Louise Fresco: The Case for White Bread
In a TED talk given earlier this month, Ms. Fresco makes a compelling argument for “wonderbread” and its power to free us from agricultural labor. A few of her well-taken points:
- We’ve become very removed from what our bread really is.
- A fallacy comes from idealizing a past that we’ve forgotten about.
- Small scale (farmers markets) is a luxury solution for those who can afford it if we want to afford it.
While our preference for artisan bread may not rescue anyone in developing nations, I fail to see how our purchase of processed bread helps with such an initiative. Meanwhile, artisan bread is sold at a premium and generally involves no exploitation of persons or resources. I appreciate her greater vision of local energy-generating solutions. But the evangalism of white bread to a first world nation escapes me. Thoughts?
May 21st, 2009 at 10:28 am
Here is what I think whenever I see anyone eating white bread: Who even eats white bread anymore? Enriched white bread is not food. There is no reason to eat it (unless you don’t care if your food is nourishing or not).