The Blanket Over Food Networks

By Stephanie Reid

In a world where the obese outnumber the 800 million that are hungry in the world (Patel, 2007), we are facing a new world. Those that eat too much are quickly growing in number, even though the numbers of those that do not eat enough are not depleting. The food of the world is going to those that already have enough, but it is not being shared with those that do not have any.

The food networks have a very long, dark history with slave trading (Kuttainen, 2015). This narrative behind the food that we eat is never spoken of, even though most adults definitely know of the history of slave trading. While these people were enslaved in the food industry, they were fed little to nothing and received almost nothing for their work. Food and trade companies feed us the narrative that they want us to see, and therefore we would be buying their products. 

They communicate through the means of their networks, so that way we don't have to see a thing (as their consumers). Clothing companies do the same thing. 

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Often, we see this occurring through Facebook, where, as phrased by Patel (2007) that ‘guided by profit motive, the corporations that sell our food shape and constrain how we eat, and how we think about food’. However, instead of hiding the slave trade narrative, Facebook shows us advertisements that we ‘want’ to see in order for them to gain a profit as free social networking platform.  

Facebook, as guided by profit motive, sells us a story that we ‘want’ to see in order to keep the profits rolling in; as do food companies, by putting a blanket over the slave trading that we pretend not to see.

References: 

Kuttainen, V. (2015). BA1002: Our Space: Networks, Narratives, and the Making of Place, Week 8: Networked Narratives: Food. Retrieved from http://learnjcu.jcu.edu.au/

Patel, R. (2007). Stuffed & starved. Black Inc.

Eyewitnesstohistory.com,. (2007). Slave Trade: the African Connection, ca 1788. Retrieved 17 September 2015, from http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/slavetrade.htm

Panerai, A. (2014). Obesity Vs. Malnutrition: a thorny paradox. Echeion. Retrieved 17 September 2015, from http://www.echeion.it/hot-news/obesity-vs-malnutrition-a-thorny-paradox/