The only diet resolution I’m considering this New Year is the resolution to let food be one of the pleasures of life— the way it’s supposed to be. I heard this interview with author Michael Pollan on NPR the other day, and decided that though his new book sounds interesting– quite good, actually– I’m not in a place where I feel the need to read it. Instead, I went back and reread Wendell Berry’s essay “The Pleasures of Eating” in What Are People For? (1990) It’s short (a mere 8 pages). It’s to the point. And it’s ahead of its time— so much so that any other books on the subject seem to be echoes.
One thing I like about the essay is that while it confronts the industrialization of eating, it doesn’t offer a diet plan. It isn’t an essay about what to eat. It’s a brief and scathing critique of the food industry, in which Berry points out the connections between eating and stewardship– of our bodies, our souls, and our relationships to the rest of the living world.
I can’t reread the essay without remembering that I was, for many years, bulimic, and this essay was one of the first I read (back in the early ‘90’s) that truly acknowledged the complexity of eating. Eating disorders are not merely psychological, but deeply cultural. Berry begins with the proposition that eating is “an agricultural act. Eating ends the annual drama of the food economy that begins with planting and birth.” He then neatly and with characteristic wit sketches out our food politics, food ethics, and food aesthetics. He concludes with a few pointers to start us down the road to increased awareness of what we’re putting into our mouths (and our children’s mouths).
There are few critics that make such a compelling case for rethinking our cultural priorities. But though he’s a prophet of sorts, he’s not a prophet of doom. I had the privilege of interviewing Berry at his farm in 1997, and I was struck by his wonderful sense of humor, his wholehearted attempt to live out solutions to the problems he writes about, and his wildly joyous laugh. Call me shallow, but I think a person’s laughter says a lot about them. “The Pleasures of Eating” is less an essay against the food industry than an endorsement of pleasure— the pleasure of eating. Once lost, we get to grieve the loss several times a day. But once regained, we can find ourselves restored on many levels.
I think I’ll have to find this essay and read it. I’m avoiding books that I think will make me feel guilty for the way I eat and feed my family with no discernable way to change those eating habits. But Berry’s essay sounds like a joy rather than a guilt trip.
I know what you mean, Sherry. In this essay, though, Berry inspires me; he doesn’t make me feel like all is lost.