Letters: Working Toward a Better Food World

Re "Fixing Our Food Problem" (column, Jan. 2):

Mark Bittman does well in outlining the challenges of reforming our global food system. He's right: changing how we produce and consume food requires a long-term view, and success will come in stages.

Critical to the discussion is a global strategy to engage the private sector to reduce the environmental effects of food production. The challenge is clear: rising global population, coupled with larger incomes, means that demand for food is rapidly growing.

On a finite planet with increasingly scarce resources and land on which to farm, we must pursue strategies to produce more with less. By creating business-to-business demand for sustainably produced food, we can help producers raise production in a responsible way.

JASON CLAY
Senior V.P., Market Transformation
World Wildlife Fund
Washington, Jan. 2, 2013

To the Editor:

Kudos to Mark Bittman for his holistic focus on our broken food system and for his use of the word "torture" to describe what happens to billions of farm animals every year.

Americans consume roughly nine billion land animals a year, and almost all of them are treated in ways that would warrant felony cruelty charges if they were dogs, cats or other animals who have legal protection from abuse.

Yet there is no difference between abusing and eating a chicken or a pig and doing the same to a kitten, puppy or other protected animal.

In fact, chickens and pigs outperform dogs and cats on tests of cognitive and behavioral sophistication, and of course they feel pain, in the same way and to the same degree as dogs, cats and humans. Readers who care about cruelty to animals should adopt a vegetarian diet.

BRUCE G. FRIEDRICH
Washington, Jan. 2, 2013

The writer is senior director for strategy at Farm Sanctuary, a national farm animal protection group.

To the Editor:

As one who is committed to improving both health and the environment, I applaud Mark Bittman's call to action to create a more sustainable and humane food system. I am also well aware of the slow pace of improvement, and I am searching for ways in which one person can make a difference now.

Last summer, I decided to buy as much food as possible (including eggs and milk) from local farms, to grow as much as we can at home, and to join the "wild food" movement.

Although I joke that my tombstone will read, "It must be something she ate," gathering native edible plants has provided joy, exercise and lower grocery bills, not to mention exciting food adventures.

In the face of a system that is so huge and so broken, I am searching for ways an individual can create change, a sort of "all of the above" strategy.

Last summer, my husband and I went to our local organic farm and asked if we could pick their weeds. They were delighted.

JANET BUCHWALD
Sudbury, Mass., Jan. 2, 2013

To the Editor:

Mark Bittman compares America's "food problem" to gun violence, slavery, denial of the vote to women, homophobia and smoking tobacco.

This unbalanced framing will baffle reasonable readers and make it harder for Mr. Bittman's food movement to achieve its worthy objectives on farm animal welfare and sugar-sweetened beverages.

ROBERT PAARLBERG
Wellesley, Mass., Jan. 2, 2013

The writer, a professor of political science at Wellesley College, is the author of "Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know."

To the Editor:

I appreciate that Mark Bittman brought attention to our broken industrialized food system and especially to the "tortured billions of animals" churning through that heartless machine. But I am puzzled by his call for patience in our fight to bring ethics and compassion back to the growing and processing of our most essential product.

There are two major differences between the movement for food sanity and early social justice movements. First, no movement in the past has had to face the earth itself on a ticking clock. Second, we each make the choice three times a day whether to be part of this problem or part of the solution.

We can choose to support sustainable farming methods today. We can stop eating animals today.

KEN SWENSEN
Pound Ridge, N.Y., Jan. 2, 2013

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