CREATIVES: Ruth Reichl with Rachel Bezner Kerr and Felix Teitelbaum [AUDIO, TRANSCRIPT]
Felix Teitelbaum hosts a discussion with Ruth Reichl and Rachel Besner Kerr on WRFI about the documentary “Food and Country,” which explores the impact of the pandemic on food systems. Get tickets for the September 17 screening and join the panel conversation following the film.
Reichl highlights the resilience and struggles of farmers, ranchers, and fishermen, emphasizing the need for government policy changes to support local food production and address food security. Besner Kerr discusses the vulnerabilities exposed during the pandemic, particularly for meatpacker and farm workers, and the importance of regional and diverse food systems. Both stress the need for policy shifts, increased awareness, and media’s role in advocating for systemic change.
Interview transcript:
Felix Teitelbaum
This is Creatives on WRFI, I’m Felix, Teitelbaum. Today on WRFI we’re thrilled to have with us the legendary Ruth Reichl, one of America’s most influential food writers and critics. With a career spanning over five decades, Ruth has shaped the way we think about food. She’s worked as a critic for the LA Times and the New York Times, and as the editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine and she’s the author of several best-selling memoirs. We’re also joined by Rachel Bezner Kerr. She’s a Professor in Global Development at Cornell, where she teaches courses on food systems, and does research in Africa on sustainable agriculture, gender, climate change adaptation, food security, and nutrition. WRFI will present Ruth’s film, “Food and Country,” directed by Laura Gabbert, on September 17 at Cinemapolis. The documentary is a personal and expansive look at how the pandemic exposed vulnerabilities in our food systems, offering both a critique, and a celebration of those working to create positive change. Ruth, Rachel, welcome to WRFI.
Ruth Reichl
I’m very happy to be here.
Rachel Bezner Kerr
Thank you very much. I’m honored to be here.
Felix Teitelbaum
Well, thank you. We’re all pretty excited about the film over here. It’s set during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the lockdowns, the closures, the struggles, all of it. As we go about our lives today, many of us like to think, well, that’s in the past, and we’re certainly feeling it less acutely these days. But the fact is, we’re still living in a time of crisis, multiple crises, in fact, but COVID gave us the opportunity to really start to re-examine our lives, our diets, our relationships to one another and the planet Ruth. Can you tell us about your journey with this film? What does it tell us about who we are as a nation and where we are with regard to our food system today?
Ruth Reichl
Well, I think for me, the biggest thing I learned in two plus years of speaking on a weekly basis with farmers and ranchers and fishermen and the people who produce our food, is how difficult their lives are, how resilient they are, how little help they get from the government. For me, the biggest take takeaway was, you know, for years, I’ve been giving these speeches to people saying, the great thing about the food system is, if you don’t like it, you can change it, because as consumers, we vote with our dollars. And what I learned doing this film is that that is nonsense. We don’t vote with our dollars. We vote with our votes, and the hugest thing is how important government policy is. We could fix our broken food system overnight if we change the way we support farmers. One of the things I’ve learned since making this film is that for all of human history, all of American history, we have been an agrarian nation, a nation of farmers. This last October, for the first time in American history, we imported more food than we exported, and that is terrifying for our future. If we don’t understand how important food security is, if we cannot feed ourselves, we are in trouble.
Felix Teitelbaum
Wow, that’s a startling statistic. And Rachel, do you have anything to add at this point?
Rachel Bezner Kerr
Well, I really echo what Ruth is saying. I think in watching the film, it really brought to mind how the pandemic lay bare the the vulnerability of our food system, and some people and some groups suffered more from that shock. I think of the meat packer workers in who were exposed to COVID, I think of the farm workers who either lost their jobs or had to work under very difficult conditions. But it also was a time where families who were reliant on their paychecks to buy food, if they were put on furlough, or they they lost their jobs, they weren’t able to afford food. And so it showed the kind of vulnerability of our food system, and in multiple ways. And I think we have not done much as a society to really address those vulnerabilities and prepare for different shocks that can happen, and some of those might be climate change, some of those might be economic or political, but we really need to think more careful and strategically as a society about what kind of food system we want and how can we best prepare for the kinds of shocks that we can anticipate.
Ruth Reichl
It’s totally true. And you know, one of the things is we sort of go ahead and think, oh, it’s all behind us, and if we don’t understand that there is going to be another pandemic, another crisis that is going to put us in the same situation again. And you know, the one of the things that we learned during COVID is that we need regional food sheds. You know, so many of the problems that occurred in the system occurred because we’ve emphasized efficiency over almost everything else. So, you know, it’s so clear that what we’ve done, it all goes back to the government policy. After World War Two, the United States government decided that the easiest way to fight communism would be to have the cheapest, most abundant food in the world. And we then created factory farms, essentially. And the results of that have been disastrous to our health, to the health of the soil. I mean, everything that, in my opinion, just about everything that is wrong with this country stems from that policy. And you know, and it comes also down to, you know, social justice. I mean, if you were treating the people who raised the food, the people who picked the food, the people were in the packing plants, as if they’re just part of a factory system, and you’re going to pay them the least that you possibly can work them the hardest that you possibly can. That’s another complete social disaster.
Felix Teitelbaum
Yeah, and Rachel, do you want to add anything to that?
Rachel Bezner Kerr
The hopeful part that you really bring out in the film Ruth is is reimagining a food system that is more regional, that is more diverse, diverse both in terms of what kinds of things are being grown and raised, but also in terms of who’s benefiting, you know, from that system. So these models that have greater equity in terms of the economic benefits for livelihoods for people within the food system.
Felix Teitelbaum
Wow, we’ve already covered so much interesting ground. If you’re just joining us, this is Creatives on WRFI, and today we’re speaking with legendary food writer Ruth Reichl. Her career spans over five decades. She’s contributed so much to the way we eat and the way we think about food. She’s a nine time winner of James Beard Awards, including this year’s award for lifetime achievement. We’re also joined by Rachel besner Kerr she’s a professor in global development at Cornell, where she teaches courses on food systems, food security and nutrition. On September 17, WRFI will present Ruth’s film, “Food and Country,” directed by Laura Gabbert at Cinemapolis. The documentary is a personal and expansive look at how the pandemic brought to light vulnerabilities in our food system. Ruth, throughout the film, you followed some really interesting farmers, ranchers and restaurateurs. What would you say the key elements are of those successful strategies you’ve seen to adapt to the challenges and failures of our food system, despite this lack of policy change.
Ruth Reichl
Well, in the course of doing this film, I mean, when we started this, we all thought, you know, we started in March of 2020 thinking that the pandemic would last six weeks. And two years later, I’m still Zooming with people, but in the course of making the film, I kept going down rabbit holes, and I talked to 178 people. But in the end, what we decided was that we were going to choose positive stories. And that what we wanted with the film was to be able to offer hope. So that’s what we chose. And and everybody in the film learned something during the course of covid and changed their models. You know, one of the farmers that we spoke to are some people in Ohio who are amazing, but they had a business that only sold to restaurants. Of course. You know, restaurants closed down and they pivoted. Snd they their main concern was keeping their workers employed. They had 125 families from Mexico had been working for them for 25 years, and they really felt an obligation to keep them going. And they started really emphasizing that their vegetables were more nutritious because they’re regeneratively grown. They can prove that they’re more nutritious than conventional fruits and vegetables. They began working with health institutions and working with hospitals and even working with corporations and saying, our food will keep your employees healthier. They also created a direct to consumer business, which they had not had before. We have a wonderful family in Nebraska who became certified organic while we were making the film. That was amazing. And they did it purely for economic reasons, because a bushel of corn grown organically, it’s worth like, three times what conventional corn is. And you see the woman farmer convince her husband and sons that this is a good idea. They are not convinced at all until, I mean, they’re all about yields, and the organic yields are much lower, but the economic yields are higher. So you watch this family changed their model that way. You watch chefs who think that they’re going to lose their business completely rethink their business and one wonderful Rima Zeel in California, she’s a Palestinian chef, and she made her business and employee owned business during the course of this and use this time to teach, as one of her employees says, “We have to learn how to be both managers and workers,” and that’s a real lesson. And the rancher who’s so charismatic, I mean, we called him the “hot cowboy,” as he looks so much like the Marlboro Man. I mean, he’s this incredibly articulate rancher in Kansas. And he just started lobbying the government for changes in meat packing.
Felix Teitelbaum
Like you said, there are all these inspiring, positive stories in the film, and there’s a lot to this distributed, bottom up, type of change that can happen on the level of an individual restaurant or the level of an individual farmer, and work that people have been doing for years, people like Frances Moore Lappe, Alice Waters, you, helping build the organic food movement, the Farm-to Table-movement, the Farm-to-School movement, but it can still feel like we’re still up against the same problems that we were 50 years ago: the industrialized food sector, institutionalized racism, widening economic disparity. What do you think has changed about the way we grow, cook and eat since the 60s and 70s and and what hasn’t?
Ruth Reichl
Well, the biggest change is that people care now, and people are aware. I mean, as recently as 2006 I gave a speech to the Editorial Writers of America. They had the editorial writers have a annual get together where I begged them to write about food issues. And I, you know, talked about, you know, how we fished out all the big wild fish. And I talked about, you know, dead zones in the oceans from pesticide runoff. And I talked about the overuse of antibiotics, all of which shocked them. I mean, they had no idea. You could not give that speech today. I mean, because everybody knows about these things now. And that’s a huge change. And we have a generation of young people who make me so hopeful about the future, because they really understand that their food choices matter, and they are determined to change this food system. That is, that’s an enormous change. I mean, I grew up in an America that didn’t care about food at all, it didn’t respect it, didn’t understand how vital our food choices are to everything, you know, to our, not just our health and well being, but to our communities, to our environment, to our, you know, international policies. And that attitude is gone completely, and that’s really important. And it’s one of the things that you know, when we were putting this film together, I mean, I spoke to 11 chefs on an almost weekly basis, and you don’t see most of them in here, because we thought, “What is it that people really… who do we not hear from?” And who we don’t hear from are the food producers. I mean, farmers have not had much of a voice, and when we thought, what did we learn the most from making this film, it was the farmers and the fishermen.
Felix Teitelbaum
Let’s bring Rachel into this. You’re a scholar of food systems, what broad changes have you seen, and what would you like to see in the next Farm Bill?
Rachel Bezner Kerr
Well, I what Ruth said really resonated with me. I actually it’s neat that you said 2006 because that’s the year I began teaching as a professor, and I’ve been teaching a course on food systems since I since I began, first in Canada and then here in the United States, and I have seen a very significant change in knowledge from students and from the average sort of person that I speak to about my work, increased interest, increased awareness about why food matters, why we should be thinking about food. So that I do think is very hopeful. In terms of what I’d like to see in the Farm Bill. What I would love to see is to take all the money that currently goes towards subsidies that support mono cropped corn and soy and industrial livestock production, and divert that money towards diversified farming systems and diversified production. To be able to retrofit our system so that it is more regional, so that it provides employment for a wider range of people, and so that it provides much healthier food system and has the environmental benefits. I mean, it’s nice to dream big. I’d also love to see greater support for Black, Indigenous people of color farmers, because there’s a lot of interest in that community in in growing food that’s nutritious, and they often get far less support. So those are some of my my big dreams, revamping the school food system so that it is really using regionally produced, environmentally sound food for feeding kids in the United States.
Ruth Reichl
It’s interesting. You bring that up because, you know, Alice Waters has this grand scheme which would have such an impact on food across this country and for farmers. I mean her idea, and what she’s really trying to do in California is make the California university system, which is huge, buy all their produce directly from farmers, to eliminate the middlemen. And what that would do would mean that people would have the money up front. It would totally change the farming model. And if we could get the school systems across the country to do that, it would change life of farmers.
Felix Teitelbaum
Definitely fascinating ideas and dreams, as you said, Rachel and Ruth, it would sadden me if they stayed, if these things stayed only as dreams. And it seems that sometimes the national conversation is pretty far from where forward thinking people like yourselves are discussing. So let’s maybe bring the conversation to mass media. You know, we’re very excited to bring this film, “Food and Country” to Ithaca on September 17. It’s it’s really so powerful, and I’m sure audiences are going to be really excited as I am. It literally brought me to tears both times I watched it. And Ruth, you’ve been making media around food for some time. “Top Chef,” “Ugly Delicious,” “Chef’s Table.” Then, of course, there’s the advent of social media, and Instagram is just full of pictures of food. The film holds a lot of potential to inspire change that could potentially percolate up or reach people who are making policy. Broadly, what power does mass media have to further this food revolution that we need so much, especially when it comes to the national conversation around policy?
Ruth Reichl
You know, I think that the best example of this is the biggest change in my lifetime in how people experience food was the advent of the TV Food Network in 1993. I mean, you can literally say before the Food Network and after the Food Network I mean what the Food Network did. And it’s like much media or much of the way we are introduced to things. I mean, I sort of think of it as like a wine analogy. You know, people start out drinking horrible, cheap wine, and eventually most people move on to better wine. The TV Food Network, when it started, was doing really stupid TV. I mean, it was. It wasn’t well done in any sense, but it got better and more thoughtful. And you know, you went from, you know, name TV shows to Tony Bourdain introducing people to the world, and to “Chef’s Table,” and it gave voice to chefs who use that platform to say, you know, you cannot be a chef without really thinking about hunger issues in this country. And you’ve now got chefs spending a lot of their time for things like No No Kid Hungry. And so you may not like what the tiktokization of cooking is right now, but it is bringing people to food in a way that I am hopeful will only be make things better.
Felix Teitelbaum
Rachel, how about you? Do you see social media and things like the Food Network building potential for change at the policy level?
Rachel Bezner Kerr
It can be a very helpful organizing tool for social movements. And I really think if we’re going to change our food system, we need to have advocacy, we need to have political pressure put to bear on changing that system, or it won’t change, because there’s very strong political and economic vested interests that have no interest in changing the system because it is beneficial, it’s creating great profits for a very few. And so if social media can be used to push for social change, then I can see it being positive, but sometimes it’s just very you know, it’s very superficial, you know, and it can lead to, you know, wholesale changes in consuming habits, but not necessarily for the better.
Ruth Reichl
And if there’s one change I could make, you know, if I had a superpower and you can make one change, and the change I would make is not allow any food advertising to children under five. Because that, I think, has been a really disastrous effect on the way that we eat, that we allow, you know, little kids to be told to eat junk. Things that are actually going to have a negative impact on their health for the rest of their lives.
Felix Teitelbaum
Yeah, Ruth, you’ve, as I mentioned before, you’ve written several memoirs, and I think your reviews were also known for their narrative style and putting story into your reviews. What you’re talking about these very early childhood experiences with food that are influenced by advertising and commercialization, industrialization of food… When kids are as young as that, it must really create a deep impression. Can you talk about, you know, the power of story and how we can create better stories, and how we can draw on our own origin stories, and our relationship with food to create gateways to positive change?
Ruth Reichl
I talked about addiction a minute ago. I mean, my personal addiction is fictio. And I believe that fiction is incredibly powerful. You know, I’ve just made a documentary, but I keep thinking, I wish someone would make a really powerful narrative about all these food issues. And you know, say that The “Grapes of Wrath” was probably one of the most powerful. I mean, you think about things that have made change in American food over the years. You know, first there was, what was the Sinclair Lewis
Rachel Bezner Kerr
“The Jungle.”
Ruth Reichl
Yeah, “The Jungle” and he said, “I aimed at their hearts and went to their stomachs.” Many of the food safety laws came directly from that book. We need somebody to write another Jungle today. It would have a huge impact. I believe, you know, “The Grapes of Wrath” really changed the way Americans thought about farming during the Depression, and we really need people to write really powerful stories that go beyond documentary and actually intend to manipulate your emotions.
Felix Teitelbaum
That’s a fantastic idea. Writers take note. Finally, we hear a lot about about inflation and the rising cost of goods, about the cost of food, let me ask this one deceptively simple sounding question, “Is food too expensive, or is food too cheap?”
Ruth Reichl
Well, I mean, Rachel, I’d like to hear your answer while we still have you!
Rachel Bezner Kerr
Yeah, I think that unhealthy food is too cheap, so you see the subsidies really playing out so that unhealthy food is still cheaper than healthy and environmentally friendly produced food. But I do think as a society, we should be paying more for food. We pay very little compared to other places, and compared to what we used to pay in the past. And I think that we as a society need to need to pay more, and that may mean, in some cases, you know, income support so that low income folks can afford to to buy more expensive food that is, you know, produced in a way that doesn’t harm the environment and that and and a greater range of food that is, that is better for them.
Ruth Reichl
I totally agree with that, but I would like to add to that, that we are addicted to cheap food. It is not really cheap. I mean, when you have pork at that costs $1 a pound, you’re dealing with tortured animals, tortured workers, a whole litany of things are wrong with that food. And we pay for it. We just for the medical costs of it, you know. And you really as a society, you have to balance like, is it really cheap? I mean, six out of 10 Americans have food related chronic illnesses. If you balance out the costs of, you know, what that food has done to us, what you know, this crisis of obesity that we have, of diabetes, I mean, completely avoidable diabetes, and you know, so many other health issues that come out of this unhealthy, cheap food, you have to, you have to agree that it’s not really cheap. And we have to really understand that. I mean, I get really tired of, you know, being told that, saying that we should be paying for good food and it costs, you know, good food is not cheap, and being told that that’s an elitist attitude. I mean, it is the people who are taking money out of this system who are encouraging people to believe that it’s elitist to think that healthy food should be cheap. It makes me crazy, because it’s the argument you hear over and over again, “Well, I can only afford to go eat fast food because it’s cheaper.” It’s not really cheaper. It’s not cheaper if you’re taking your kid to the hospital every month because of some illness he’s gotten from his food. I mean, it’s not elitist to say that people deserve to eat good food, and we as a society need to figure that out.
Felix Teitelbaum
Well, Ruth, with this film and your work over the years, I think we’re doing just that. Do you have any final thoughts for our listeners?
Ruth Reichl
No. I mean, please go see the film. I hope you like it. You will meet some amazing people. I mean, these people are my heroes, and when I met them in person, it was so joyful
Felix Teitelbaum
Again. Congratulations on the film, and thank you both so much for joining us on Creatives, on WRFI.
Rachel Bezner Kerr
Thanks very much. It was a great, great to meet you Ruth, and thanks for the fun conversation.
Ruth Reichl
Likewise, thanks for joining us.