In a Pickle

As part of my masters degree program in the anthropology of food, I have to read mountains upon mountains of texts on a diverse array of food related topics. Right now we are covering food safety, so I have spent the week familiarizing myself with friendly creatures such as Salmonella enteritidis, Escherichia Coli O157:H7, Vibrio Cholorae O1, Clostridium botulinum and other equally delightful bacterial pathogens that occasionally waltz into our lives with uncomfortable, rather disgusting, and sometimes exceedingly dangerous results.

From the texts I read, there is a consensus among the authors that food is getting more dangerous by the day. The numbers reveal rising rates of food borne illness, more virulent forms of pathogens, and the reemergence of diseases once thought to have been destroyed. Despite the (often frustratingly bureaucratic) efforts of government agencies it is proving very difficult to stem the tide.

The challenges to the safety of our food are many and varied, including internal divisions and conflicts of interest within regulatory agencies, as well as resistance from producers and processors. When an outbreak of food borne illness occurs, everyone points fingers: producers blame the government, regulatory agencies blame each other, retailers blame consumers and so forth.

It may seem an easier option for government, producers and processors to educate consumers, improve controls in slaughter, transport, and storage—and these are no doubt vital measures—but I don’t see how we can truly improve food safety without a serious reevaluation of the food system as a whole. This line of analysis brings us back to a familiar issue: the changing, increasingly intensive, economically pressured farming and its inability to supply us with sustainable (in this case sustainably safe) food. The story of antibiotics in farming is a familiar example: economic pressure leads to intensive cattle rearing in conditions and with feed inappropriate for cattle. This in turn leads to cattle sickness, the routine use of antibiotics, which result in greater resistance to antibiotic treatment in the consumer. Antibiotics are a fundamental weapon against many diseases; if we become resistant to their effects . . . the story is worthy of an end-of-world action special!

Yet these readings also prompt me to think about the connection between safe food and cultural food practices. In the Nicols Fox’s book Spoiled: The Dangerous Truth About a Food Chain Gone Haywire, I was struck by Fox’s account of Dr. Robert Tauxe’s work on cholera in Subsaharan Africa. Studying an outbreak of the disease during a famine, he made the startling connection between the emergence of cholera in the population and a famine-induced change in methods of preparing their staple millet dish. In pre-famine days the group had added goat yoghurt to the millet, a practice they were unable to continue once the famine hit and the goats went dry.  Analyzing the yoghurt, Dr. Tauxe found that this fermented, cultured food added to the millet served to inhibit the growth of the bacterium V. cholerae. As Fox concludes, “a seemingly simple and inconsequential change, the omission of one ingredient, had led to the horrifying epidemic of disease.” Perhaps it is not only the way we grow crops, feed and slaughter animals, and transport food all over the world that contribute to food borne illnesses. Perhaps some of the pre-industrial and non-western practices of food preparation hold keys to safe, healthy food. 

I know this theory has been explored and argued by several researchers including Dr. Weston Price in the middle of the 20th century on Nutrition and Degeneration. Today, Dr. Sally Fallon has deepened and expanded Price’s theory and developed what she refers to as a challenge to “politically correct nutrition and the diet dictocrats.” One of the main components of her understanding of “nourishing traditional foods” centers around something called lacto-fermentation. In fact, in recent years, many other nutritionists, doctors, and researchers have begun looking at traditional fermented foods that have been lost to our daily diet, but that contain vital elements that keep us healthy, promote vigorous immune systems, foster good bacteria and resist nasty pathogenic bacteria.

And so, inspired by the invigorating powers of fermented foods, I’m going to take them one as my new Grub & Grist project. Bring on the sauerkraut, kimchi, and miso, the kefir, skyr and mead. But first, something a little more approachable . . . This weekend, in order to avoid getting into a pickle about the ominous state of our food system, lets lighten things up and, well, get into some pickles!