Wendell Berry Quotes

The growing attention Americans are paying to what they put into their mouths has touched off a new scramble by the processed-food companies to address health concerns.

The artificial is everywhere; everywhere food is adulterated, filled with ingredients that supposedly make it last longer, or look better, or pass as "enriched" or whatever else the industry's admen want us to believe.

We now eat at the end of a very long and opaque food chain. Food comes to us ready-made in packages that obscure as much information as they reveal.

With the Industrial Revolution, the production of food was delegated to big companies in order for women and men to be in the labour force, to come home, stick something in the oven, and eat. It became a big industry that does not have a love affair with food nor is really concerned about nurturing you or giving you the right nutrition.

Let's keep the chemists over here and the food over here, that's my feeling. What do I know? But that is a big aspect of fast food is their ability to artificially taint the colors and the smells and stuff to stimulate appetite.

I followed this one pig with number '05049,' all the way up until the end and to what products it's made of. And in these years, I met all kinds people like, for instance, farmers and butchers, which seems logical. But I also met aluminum mold makers, ammunition producers and all kinds of people.

A Big Mac - the communion wafer of consumption.

We're the biggest food and agriculture company in the world.

I see the same coffee table everywhere. It's mass marketing.

You look how much sugar is in a typical supermarket loaf of bread: it's a lot of sugar. It's just become one of those sugar delivery systems in our food economy.

The department store was a product of the 19th century and became a very important institution as America went into the 20th century. It provided show places in developing towns like Terre Haute, Sacramento, and Dallas.

Right now, the machine keeps us totally busy. If you don't react against it, you'll end up letting yourself go and become the perfect consumer. That's what they want.

There's no line between a designer and consumer.

The industrial food system ships in high-calorie, low-nutrient, processed food from thousands of miles away. It leaves us disconnected from our food and the people who grow it.

Think about the systems at McDonald's. It's a very mechanized world, where you take out a highly processed patty.

It's hard to escape bullies that come in many shapes and forms. The processed food industry, corrupt religious organizations, and celebrity worship culture are just a few that we deal with in modern times.

We aspire to make artisanal tortillas on an industrial scale.

America always put forth this phony melting pot theory, but it's a reality now. They couldn't accomplish the melting pot economically; they couldn't accomplish it politically, or through education and science. But America has become a consumer society, and I see young people in the cities - of all colors and races - hanging out together over consumerism.

I put the hamburger on the assembly line.

They import and they consume reality.

Modern capitalism needs men who cooperate smoothly and in large numbers; who want to consume more and more; and whose tastes are standardized and can be easily influenced and anticipated. It needs men who feel free and independent, not subject to any authority or principle or conscience-- yet willing to be commanded, to do what is expected of them, to fit into the social machine without friction; who can be guided without force, led without leaders, prompted without aim-- except the one to make good, to be on the move, to function, to go ahead.

We live surrounded by a systematic appeal to a dream world which all mature, scientific reality would reject. We, quite literally, advertise our commitment to immaturity, mendacity and profound gullibility. It is as the hallmark of the culture. And it is justified as being economically indispensable.

The other thing that soy contributes to, of course, is hydrogenated oil. This is the main oil. This is the fast-food oil.

Pop artists deal with the lowly trivia of possessions and equipment that the present generation is lugging along with it on its safari into the future.