Ruin their crops on the ground : America's politics of food, from the Trail of Tears to school lunch / Andrea Freeman.

By:

Freeman, Andrea (Associate Professor of Law) [author.]

Material type: Text

TextPublisher: New York : Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Company, 2024Edition: First editionDescription: 272 pages ; 24 cmContent type:

text

Media type:

unmediated

Carrier type:

volume

ISBN:

9781250871046
1250871042

Subject(s):

Contents:

Introduction -- Weapons of health destruction -- Survival pending revolution -- Americanization through homemaking -- The unbearable whiteness of milk -- School food failure -- Racist food marketing -- What's law got to do with it?

Summary: "The first and definitive history of the use of food in American law and politics as a weapon of conquest and control, a Fast Food Nation for the Black Lives Matter era In 1789, to subjugate Indigenous tribes, George Washington ordered his troops to "ruin their crops on the ground and prevent them planting more." Destroying the sources of food is just one way that the United States has used nourishment as a political tool. To prevent enslaved people from or escaping or rising up, enslavers restricted their consumption, providing only the least desirable and nutritious foods. Since the Great Depression, school lunches have served as dumping grounds for unwanted agricultural surpluses. From frybread to government cheese, Ruin Their Crops on the Ground draws on fifteen years of research to argue that American food law and policy have historically been used to create and maintain racial and cultural inequality. In an epic, sweeping account, Andrea Freeman, who pioneered the term "food oppression," moves from missions to Americanize immigrant food culture to the commodities supplied to Native reservations to USDA nutrition programs to milk as symbol of white nationalism. She traces the long-standing alliances between Washington and the food and agricultural industries that have produced gaping racial health disparities. And she shows how these practices continue to this day, in the form of marketing for unhealthy subsidized goods that target communities of color, causing diabetes, high blood pressure and even premature death. Marrying Michael Pollan's insights into food psychology with Michelle Alexander's new understanding of race in the United States, Ruin Their Crops on the Ground is a groundbreaking addition to the history and politics of food. It will permanently upend the notion that we freely and equally choose what we put on our plates"-- Provided by publisher.

Average rating: 0.0 (0 votes)

Holdings
Item type	Current library	Collection	Shelving location	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode	Item holds
Adult Book	Phillipsburg Free Public Library	Adult Non-Fiction	New Books	338.1973 FRE	Available		36748002563528

Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in History
Winner of the James Beard Media Award in Food Issues and Advocacy

The first and definitive history of the use of food in United States law and politics as a weapon of conquest and control, a Fast Food Nation for the Black Lives Matter era

In 1779, to subjugate Indigenous nations, George Washington ordered his troops to "ruin their crops now in the ground and prevent their planting more." Destroying harvests is just one way that the United States has used food as a political tool. Trying to prevent enslaved people from rising up, enslavers restricted their consumption, providing only enough to fuel labor. Since the Great Depression, school lunches have served as dumping grounds for unwanted agricultural surpluses.

From frybread to government cheese, Ruin Their Crops on the Ground draws on over fifteen years of research to argue that U.S. food law and policy have created and maintained racial and social inequality. In an epic, sweeping account, Andrea Freeman, who pioneered the term "food oppression," moves from colonization to slavery to the Americanization of immigrant food culture, to the commodities supplied to Native reservations, to milk as a symbol of white supremacy. She traces the long-standing alliance between the government and food industries that have produced gaping racial health disparities, and she shows how these practices continue to this day, through the marketing of unhealthy goods that target marginalized communities, causing diabetes, high blood pressure, and premature death.

Ruin Their Crops on the Ground is a groundbreaking addition to the history and politics of food. It will permanently upend the notion that we freely and equally choose what we put on our plates.

Includes bibliographical references.

"The first and definitive history of the use of food in American law and politics as a weapon of conquest and control, a Fast Food Nation for the Black Lives Matter era In 1789, to subjugate Indigenous tribes, George Washington ordered his troops to "ruin their crops on the ground and prevent them planting more." Destroying the sources of food is just one way that the United States has used nourishment as a political tool. To prevent enslaved people from or escaping or rising up, enslavers restricted their consumption, providing only the least desirable and nutritious foods. Since the Great Depression, school lunches have served as dumping grounds for unwanted agricultural surpluses. From frybread to government cheese, Ruin Their Crops on the Ground draws on fifteen years of research to argue that American food law and policy have historically been used to create and maintain racial and cultural inequality. In an epic, sweeping account, Andrea Freeman, who pioneered the term "food oppression," moves from missions to Americanize immigrant food culture to the commodities supplied to Native reservations to USDA nutrition programs to milk as symbol of white nationalism. She traces the long-standing alliances between Washington and the food and agricultural industries that have produced gaping racial health disparities. And she shows how these practices continue to this day, in the form of marketing for unhealthy subsidized goods that target communities of color, causing diabetes, high blood pressure and even premature death. Marrying Michael Pollan's insights into food psychology with Michelle Alexander's new understanding of race in the United States, Ruin Their Crops on the Ground is a groundbreaking addition to the history and politics of food. It will permanently upend the notion that we freely and equally choose what we put on our plates"-- Provided by publisher.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

Introduction: The Palatable Is Political (1)
1 Weapons of Health Destruction (11)
2 Survival Pending Revolution (35)
3 Americanization Through Homemaking (69)
4 The Unbearable Whiteness of Milk (93)
5 School Food Failure (120)
6 Dee-licious! (144)
7 What's Law Got to Do with It? (172)
Acknowledgments (193)
Notes (195)
Index (241)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

In a sweeping tour of American history, Freeman (Skimmed), a professor at Southwestern Law School, surveys food policy from the colonial era to today. She argues that present-day racial health disparities are undergirded by centuries of the government and elites prioritizing profit over the well-being of people of color. She begins with an account of early America, where European settlers routinely cut off Indigenous people from traditional food sources as a way to force them off their land and slave owners allowed enslaved people only meager rations. These policies engineered populations more prone to "nutrition related diseases," Freeman writes, surfacing an abundance of fascinating examples, including how Indigenous youths forced into 20th-century residential schools suffered gastrointestinal ailments due to the unfamiliar diet imposed on them. Freeman draws eye-opening parallels to the present-day Department of Agriculture, which she characterizes as being under the thumb of a powerful agriculture lobby that, in order to off-load subsidized foods like potatoes, white rice, and milk in their cheapest to produce (and least nutritious) forms, has co-opted federal food-assistance programs to distribute low-quality foods to Indigenous, Black, and Latino families. Ripe with sharp analysis and fresh ideas, Freeman's account concludes with a novel legal argument that the 13th Amendment and 14th Amendment could be used to challenge racial disparities caused by government food programs. Readers will relish this piquant new perspective on America's political relationship with food. (July)

Booklist Review

A nation's food supply is central to its economy and very survival. Freeman (Skimmed: Breastfeeding, Race and Injustice, 2021) takes a hard look at the history of America's agriculture and food distribution policies and finds them riddled with political corruption, inefficiency, racism, classism, and greed. European settlers arriving on the American continent upended traditional patterns of supply and demand. In 1789, George Washington himself ordered destruction of native food supplies with the words that give this book its title. Colonists moving westward introduced industrial agricultural methods, mindlessly destroying herds of buffalo that had sustained Native Americans for centuries and leading to a reliance on suboptimally nutritious foods. Emancipated enslaved Americans had sharecropping imposed on them, leaving them with little economic power to choose their diets. The rise of fast food and race-targeted advertising generated unhealthiness, especially among minority populations. Despite good intentions, free school lunches and other government subsidies have been distorted and subverted by politics. This American history, rife with predation and injustice, leaves readers with plenty of challenges for both present and future.

Kirkus Book Review

A critical assessment of food as a political weapon and source of ill health. A legal scholar of food, health, and race, Freeman, the author of Skimmed, chronicles the mobilization of food in the U.S. to control non-white populations, assimilate immigrants, boost corporate profitability by shaping cultural norms, and foster racial health disparities. She describes how the federal government used access to farmland and buffalo to displace Indigenous populations and diminish their numbers and how plantation owners deployed food to control the enslaved population. Food has also figured in immigrant assimilation and the privileging of whiteness. Mexicans, for example, were subject to homemaking assistance that privileged a European diet. Food-based assimilation occurs, as well, in school lunch programs that emphasize American fare such as hamburgers. Freeman focuses one chapter on milk, an unhealthy food for many non-Europeans. Race has also figured in food advertising--e.g., playing on stereotypes to sell pancakes and rice. Freeman blames the entanglement of the U.S. Department of Agriculture with giant agriculture and food production corporations for the unhealthy foods so dominant in schools and food assistance programs. Governmental subsidies to these corporations "make the unhealthiest food the cheapest," with processed foods a major contributor to obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. As reforms, Freeman calls for eliminating the work requirement in the government's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the major source of food assistance for low-income households, and for casting these problems as "vestiges of slavery" to be recognized under the 13th and 14th Amendments. This legal angle stems from her belief that "USDA food programs are unconstitutional because they perpetuate racial health disparities." The author is clearly well intentioned, but she dilutes her arguments with disparate examples and the broad scope of her assertions. A useful reminder that food can oppress, coerce, and undermine the bodies and aspirations of vulnerable minorities. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.