Week 1: The Politics of Bread

In the first week of class I was introduced to the weight of bread in our society. In the episode Air of the Netflix documentary series Cooked, I was presented with the nuisance of bread and how we as a species have a long history with the mixing of wheat, water, and salt.

In the documentary, journalist Michael Pollen ties the advancement of the human race to the found knowledge of long term food sources. No longer are humans' days tied to hunting and gathering provisions to sustain their lives, we now have crested the point of a primal creatures and have become civilized. Bread: being one of the main source of this new found source of food, was the building blocks of human society. Pollen divulges the fact that bread has a major role in world politics to this day. Many major political unrest through out history are all tied to the fluctuation of bread prices. As even when the meager folks of the lower class can't afford to eat meat or vegetables, they can still get by with eating bread. 

This piqued my interest on the topic as I have never thought about the significance of bread other than as a means of sustenance. Upon further research of this matter, I found that not only is bread a means to and end as a food source, it is also a symbol of life for human society. 

In Egyptian Arabic, the word for bread, aish, means simply: life. Peter Kropotkin's, The Conquest of Bread states that "We have the temerity to declare that all have a right to bread, that there is bread enough for all, and that with this watchword of Bread for All the Revolution will triumph." In his book Kropotkin uses bread as both a metaphorical and literal means for political sociability and exploitation. As bread is the food most synonymous with class. Bread is emblematic of the divide between the rich and the poor, it sustained the lower class and its prices were controlled by the upper class. In the days of old French Kings and Queens, Good Kings were dubbed, bakers, whereas bad Kings were labeled as grain speculators

Returning to the documentary, bread has now evolved and become a symbol of the industrial power of the present. The simple process of making bread, requiring only three ingredients, has been taken apart and pieced back together in a more complex fashion. Adding in other ingredients to increase shelf life and convoluting something that is so simple. 

Toward the end of class we start a small discussion on the ethics of Genetically Modified Organism(GMO) while making our own tortillas. Each student sharing their own views and beliefs on the subject matter and how they defined what is and isn't genetically modified. 

According to the Non GMO project, a Genetically Modified Organism or GMO is a plant, animal, microorganism or other organism whose genetic makeup has been modified in a laboratory using genetic engineering or transgenic technology. This creates combinations of plant, animal, bacterial and virus genes that do not occur in nature or through traditional crossbreeding methods. I found that the most important part of defining what is and isn't a GMO is whether or not it was genetically modified in a laboratory or not. Techniques such as cross breeding plants are in my opinion, outside of the bounds of GMOs.

Overall I found this first week to be quite a distinct experience. Delving into the world of nanotech and genetically altered foodstuff. I look forward to reading other students thought on the blog about their experiences with bread and continuing the rest of this quarter with a more in-depth look of each subject that we touch upon in class.