Using Thanksgiving To Learn About Sustainable Food

This blog is largely dedicated to exploring social innovation and using market strategies to change the world. One of the most bedrock economic social justice issues is how we reinvent our food system to deliver food that is healthy for people, healthy for the planet, and not creating classes of haves and have nots that rot our ability to thrive. As a holiday largely about celebrating through shared meals, Thanksgiving is a great day to learn more about sustainable food.

I should preface this all by saying that the real place to learn about the complexity of this issue is over at our Food blog. It's a mark of how this issue has grown in the public eye that we have that cause sitting next to Women's Rights, Climate Change and other causes.

That said, there is something deeply macro-economic about this issue. Social entrepreneurship is all about the idea that market strategies can be used to distribute the services and products the poor deserve to have access to, and at the same time that traditional businesses can rediscover the important and centrality of the social and environmental bottom lines.

Still, although those of us in this field are largely optimistic about it's potential, there are immense challenges and contradictions that spring up. The food system demonstrates just how dangerous a festization for scale and efficiency can be, and how sometimes, the notions of private ownership can be harmful to the common good.

One of the best debates around that issue can be found in the documentary Food, Inc., which explores among other examples the monopoly that Monsanto has on many seed crops, and how it gives them incredible power to determine what is grown, how it's grown, and in turn, what we eat.

What's more, our broken food system is a case study in why business must put environmental and social impact back at the center of the business equation. The "cost" of a Big Mac may be just a couple dollars to you, but what about the gallons of oil it takes to produce it, and the eventual cost to society (and to you) of rising health care premiums based on obesity-related disorders?

At the same time, however, food is an area in which an incredible number of social innovators - from farmers to producers to distributors - are thinking differently. The Fair Trade, Local, and Organic movements, although all having their challenges and challengers, are examples of how companies in the food space are thinking differently and offering consumers alternatives.

At the end of the day, social entrepreneurs who are focused on replacing one product with a more ethical, sustainable version, will win or not because of consumers voting with their dollars.

This Thanksgiving day, most of those reading this post will be celebrating - either Family, or Country, or Health, or all of that and more. It's a great time to educate ourselves about our impact in the world, and pause to reflect on how we can improve it.

For more thoughts and tips on our food system, check out Food.Change.org. Start with this post: "My $80 Thanksgiving Dinner."

(Photo: Omnivore's Dilemma author Michael Pollan at this year's Pop!Tech)