Some humans eat other humans for the taste. Some eat flesh to practice rituals. Some dine on this meat for survival when resources are low.
Other humans have uncommon eating habits as well.
There are also those who live “neo-aboriginal” lifestyles, eating and drinking as full fledged hunter-gatherers. No grocery stores, no farms, no agriculture.
Others run insect farms inside of shipping containers; hey, one serving of crickets has more protein than lean beef.
Dumpster divers, called freegans, consistently meet in New York City to scavenge for their meals, often finding there is too much food in the trash for them to consume.
“Asphalt hunters”, or “freeway foragers”, live off of a roadkill diet.
As part of my course content for EATS 101: Honors Seminar in Food and Culture, I recently learned about these outliers to society in two readings: an older EATS final paper by Doracy Robison, titled “More than Just Meal: Cannibalism and its Social Significance” (2001), and the novel Eating Promiscuously (2017), by James McWilliams.
McWilliams rejects the notion that humanity has succeeded in agriculture and in “feeding the world”, writing the following provocative statement in his novel’s introduction:
“To a large extent, we are victims. We are victims of our own narrow-minded success, a success that confines our imagination and perpetuates a system that’s ruinous to our health and the planet itself. The whole foundational idea of what it means for a modern human to eat food has been severely compromised by a history of decisions that we have, through no necessary fault of our own, inherited. Our incredibly productive efficiency has resulted in innumerable conveniences. But when it comes to food, its promise to make life easier has worked out all too well. Today’s food system, with its underlying reality of culinary monotony existing beneath the guise of endless choice, represents the unintended outcome of a million small decisions and good intentions. But the sum total has added up to a disaster. We shouldn’t accept it.”
As someone who strives to be empathetic, a problem solver, and a creative thinker, I believe there is tremendous value in questioning our daily habits, like eating food.
Accepting “foundational ideas” limits our ability to generate new solutions for today’s problems. Understanding that we “are victims” of “a million small decisions” is powerful in enacting change in our future. Maybe we haven’t figured everything out. Maybe we haven’t gotten everything “right”. Questioning, rejecting, and abandoning the status quo opens up our imagination to endless possibilities for newly defined success. I mean Apple's mantra to “Think Different” has led them to become the most valuable company in the world.
If questioning everyday standards — like our food system — can unlock our imagination, what else should we challenge?
If outliers — like cannibals, dumpster divers, insect eaters, hunter-gatherers, roadkill diners — can inspire new ways of thinking, what else can be beacons of creativity?
By asking the crazy questions like “could cannibalism reshape our food system?”, we free our mind to think different. Observing and understanding the outliers while refusing to accept the norms trains us to become more empathetic, more creative, and better problem solvers. What will you doubt next?
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