We are what we eat by Edoardo Pilati
“We are what we eat”.
Therefore… what are we?
The philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach with this sentence wanted to state the idea that a human being is as much brain as body, and therefore, that food plays an incredible role toward the progress of a nation.
Do we know what we eat?
We check calories, ingredients, allergens, expiring dates, preservatives, food dyes, and so on, but most of the time, the real identity of the products we buy in supermarkets is invisible to our eyes. We distrust and question novelties but, on the other hand, we accept and put an eternal faith into common elements that are universally seen as self-evident.
Normal elements such as Bananas for example.
We rush through the aisles in the supermarket, de-sensitised to this standardised and ubiquitous space. Moving past the shelves, where food products and brands loudly, or quietly, represent curated stereotyped food cultures from around the world, holding the stress of the day on our shoulders. We reach the fruit stand, and we pick that yellow funky fruit that will be part of tomorrow’s porridge. Nothing else is important. Nothing seems relevant about it. What we forget is that an object, as a human, has a story that starts somewhere and ends somewhere else; and that this story can have a great impact on our daily life. The way that this story is written could depend on our choices as consumers. It is not just some fruit.
Do we know its real story?
A banana is commonly associated with a light-hearted Caribbean lifestyle, an illusional image built over years of advertisements designed for this purpose only. In western society we know little about the stories that this yellow-funky-fruit embraces, and the massive socio-economic and ecological impact that the banana monopoly has both on a local and global scale..
Information is power?
I personally witnessed the power of this fruit while living in Central America, and I believe that, as citizens of the Global North, we do not really know what is behind the identity of this not-so-funky fruit, and of all products. The truth is scary. The banana monopoly is responsible for the deforestation of tropical forests in Panama, the loss of biodiversity in Costa Rica, and are involved in paramilitary conflicts in Colombia.
It is not just some fruit. As consumers we have the responsibility to consider what we consume. We need to keep ourselves informed.