Food or War

Cherry Picked & Not Very Good At It

Food or War by Julian Cribb

Food or war? The author sets out to convince the reader that the majority of wars have been fought over food. By cherry picking history, you could conclude that & many other things, but the reality is that for the most part wars are fought for power. To see who has the biggest ding dong. Sometimes as with King Alfred The Great, the wars are fought for religion rather than to see who has the biggest ding dong. King Alfred wanted there to be one "Englaland" all peoples speaking one language & all practicing one religion. He wanted the Danes, Northmen, & anyone else out of his country if they didn't convert to his religion.

The author lost me almost immediately with his weak history of the Viking era. We know very little of the "Northmen" or the "Danes" from the Viking era because nothing was written down in their cultures. Everything was verbal. The first written accounts were from the monks who witnessed the Viking ships arrive on their shores to ravage & pillage. Having the view point of only one side of the story is hardly accurate & that is the view the author has. It is very disappointing. His view is so misguided he even seems to view the "Vikings" as a race rather than an activity, "To go Viking." He claims that "Vikings" fought for food. Sure, they wanted land, but they fought for much more than just food. They fought for glory, they fought to make a name of themselves to be retold long after they are gone. They fought to go to Valhalla (die with a sword in their hand), they fought for riches & fame. Sound familiar like maybe having a big ol' ding dong?

I'm not a history professor, so take what I say with a grain of salt, but as the author moves forward in history, it seems like he has a better grasp of it. Probably because so much more of human history gets recorded. He even mentions when Stalin had his farmers murdered because his people were starving & he viewed his own farmers as his enemies. When this made the food crisis worse, he killed more farmers. Yeah that'll fix it! Then in 1975 Cambodia decided to try out the USSR's & The People's Republic of China's failed farmer killings & started to kill off their rice farmers.

The author then continues along in this slog of a read to try to force his idea that wars are started due to a lack of food. It's a great way to twist it. I'll give him that, but common sense & history say otherwise. Armies must be fed. So a army or war can cause hunger or starvation either by large marching armies moving through the land & ravaging it's resources like a swarm of locusts or because of sieges where one side tries to starve the other. I'm not saying that food has never been a cause for war, just that it's not the cause as the author wants us to believe.

He then discusses the different ways humans are producing food. Things like mono cropping, concentrated feed lots, Eco farming, organic farming, gene editing (CRISPER), biotechnology, GMO's, chemicals, etc.

An interesting thing he suggests is that gender confusion has been caused by the chemicals in our food. I told this to my husband & he scoffed at it. The thing is, I can see this being real. My reason is because chemicals in our environment have already been proven to alter the sexes of frogs. This is real & it's happening now. So why not mess up humans too? With an author who speaks out against pseudo foods aka processed "foods" & chemicals you'd think he'd be against GMO's & other unnatural practices right? Wrong.

The author thinks the only mistake made with Genetic Engineering is not being open about it with the public. He's all for GMO rice & many other genetically modified franken foods. Yet he is anti chemicals. But but but, GM "foods" are engineered to survive being doused in copious amounts of chemicals while everything around them dies. This is hardly environmentally friendly or good for us. It seems the author has fallen for the Kool Aid that we need GMO's & CRISPER to feed the world. He would be far better looking at all the waste humans create. Humans throw out a shameful amount of food while overeating & getting fatter every day. We don't need to produce more food, we need to eat less & eat real food, not franken foods or processed factory foods that have been engineered to cause overeating.  
The author promotes & encourages gene editing, farm robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, advanced pest control, biocultured "food" & more. I've already covered why gene editing isn't a good idea, how about nanotechnology? This is still way too new & nano particles are so small, it is believed they have the potential to wreck havoc on not only our bodies but also our ecosystems. What about biocultured "food"? He thinks that we humans wont like it at first but as with synthetic materials aka oil byproducts we will learn to love it. Sorry but I don't want to eat biocultured steak or fish. Nor do I want to eat farmed fish. I find all of this deeply disturbing & going further from the natural world rather than embracing it.

The author feels we should reallocate 20% of spending money away from defense & towards "peace through food". This is a noble idea, but no matter what the author wants us to believe, war is not about food. When a country no longer has the biggest ding dong, another country is sure to move in for the kill & be the new biggest ding dong on the planet. I'll gladly keep that defense budget high thank you very much. My freedom is pretty important to me. But hey, I'm an American & the author's Australian so we clearly have much different views on the value of personal freedom.

The only thing I agree with the author on is raising a new generation of food aware children. However, I think my view of "food aware" & the authors view are vastly different. I'm for getting kids back in gardens & farms. Lets have a garden in every school from elementary all the way through college. Let's bring back home economics & wood shop. I strongly believe that we have this massive food problem because many folks have no clue how food comes to be on grocery store shelves. They don't know that certain foods grow in the dirt or that other foods are from animals, or that an apple grows on a tree or leather is from cattle or goats, etc.

The author also pushes global warming. I personally don't know what to think. On one hand, I believe it, but then many scientists say it's the natural heating & cooling of the planet. The author even points out different heating & cooling periods of the earth. This would actually support that global warming is a hoax. The author says it's not a hoax. While I don't like being lied to (I don't know which side is lying), I do believe in caring for our Mother Earth. This is our home. I respect the planet. I am an Eco farmer. I don't use chemicals. I don't lock up my animals. They are pastoral. I grow my food in soil rich in my own composted materials. I grow with the seasons & work with the land, not against it. I desperately want people to care about our planet. But is global warming real? I just don't know.

Last, the author thinks that women should take the place of men in business, politics, government, & religion. I can understand this to a certain degree because most women don't have the "I have to prove I have the biggest ding dong" problem that most men have, but I hardly see women solving the worlds problems. Personally as a woman, I find when men & women work together as equals we have the greatest success. Both sexes have much to offer & it provides a beautiful harmony. Neither sex is perfect, but together we can accomplish great things.