Page 6
May 18, 2016
O PINION
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Good Food Movement Needs Science, Too
We can move
forward
sustainably
J ill r iChardson
Perhaps
you’ve
heard some organic
food advocates say,
“We should just roll
back the clock and farm
the way we used to” —
before modern science
gave us factory farms
and genetically modiied ingredi-
ents.
Others disagree, saying that
we’d all starve if we didn’t use
science and technology in farm-
ing.
It’s a big debate. But maybe the
turning of a clock isn’t the right
metaphor.
Instead, I thought recently of an
old Chinese saying: “Draw snake,
add legs.” It refers to when some-
by
one gets so carried away in doing
something that they carry it too
far, ruining it by adding extra, use-
less things.
A study of how our food sys-
tem developed over the last cen-
tury appears to be a clear
case of drawing a snake
and adding legs.
My master’s thesis
is on chickens. I’ve dug
into historical docu-
ments going back to the
late 1800s to learn how
Americans raised chick-
ens over time. It’s not a pretty pic-
ture.
At the start of the 20th cen-
tury, breeders bred chickens for
aesthetic qualities that would win
chicken shows. They took no no-
tice of whether their chickens
were any good at laying eggs or
valuable for meat.
That might be nice if awards
from chicken shows put food on
the table, but I think eggs and meat
taste better than blue ribbons.
It wasn’t a great deal for the
chickens, either.
A 1918 study found some
American city dwellers keeping
up to 200 chickens in their back-
yards as for-proit ventures. The
researchers reported that each per-
son interviewed claimed to take
good care of their chickens. Yet
examinations found the birds cov-
ered in lice.
In one instance, a woman had
60 more chickens in her yard
than could it in her coop. In an-
other case, some of the chickens
died and the owner left them to
rot in the yard. A few times, the
researcher noted the smell was so
bad he could barely tolerate stay-
ing long enough to conduct the
interview.
As late as the 1950s, scientists
still didn’t know everything there
was to know about chicken nutri-
tion. Chickens survived because
they foraged outside to meet their
nutritional needs. Diseases that
are now rare were common. Early
incubators served to spread germs,
so that one infected chick spread
disease to all of the others as they
hatched.
Have science and technology
improved these conditions? Abso-
lutely.
Did we take it too far? Did we
draw legs on a snake? I would say
so.
Once scientists igured out how
to cope with disease and provide
for all of a chicken’s nutrition-
al needs in a manufactured feed,
they found they could keep them
in coninement. The cooped-up
birds went from having four to
ive square feet each in the early
20th century to just half a square
foot apiece by 1966.
Stressed by coninement, chick-
ens began pecking one another —
sometimes to death. A solution,
devised in 1942, was de-beaking.
Breeders found that if they re-
moved the tip of each bird’s beak,
this kind of stress-induced peck-
ing became less lethal.
The answer to science that
leads to animal cruelty and envi-
ronmental degradation, however,
isn’t less science. It’s better sci-
ence. There’s no need to turn back
the clock on progress, or to erase
the snake and start over.
Today’s science tells us that
eggs are more healthful when hens
are allowed to forage on bugs and
grass. And odds are, if you want
to keep backyard chickens, you’ll
be grateful for a century of work
eradicating parasites and disease.
So will your neighbors.
If we use our judgment, we can
ind a way to move forward sus-
tainably, healthfully, humanely —
and scientiically.
OtherWords columnist Jill
Richardson is the author of Recipe
for America: Why Our Food Sys-
tem Is Broken and What We Can
Do to Fix It. OtherWords.org.
Changing the Conversation when it comes to Gender
Fighting the
Trump insult
method of
debate
l aura f inley
The “woman card.”
It’s so much non-
sense. Donald Trump
is merely the latest to
accuse a woman of
playing identity pol-
itics because she, well, actually
discussed the fact that the U.S.
still has much to improve in terms
of gender equality.
Trump alleges that Clinton is
discussing women’s issues so she
by
can win the votes of women. The
nerve of her, trying to win the sup-
port of more than 50 percent of
the population! It’s like she’s run-
ning for the highest ofice in the
country or something. Clinton’s
response was terriic: “If ighting
for women’s health care
and paid family leave and
equal pay is playing the
woman card, then deal
me in.”
Other responses to
Trump’s comments both-
ered me, though. Elizabeth
Warren said that Trump “wears the
sexism out front for everyone to
see,” which is undeniably true. More
than just one man’s sexism, though,
the whole affair is a stark remind-
er that we really need to change the
he Law Oices of
Patrick John Sweeney, P.C.
Patrick John Sweeney
Attorney at Law
1549 SE Ladd, Portland, Oregon
Portland:
Hillsoboro:
Facsimile:
Email:
(503) 244-2080
(503) 244-2081
(503) 244-2084
Sweeney@PDXLawyer.com
conversation when it comes to gen-
der. And, doing so has to go beyond
attacking people for the same things
women abhor—emphasizing our
looks more than our words.
For instance, Warren made fun
of Trump’s hair in her response to
his comments. There’s no need to
play that same game; his remarks
would be no more palatable were
he to shave his head or sport a
cause of the antiquated notion that
men can’t be feminists.
Likewise, advocacy for gender
equality should not be marginal-
ized because the proponent hap-
pens to be attractive or even sexy,
as is often the case when female
celebrities like Beyonce speak
out. Similarly, when we disagree
with a sexist remark, like those
made by Trump, we have to resist
shifting who is the oppressor or
the oppressed does not challenge
structural inequality.
Birth control and reproductive
freedom, for instance, are not
“women’s issues,” they are con-
cerns for anyone who wants to (or
does not want to) have children,
not about males or females. Paid
family leave is about families, re-
gardless of the gender of both par-
Birth control and reproductive freedom, for instance,
are not “women’s issues,” they are concerns for anyone
who wants to (or does not want to) have children, not
about males or females. Paid family leave is about
families, regardless of the gender of both parents.
Domestic violence is not a women’s issue, it’s a public
health concern that costs the country an estimated $8.3
billion annually.
mullet. Likewise, Clinton’s recog-
nition of the importance of equal
pay would mean no less were she
a supermodel.
Too often, advocates of gender
equality are marginalized because
of how they appear. It is way past
time that we worry about some-
one’s actions, not the package in
which they are wrapped. Femi-
nists come in so many varieties,
and their work shouldn’t be triv-
ialized because someone doesn’t
like their voice or pantsuit or be-
the urge to comment on his ap-
pearance, as it also shifts the focus
and entrenches us into the same
duel mentality.
It’s unbelievable that issues af-
fecting all of us are even still called
“women’s issues.” In this patriar-
chal society, labeling something a
woman’s issue reinforces the same
binary way of thinking about gen-
der that produces the problem in
the irst place. Like Gloria Steinem
argued decades ago in her classic
piece “If Men Could Menstruate,”
ents. Domestic violence is not a
women’s issue, it’s a public health
concern that costs the country an
estimated $8.3 billion annually.
These are issues of justice and of
human rights. But, it will be im-
possible to change the way we
view these problems until we stop
using the same tactics that the sex-
ists use.
Laura Finley, Ph.D., teaches in
the Barry University Department
of Sociology & Criminology and
is syndicated by PeaceVoice.