Understanding the Food Democracy Movement

Abstract

It is a paradox of the modern world that while humans have unprecedented access to food—a fact to which our waistlines will testify—much of society simmers with discontents. Jimmy Kimmel recently quipped that some are more scared of gluten than disease. An organic food advocate has likened our use of pesticides to Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons (Rodale, 2013), and France feels the declining carbon content of soils are threatening our climate (Climate Action, 2015). There is something of a Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs in terms of food. Now that obtaining calories is possible for most we are holding food to higher standards. It should not only meet our physical needs, but also our nobler goals of environmental protection, sustainability, kindness to animals, and social justice. There is no one term encompassing these higher goals, but the term that comes closest is ‘Food Democracy’. To understand food in the modern world we must understand Food Democracy. The movement may seem to lack a unifying theme, but that is mistaken. At the core of its criticisms is a resentment of the role that large corporations play in food.