Alternative Food Chains in NYC, Essay Example

Part One: Internet Research

Park Slope Food Coop http://www.foodcoop.com/

Located in Brooklyn, the Park Slope Food Coop uses the coop format to provide the community with quality, fresh food products. The coop stocks food that has not been produced industrially. They are also economically aware, offering reduced prices and foreign products that meet fair trade standards.

Green Guerillas www.greenguerillas.org

The Green Guerillas are a community action group that promotes the cultivation of gardens in the New York City area. The establishment of gardens allows residents the opportunity to grow their own food, while also intervening in the city’s urban planning through an emphasis on green planning. Their actions range from the direct cultivation of gardens to environmental advocacy.

Greenmarket Farmers Market http://www.grownyc.org/greenmarket

The organization has many traditional farmers markets located all over the city. Using this traditional concept, they aim to support farmers and local agriculture, while providing the city with a healthy food alternative. All products are locally grown on biodiverse farms, as one of the key points of the group’s programme is to combat the lack of biodiversity that is a product of industrialized agriculture.

Murray’s Cheese http://www.murrayscheese.com/

As an artisan cheese shop, the cheeses at Murray’s are all hand-made, incorporating traditional methods. This allows for a more unique taste in its products.

Despite the traditional methods, there is a plethora of choices available for the consumer.

Back to the Land http://www.greenpeople.org/listing/Back-to-the-Land-26186.cfm

“Back to the Land” is a Brooklyn natural food store. They offer a wide selection of locally produced food, as well as some body products. Health information is also available to the consumer.

Flatbush Food Coop http://flatbushfoodcoop.com

The coop offers numerous organic products. Alongside deli and freshly prepared foods, they also provide the opportunity to purchase in bulk, demonstrating that bulk purchases are not only available in groceries that rely on industrial agriculture. The diversity of the products they offer intends to reflect the diversity of the Brooklyn community.

Leaf of Life Vitamin Shoppe http://www.leafoflifevitamins.com

This vitamin shop in Brooklyn offers a healthy supplement to the industrialized sector with the availability of a wide variety of vitamins. The diversity in selection reflects the world’s traditional approaches to herbal and traditional remedies. A juice bar is also located in the store, providing a healthy snack alternative.

Foodswings www.foodswings.net

Foodswings is a Brooklyn based vegan fast food restaurant. They offer the convenience of fast food, proving that fast food and industrialized food do not have to go together. They have an open restaurant space and also offer delivery. The menu clearly specifies what ingredients are used in every meal.

West Side Community Garden http://www.westsidecommunitygarden.org/

This community garden offers flower and vegetable beds to prospective members, allowing members to grow their own food. A greenhouse is also a part of the garden. They also organize numerous community events, such as Arts and Crafts and tulip festivals.

Eat Raw http://www.eatraw.com/

As the name suggests, Brooklyn’s Eat Raw emphasizes raw foods as an alternative to industrially produce. The store has a comprehensive world-view, stressing the “detoxification” of life, through the elimination of unnecessary chemicals from the diet.

Part Two: Visit to Alternative Food Options In New York City

The wide variety of contemporary alternative food options was clearly demonstrated in my visit to three different locations in New York. Foodswings, the Park Slope Food Coop and Murray’s Cheese all represent three aspects of alternative food: non-industrial fast food, the greater community experience of the food coop and artisan produced foods.

Foodswings presents vegan food in a fast-food setting. The staff is very friendly, giving me recommendations as to what to eat, since it was the first time I visited their location. What was immediately striking was the freshness of the food – all products used are from local gardens and food coops. Foodswings demonstrate how the fast food concept can also be conducive to organic and locally produced food.

Murray’s Cheese is a well-known New York establishment, which produces artisan cheese. The selection of products is immense, with very subtle differences between cheeses indicative of the care put into the work. The website features a cheese glossary, which is useful for the non-expert to familiarize themselves with the unique products. Murray’s contrasts the industrialization of food with its general artisan approach.

The Park Slope Food Coop provides a community atmosphere with which to shop for food. The selection reflects their commitment to a generally environmentally friendly world-view. Simultaneously, the fact that they also sell foreign products at fair trade prices evinces a general ethical commitment to human rights and anti-exploitation. One of the apparent drawbacks is that only members are allowed to shop there, however, the reason for this is to make the coop a community based ventured, as opposed to just another business intended for profit.

Part Three

Insofar as modern-day society is generally associated with a greater industrialization of life, this industrialization is also reflected in the phenomenon of food practices. This does not only refer to how food is produced; moreover, such production demonstrates itself in food habits, since industrially produced products and fast food restaurants that rely on these very products dominate the American landscape. In contrast to this hegemony, New York City offers a vast number of alternatives to the general spirit of industrialization. Such alternatives take various forms: from affordable fast food restaurants that offer health or vegan food in their menu to food coops, which signify a general community effort to re-define contemporary society’s relationship to food. In the following essay, we shall examine such alternative food options in the New York City area, in order to understand the logic of this phenomenon. Primarily, we will attempt to grasp the differences between alternative and mainstream food chains with the intent of illustrating the broader ethical and existential commitment that lies at the heart of the alternative food movement.

In Peter Singer and Jim Morris’ The Ethics of What We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter, the authors provide an account of the production and consumption of food from an ethical perspective. Ethics has a specific sense in Singer and Morris’ text, as the authors note that increasingly “people are regarding their food choices as a form of political action.” (Singer and Morris, 5) The relation of ethics to food thus suggests that food practices are constitutive of a general world-view, one that is as relevant as any other political phenomena. In this regard, the alternative food chains in New York City can also be understood as an ethical and political intervention. What such ventures demonstrate is the possibility to re-determine the existential choices that people are faced with in relation to food. Essentially, such actions can be viewed as a direct reversal of the main thesis of Michael Pollan’s book The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Pollan believes that modern relationships to food are constituted by a general ambiguity that arises from the variety of different choices available on the market. Accordingly, the central problematic of current food practice is the disorientation produced by the overwhelming number of product choices on the market. The presence of such alternative food chains in New York demonstrates an entirely different dilemma: that the dominant capitalist economy has not provided the consumer with the food choices he or she wishes. Thus, concentrated efforts such as coops and health food stores have emerged in the city (and all over the Western world, according to the latter’s emphasis on industrialized food) as a direct engagement with this dominant form of production and consumption. The logic for participating in such alternative food movements, as Singer and Morris suggest, can therefore be understood as the manifestation of the desire to intervene in the existential and ethical choices that determine individual and community life.

The unique distinction of alternative food can be grasped in terms of its antagonism to industrialized food. Alternative food essentially is the anti-thesis of industrialized food, both in terms of the production of the food itself and its distribution. Singer and Morris emphasize that the alternative food movement embodies concerns related to “products that are fairly traded, free of genetically modified organisms” and animal products that “avoid the most restrictive form of confinement.” (Singer and Morris, p. 6-7) To the extent that the industrialization of food implies economic and social concerns, alternative food thereby differentiates itself by becoming exactly what industrialized food is not. The healthy quality of food is to be emphasized, as opposed to an industrial system that rapidly manufactures food products with an eye towards profit as opposed to health. The global nature of such a system is also confronted, insofar as alternative foods attempt to minimize economic inequality through locally produced products or products that meet fair-trade standards. Animal rights are also an important part of alternative foods, thus demonstrating a general ethical commitment to the rights of all living beings.

These basic premises constitutive of the alternative food movement are reflected in the alternative food chains in New York City.  What is immediately striking about this movement is the diversity of choices available. The phenomenon of community gardens, such as the West Side garden or community garden organizations such as Green Guerilla, demonstrates an attempt to re-claim the public space in terms of an ethics that stresses environmental concerns. Such ventures are consistent with a general green planning movement within urban planning, realizing the importance of green spaces to the urban landscape in order to ensure quality of life. Furthermore, community gardens allow residents to grow their own foods, despite living in an urban setting.

Local businesses such as Murray’s, Leaf of Life and Foodswings demonstrate how independent businesses may promote a world-view that emphasizes individual food choices as opposed to the industrialized approach that dominates business practice. The commitment to healthy and locally produced food evinces both an attempt to maintain traditional food choices while also implying a link between such tradition and health itself. Such businesses can be construed as a basic intervention into the economic modes of production of food, offering a clear alternative.

Perhaps the most radical type of intervention into such industrialization is the food coop concept. New York food coops such as Park Slope and Flat Bush represent a comprehensive attempt to re-configure the relation to food. The coop by definition is a community, cooperative effort, one that reflects the desire to re-construct the existential living conditions of a community on a greater level. The food coop emphasizes making quality food products available to entire communities, thus breaking away from traditional business practices defined by profit. The encouragement of local business promotes micro-level growth, irrespective of greater profit margins, whereas the commitment to fair trade evinces not only a communal concern, but also a greater societal concern with the greater living space. The food coop thus introduces a new perspective into the community living space.

Such alternative food choices in the New York area demonstrate the nascent possibilities of food ethics within a thoroughly capitalist society. Insofar as these alternative food chains can be viewed as interventions, an entirely different series of code of values are advanced, with the implicit aim to introduce a new normativity into society. This new normativity is essentially related to both the production and consumption of food, changing production and consumption according to the imperatives of both an emphasis on health and economic equality. Production is changed from a health perspective to the extent that healthy products are deemed the goal of production; production is changed economically as the intent is for local businesses to flourish. Consumption changes economically, as fair prices are offered to the consumer; from the health perspective, the accent on healthy products marks a profound shift from industrialized food practice. Accordingly, the presence of these alternative food chains denotes the possibility of other realities of food practice for society, realities that can be realized through active participation.

Bibliography

Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. New York: Penguin, 2006.

Singer, Peter and Jim Mason. The Ethics of What We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter. New York: Rodale, 2007.