The politics of food!

Veggie Burger - Not the real McCoy!
Credit: bonappetit.com

We all know how hunger can change governments. History has shown us again and again that hungry people become angry. Think Bastille and 'give them cake', there went the French monarchy. Look at starving Russian peasants, and poof went the Romanov dynasty, the brutal killing of Rasputin (of the lover of Russian Queen fame) and the Bolshevik Revolution.

We also know that people can be controlled via food and eating practices. As early as antiquity, the Pythogarians, who believed that everything in the Universe has a mathematical calculation behind it to make them work like clockwork, had peculiar eating habits of avoiding certain foods. Their rationale is that that practice would ease their quest in discovering the 'Truth'.

Potatoes were never a staple diet in Europe before the 16th century. Having depended on cereals for food, famine was a common occurrence as harvests were unpredictable. Sir Walter Raleigh, yes of the chivalry fame, introduced a new plant from South America to Ireland in 1589 to solve this problem. Potatoes were hardy and grew fast. People were sceptical, however. Potatoes as food were never mentioned in the Bible, they said. It, being a tuber, was considered the domain of the dark world. Witches were known to use roots as their working paraphernalia. Then they said, potato consumption causes leprosy, as its external appearance reminds one of a leper. Can you imagine continental food without potatoes?

It is the same with tomatoes and Italian cooking. Even though the Columbian Exchange brought this exotic Aztec plant to Europe, it was viewed as poisonous by the Italians. Spanish conquest of Italy and the escalating spice cost drew them to experiment with tomatoes to infuse flavours into their cooking. Now it is unimaginable to think of Italian cuisines without these flavonoid-rich additions.

Like that, economic circumstances,  geographic locations and epidemic of the time determined what people ate.

Cricket fritters anyone?
Credit: vietnamnews.vn

The latest inclusion must be ecological considerations. We have been bombarded with vegetarian burgers which have the flavour, textures and taste of premium meat. There is also talk of supplementing our diet with insects as they carried 'wasted protein' which could be put to good use. The conventional method of the raising of livestock depletes the national resources, emits extensive green-houses gases and leaves a big carbon footprint.


Not to forget the allegations that the mega multinational companies with their GMOs out to destroy small farmers in the third world countries. These farmers resort to mass protests and even self-immolation to state their objections to their respective governments as their lands become barren with gross contamination with lethal chemicals. The MNCs use their effective means through the media to make a paradigm shift in people diet. Eating rice and rice-based foods is not cool anymore. Wheat seems to be the hype thing to eat. With that probably comes metabolic syndromes and food allergies, maybe.

It might not be surprising if we were caught in a situation like in Soylent Green or Snowpiercer to save our civilisation.

(N.B. Point to ponder - Perhaps what needs to be drilled is overconsumption. But then, consumption generates business which stimulates the economy. And money makes everybody happy.)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Welcome to the New World!

The Founder (2017)


Everyone has his passion for something. He has obvious ideas on how he wants to develop his baby to showcase to the world with so much pride and joy. He may be committed to his course and would sacrifice time, effort, sweat and sleep over it. But sadly passion alone is insufficient to take his brain-child to a higher level. Others may not share his madness and may fail to see all the excitement, and the endeavour would just fizzle out as swiftly as the revelation materialised.

It takes a kind of something to bring the idea to town. That is where the role of a ruthless loud mouth jack-of-all-trades makes an impact. The type who could promise the moon and the stars and could sell ice to the Inuits. Even though on the surface this kind of practice may be frowned upon, at the end of the day, these kind of ruthless people are the ones who rock the world. They make things happen. They move the world, not the Mr Nice Guys who worry about hurting another and living right to his words; keeping true to a gentleman's handshake and not bending the truth.

These mammoth movers, at the end of the day, after their giant feats for humanity are not only forgiven but are put on a pedestal and feted for the innovativeness and boldness for their unconventional wisdom.

This is the story of how the biggest franchise in the world came to be. Initially started by an unknown duo, the McDonald brothers, they were fighting an unwinnable battle to make patrons like their brand of fast food. Dogmatic on how they wanted their products to be sold, they fared poorly in repeated attempts at expanding their business.

In comes Ray Kroc, a down-and-out travelling salesman. He sees the potential in their business and single-handedly 'hoodwinks' them to include him as their partner. We see the seemingly ugly uncompassionate side of American capitalism which emphasises more on profit, appearances, statistics and megalomania rather than human values. This is the new world. Money is the new God. Compassion and being nice is so yesterday.