In pretty much every aspect of our lives, we assume that high quality will come with a high price. You get what you pay for, right?
So, why do we think the opposite when it comes to what we eat? Why should we value cheap food? In this Speakeasy from Wanderlust Squaw Valley 2013, Joel Salatin, a Virginian “alternative” farmer tells us, “There is a cultural assumption that good food should be cheap, which disrespects the landscape food stewards who make the food.”
The always-entertaining farmer delighted us with his banter and challenged us to think about the following:
- how America has an official orthodoxy that assumes that cheap food is a good thing,
- why we’d be better off calling the “Farm Bill” the “Food Bill”,
- how per capita expenditures devoted to food and health care have flipped in 35 years and the per capita levels of health care are now twice as high as costs related to food,
- how the “unholy” food alliance (industrial food complex and the USDA and the government entities) has created an orthodoxy to make people feel as though disease is more related to lack of drug treatment than actual health,
- he also reveals the single biggest way to bring down your food cost.