This piece titled “The Pleasures of Eating” was written by a very unique author named Wendell Berry. Berry was quite the craftsman by possessing skills in numerous fields, such as being an activist, a writer, and also a farmer. Berry writes a well put-together argumentative piece where he is really observing the roles of people living in the city has on the decline of American farming and overall rural life. Wendell Berry quickly dives into an intriguing line of questioning regarding if consumers really know what they are not only buying, but eating, as well.
Berry proposes eating as an agricultural act; it all starts with planting and there is a lengthy process of manufacturing, packaging, and transportation all for that cycle to end with us as consumers eating the products. Wendell believes that this whole process, a part of the agriculture culture, is made to be more profitable through the amount of marketing and advertising that goes into trying to influence the minds of audiences to eat certain foods.
My initial reaction while reading this was one of confusion and had me questioning how people eating responsibly would have a positive impact on the decline of American farming and rural life, but the more I kept reading, my mood shifted towards just being shocked. It really caught me by surprise hearing Berry explain the process from when planting starts to it being sold, bought, and eaten. Hearing that the prices of my food that I shop for can vary based on the manufacturing and distance of transportation just makes me want to grow my food myself, especially based on the influence corporate farming tries to have on you through marketing. “There is, then, a politics of food that, like any politics, involves our freedom. We still (sometimes) remember that we cannot be free if our minds and voices are controlled by someone else” (Berry 23). This quote really stuck out because of the heavy agenda being pushed of wanting consumers to buy processed foods, which leads me to my second quote: “The consumer, that is to say, must be kept from discovering that, in the food industry —- as in any other industry — the overriding concerns are not quality and health, but volume and price” (Berry 24). Berry’s idea was very eye opening for me because I truly realized that businesses are not worried about our health, they are only focused on what will make them the best products. Wendell Berry jokingly told us the only reason they haven’t figured to forcefully feed consumers their products is because they have not found a profitable way to do so, and this spoke volumes to me because of the sad reality of agriculture culture being a profit driven industry.