate take on our local situation. Yes we are seeing the beginnings of the problem as neighbourhoods get colonized by fast food chains and hypermarkets displace our sundry stores, food stalls and traditional wet markets. But we have yet to see the desiccation of neighbourhoods into food deserts where no fresh food is available at all or the complete disappearance of local agricultural systems.
Our real issue here is food sovereignty which relates to the cultural aspect of heritage food systems. It is actually what precedes a food security problem when local culture and neighbourhoods become overwhelmed with globalized ideas about food and lose ground to the economic power of the corporations that colonize these urban landscapes.
We’ve traded a heritage of complex recipes full of locally sourced ingredients many exhibiting reparative and even medicinal properties to one of limited non native ingredients that actually cause harm. The nutritional wisdom embedded in heritage foods like noodles in collagen rich bone broths and the complex plant based offerings on a banana leaf are in stiff competition with burgers, chicken slime nuggets and super foods with incredulous nutritional powers. It doesn’t help also that we are awash with conflicting information about food as new studies declare new villains and heroes every week.
Its an abstract idea to grasp but the food we choose to eat can be acts of land conservation. What was once pictured as our native landscape of coconut trees, pineapple farms and kelongs is fast disappearing from view. The coconut milk we buy comes from coconuts grown in Batam the barren sand filled Straits devoid of kelongs and the few remaining pineapple farms far from view of our new highways. I hear from friends who once owned fruit orchards that they have converted them to palm oil because of higher returns and lower management costs which demonstrates the simple economics of what is happening here - as we change our tastes and values away from our heritage and geography, we also change the views of landscape that we once enjoyed.
As we shift our taste for produce that can only grow in the cooler climes of Cameron Highlands and want it cheap as well, we adversely affect the local communities there who suffer flooding as a direct result of deforestation. Hidden in those farms are also illegal immigrant farm workers deprived of lawful protection of their rights and proper protection from chemical exposure. If cheap food is blind to the inhumane treatment of humans, animals are even further back in line. Ideas of social justice, that what we eat should not impact marginalized communities and other living beings has sadly not found sufficient articulation here yet.