Page 10 - The Celestia Project

Chapter 1: Food Security

When we envision how we will live over the next 100 years,
we are faced almost immediately with issues of food security.
How do we design a building, a city, a house or a kitchen—
or even a cooking method—without factoring in where
and how people will acquire and prepare their food?
A CCORDING TO MOST STATISTICS, hunger should
no longer exist on Earth. Technological advances in supermarkets glutted with thousands of boutique items from far-
farming mean that the total amount of food production ung corners of the world—it’s also in the poor quality of our

heavily subsidized foods. Plants farmed conventionally depend

worldwide now outpaces population growth. Yet on large doses of fertilizers, fungicides and herbicides, and are

almost a billion people go hungry each year. The reasons why, typically shipped hundreds of miles. By the time they hit the

according to Harper’s Magazine, are not what you might expect: dinner table, they may contain only a fraction of the nutritional

Food has become a speculative commodity—especially wheat— value of locally farmed or heritage plants (see chart, left).

Nutritional Comparison of Cornmeal Quantity vs. Quality
(Amounts per 100 g (about 2/3 cup)
As we try to predict the future of food
security, these issues make it clear that our

current food system is unsustainable. It

may be cheap and fast, but it’s also out of

control.

Although U.S. citizens, on average, spend

only 10 to 12 percent of their income on

11.6 g food (compared with 40 or 50 percent in
7.3 g
11.4 g places such as the Middle East), the hidden
4.0g
2.2 mg
1.0 mg
0.17 mg
0.05
0.27 mg
0.14 mg
0.67 mg
0.16
0.12 mg
0.08 mg
2.6 mg
1.1 mg
337 mg
105 mg
2.8 mg
0.7 mg

Protein Fiber Niacin Riboflavin Thiamin Vitamin E Copper Iron Phosphorus Zinc costs are much higher. We’re sick more

Heirloom Floriani Conventional cornmeal often, and exposed to more pollution in
Red Flint cornmeal (from USDA values for degermed cornmeal) our fresh water and in our food. We waste

Empty Calories. Industrial farms tend to deliver vast quantities of low quality crops. precious water on ine cient irrigation,
and our health care costs are among the

that is bought and sold for pro t, even when it doesn’t actually highest per capita in the world. The O ce of Medicare & Medicaid

exist. Real food is held back until prices rise, and people starve. Services predicts that healthcare costs in the U.S. will double by

The U.S., on the other hand, has a di erent problem: obesity. 2022. Yet we don’t tend to live any longer than people in places

While other parts of the world starve, 35 percent of our population who spend much less.

is overweight. The problem isn’t just an excess of supply— It’s simply costing too much in resources and environmental

The End of Factory Farming

Like cracks in a dam, the negative aspects of factory farming could bring the whole poorly built structure tumbling down.

“There are more kilograms of antibiotics sold in “Consumers [want] to know where their food
the United States for food-producing animals comes from. The symptoms are evident in
than for people. This use contributes to the increasing consumer interest in food that is
emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in organic, natural, sustainably produced, locally
food-producing animals. Resistant bacteria can produced. […] Since factory farming is positioned as
contaminate the foods that come from those antithetical to the things that reassure consumers
animals, and people who consume these foods about their food, this also provides insight into the
can develop antibiotic-resistant infections.” e ectiveness of the activists’ campaign.”
—Centers for Disease Control —National Cattlemen’s Beef Association Survey