You are what you eat

As I thought about it, I realized one of the largest food revolutions in America — the organic movement — is a form of response to the sociopolitical concerns and fears surrounding the Cold War. I stumbled upon this little breakthrough when I recently watched Stanley Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove.” In one scene, General Jack Ripper explains his theory of “fluoridation” — a belief that the Communists had found a way to weaken Americans by introducing a foreign substance into “our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual, and certainly without any choice.” Though the scene, and Ripper’s logic, are incredibly humorous, I was immediately struck by the similarities between Ripper’s sentiments and those of the — perhaps over-stereotyped — organic food junkie, or rather, “foodie.”

In 1969, People’s Park — what is commonly recognized at the first organic garden — opened in Berkeley, Calif. The garden practiced growing methods free of chemical pesticides, which had recently been exposed as producing dangerous radioactivity. This danger played directly into Cold War anxieties and fears of nuclear warfare. When pesticides were implicated — an allegation made in large part by Rachel Carson, who published “Silent Spring” in 1962 — the dangers of nuclear war with the USSR were not limited to atomic bomb fallout but were present in nearly all industrially grown foods. With every item consumed, Americans risked exposure to deadly radioactivity.

The organic movement took hold because people wanted to avoid this radiation. Radiation is a terrifying concept: It is invisible and imperceptible in the body, and it can sit stored in tissue for years before ever causing visible harm. The simple act of consuming food, a daily necessity, bore with it the ingestion of radioactive chemicals that would wear down the body. Radiation was General Ripper’s fear come to fruition. Only it wasn’t water; it was food that threatened to introduce a foreign substance that would weaken Americans.

When Kubrick’s film came out in 1964, America had recently ended World War II with the atomic bomb, and in 1965 the United States’ involvement with Vietnam escalated to the point where American troops were deployed in the country. Our reasons for fearing radiation, fluoridation and contaminated food mirrored our reasons for fearing Communism itself — even without an active branch of the Communist movement, Communism might “seep into” and compromise American values. Communism, much like radiation, was an enemy with no distinct image that sought to secretly infiltrate and weaken Americans.

Cold War Americans sought refuge. They, for good reason, focused on food. We are a people often motivated by what we eat. After all, “the quickest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” That’s right, those tree-hugging, People’s-Park hippies created a movement fully in line with mainstream Cold War anxieties. Perhaps this current rise in food concerns, too, comes from sociopolitical concerns. While we have lived through the collapse of the USSR and have moved past a fear of Communism, America is now once again in a period of political and military behavior that is similar to the Cold War.

Numerous parallels have been drawn between American involvement in the Middle East and Vietnam. “Terrorism” is as ambiguous an enemy as “Communism.” Atomic bombs have given way to homicide bombings, radiation to biohazard threats. These similarities might be inspiring the resurgence of food concerns. We live in a time of political and military insecurity and uncertainty. Perhaps these fears and anxieties, much like those of the Cold War period, are manifesting themselves in our attitudes toward food. It is no wonder we derive security from controlling what we ingest; you are, after all, what you eat.

Lily Alberts is a sophomore from Nashville, Tenn. She can be reached at lalberts@princeton.edu.