Jayson Lusk, the author of Food Police, gave a lecture at Titmus Theatre Wednesday evening to voice his concerns about food policies that would require people and businesses to buy “local food.”
Lusk is a Regents professor and Willard Sparks Endowed Chair at Oklahoma State University. He said he supports people buying food from their area, but expressed his concern that “the local food movement” imposes an elitist feeling in the food industry because so many people cannot afford higher priced area foods. He also questioned what he called the movement’s “return to nature” and “romantic foolishness” to do so.
Lusk started his talk by asking the audience, “What is the issue people have with the food industry that we need to fix?” He asked attendees to think about their food decisions and where their food comes from.
“I thought the talk was a nice counterpoint to a lot of the more popular opinions on this topic,” said Lesley Stewart, a junior in applied nutrition. “It was interesting to look at food from a more biotechnical position versus an emotional one.”
Lusk addressed the general public’s concerns about genetically modified organisms, pesticides, food prices, energy efficiency of shipping and growing food, and the impact of area regionally grown food’s on the economy.
“Eating only locally restricts the diversity of foods in your diet,” Lusk said. “I am not against buying local and I do think it is great, but I am urging caution in policies being proposed that require people to buy local food.”
Lusk disputed the point that buying regionally is better for the economy by explaining that new money is not being brought into communities. Farmers might gain more customers if they exported their products, but they would lose the market they had with people they sold to before. He said trade is a vital aspect to the growth of our economy.
“Many people have forgotten the achievements of our food system even though it is not perfect,” Lusk said. “Understanding the good in the system is important for thinking about the future.”
Meghan Lobsinger, director of the EcoVillage, encouraged students living in the village to attend because food is a hot topic for a living-and-learning community that is centered on sustainability—a large part of the community and organic food movement.
“With the University being a big research center for agriculture, there are professors and lecturers that feel very strongly in the opposite of the local and organic food movement,” Lobsinger said. “I think it is important for residents of the Eco Village and students in general to get both sides of the debate.”
Lusk said 40 percent less time is being used for cleanup in households currently and 81 percent less time on meal cleanup. He said food is less expensive in the U.S. than anywhere else in the world and he questioned why people think it should be more expensive when less than 10 percent of peoples’ disposable income is spent on food today.
Lusk displayed statistics from the Centers for Disease Control to prove that technology is making food safer. The data showed that from 1996-2012, cases of foodborne illnesses have decreased. This included a 42 percent decrease in listeria cases, 30 percent of E coli cases, 22 percent of campylobacte cases, and 4 percent of salmonella cases.
Lusk disputed books such as The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan and Food Fight by Kelly D. Brownell. He asked that people turn to scientific works by organizations such as the National Academy of Sciences, The World Health Organization and American Medical Association to make an informed opinion about their worries on pesticides, GMOs and growth hormone use.
“Plants naturally produce their own pesticides,” Lusk said. “99.99 percent of pesticides we consume are produced naturally from a plant.”
He then showed statistics that claimed there were more natural pesticides that caused relative cancer risks than chemical pesticides.
According to Lusk, if people look at scientific works, they would see that not a single case can be scientifically proven of GMOs causing a physical problem. He said he does not like how critics such as Pollan and Brownell have promoted a fear of GMOs.
“The food and agriculture economists at N.C. State are some of the best in the United States and it is nice to be able to come to a place where I really respect the faculty,” Lusk said.
Lusk said he hopes that people don’t forget all the good things about food, agriculture and the importance of technology. Also, that everything people read in the food press is not the only way of thinking about food.
