Ruby Washington/The New York Times/Redux

Eric Schlosser ’81

 
Journalist Eric Schlosser ’81 has made a career of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable through his prize-winning work for The Atlantic magazine and his 2001 book Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. He is co-producer of the new Robert Kenner documentary, Food, Inc., which premiered in September in Toronto.

Your 1995 story on immigrant workers in The Atlantic, “The Strawberry Fields,” seemed to set you on your journalistic path. How did social justice become your cause?

In my family, we were raised to do well and to care about people who weren’t doing well. My father [Herbert Schlosser ’49] was interested in public-policy issues at Princeton, and he retained that concern for others. I set out to write about people on the margins. [Calif.] Gov. Pete Wilson was portraying illegal immigrants as welfare cheats. I found hardworking Latino men and women propping up agriculture, the most important sector of the California economy. It was reporting that story that showed me how alienated we had become from our food system, and how ignorant of it.

In discussions about Fast Food Nation, you pushed for better slaughterhouse worker safety — slowing the carcass production line, for instance.

In the past, we’ve had enormous concern for people at the bottom — in the ’60s, there was the war on poverty, the civil-rights movement. The last 25 years have been disastrous in the sense of celebrating consumption and greed and selfishness, and belittling compassion or caring about the poor.

I’m not taking credit — underline that! — but when I was writing that book, important issues — food safety, the obesity epidemic, marketing to children, industrialization of our food — weren’t being addressed in mainstream media. Now, not a day goes by without an article.

The Slow Food movement battles a perception of elitism. Is there a place at that table for those on food stamps?

Slow Food and the change in attitudes toward food began as a movement of the upper class and the well educated, just like those for abolition and feminism. It has to expand and ensure that everybody has access to healthy, sustainable organic food. Otherwise, I don’t want to take part. I’ve been involved in bringing farmers’ markets to low-income communities, and getting gardens into schools. There needs to be much more support for those efforts.

You and Katrina vanden Heuvel ’81, editor of The Nation, have called for a new New Deal. How would it play out in food policy?

Our corporate-socialism policy means that one government policy after another has been geared toward benefiting a handful of companies at the expense of the American people. We provide billions of dollars in subsidies for foods that will make us unhealthy, and hardly any subsidies for foods that will make us healthy and preserve the environment.

The National School Lunch Program should serve America’s children, not agribusiness. Aside from ethics and morality, the public-health cost of not changing our diet is so much more expensive than shifts in federal policy to improve our diet. You can pay to encourage children to eat more fruits and vegetables now, or you can pay for their dialysis later.

Princeton, with its great resources, can be a leader. When I was at Princeton, I studied game theory and nuclear strategy. Princeton can gain the same kind of leadership and expertise in agricultural policy and food systems, and find new policy solutions. Food is interdisciplinary — studying food involves economics, sociology, botany, on and on. ... I hope Princeton will follow Yale’s example in creating a sustainable-food policy (http://www.yale.edu/sustainablefood).

How will you ensure that your Thanksgiving turkey was raised and slaughtered by workers who themselves were treated humanely?

I’m going to my sister’s house, so I had better call her. ... The worst conditions are in the biggest slaughterhouses. And this year, Whole Foods took an interest and showed a commitment to the rights of workers. You can’t have a sustainable-food system without good treatment of its workers.

What practical food reforms can we make in our own lives?

First, understand that food is central to our economy, our society, and our lives. And second, know that changing the food system can be a real pleasure — it’s not a change that leads to hardship and woe. It’s a return to traditional values. Eating well is a joy. So is working with others, and restoring a sense of community. Shop locally and seasonally. Support companies that try to do the right things. Don’t invest in companies that are harming animals, workers, and the land. 


Interview conducted and condensed by Karla Cook, editor of the Web site The Food Times (www.thefoodtimes.com)