Food Chain Quotes

“Much of our food system depends on our not knowing much about it, beyond the price disclosed by the checkout scanner; cheapness and ignorance are mutually reinforcing. And it's a short way from not knowing who's at the other end of your food chain to not caring–to the carelessness of both producers and consumers that characterizes our economy today. Of course, the global economy couldn't very well function without this wall of ignorance and the indifference it breeds. This is why the American food industry and its international counterparts fight to keep their products from telling even the simplest stories–"dolphin safe," "humanely slaughtered," etc.–about how they were produced. The more knowledge people have about the way their food is produced, the more likely it is that their values–and not just "value"–will inform their purchasing decisions.”
― Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

“In the inverted food chain of fame, it was the big beasts who were stalked and hunted”
― Robert Galbraith, The Cuckoo's Calling

“It might not be the circle of life,” Lamb says. “But it is the food chain. I didn’t see you feeling sorry for that pig we had for lunch. Or that rabbit you had for dessert. Everything eats something else.”

I swing my head towards him. “What eats you?”

He raises an eyebrow, giving me a taste of my own medicine. “Existential despair.”
― Rainbow Rowell, Wayward Son

“The shorter the chain between raw food and fork, the fresher it is and the more transparent the system is.”
― Joel Salatin, Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal: War Stories from the Local Food Front

“We would not be Human if we did not prefer to be the devourers rather than the devoured, but either is a blessing. Should your life be required of you, rest assured that it is required by Life.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Year of the Flood

“The Paradox of Sustenance: For an organism’s life to be continued; another organism’s life has to be discontinued.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Mosquitoes remind us that we are not as high up on the food chain as we think.”
― Tom Wilson

“Feeling sorry for the prey for being killed by the predator prevents us from being happy for the predator for not being about to be killed by hunger.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Humans are so busy asking about who or what had built the pyramids.
For me, whoever had built pyramids, the message is so clear and simple,
"we are higher than human race in the food chain.”
― Toba Beta, My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut

“For an animal to attack you, you must smell or look either dangerous, or delicious, or at least nutritious.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Cremation is the refusal to put a corpse to good use.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Humans believe that the lower animals are living in their world, when it’s just the opposite.”
― A.A. Clifford, The Enkantatum: And Other Stories

“Our food chain has broken down. We have swallowed too many government promises.”
― Ljupka Cvetanova, Yet Another New Land

“Every single living thing is food to at least one living thing.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Standing there small among the boxes of Kandy Kakes that rose like brownish cartoon cliffs around him, he resembled the videos I'd seen of sea lions floating angelically among the kelp, black bodies filmed from below, their shapes cut out in bright sunlight, bodies mistakable for those of a human being. I felt the memory of a shadowy arm around me, a watcher again, sitting there on the couch with my boyfriend, watching the animals become prey. Somewhere there were giant whales feeding on creatures too small to see, pressing them against fronds of baleen with a tongue the size of a sedan. There were polar bears killing seals, tearing ovoid chunks from out of their smooth, round bellies. In the surrounding vastness of the warehouse, I heard something scratching against the concrete floor and knew there were rats here, scraping a thin film of nutrient from the dry packaged matter that surrounded them. Life was everywhere, inescapable, imperative.”
― Alexandra Kleeman, You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine

“A great many of the health and environmental problems created by our food system owe to our attempts to oversimplify nature’s complexities, at both the growing and the eating ends of our food chain. At either end of any food chain you find a biological system- a patch of soil, a human body- and the health of one is connected- literally- to the health of the other.”
― Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma

“Creatures have killed each other for food and dominance since the beginning of life. Violence is in our genetic construct.”
― Rajesh`, Random Cosmos

“When you think about how the food chain in nature works, you might be mistaken to think of evolution as a sadistic being setting up killing games for its pleasure, as it provides prey with a good chance to survive but also gives predators some good tools to hunt with.”
― Rajesh`, Random Cosmos

“Remember that the food chain is not based on ethics. Nothing in nature is.”
― Rajesh`, Random Cosmos

“When you move lower on the food chain, your perspective of what matters changes quickly.”
― Matt Fox, The Hitchhiker Man

“Death is the firewood that keeps the fire of life burning.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Salmon so efficiently convert the sun's energy into food because they are dietary generalists. Much like us, they eat everything.”
― Nicholaas Mink

“When this characteristic is combined with their extraordinary metabolic and growth rates, a normal fish becomes an extraordinary producer of proteins and fats, which, sometime in the not too distant past, exploded from a chain reaction in the sun.”
― Nicholaas Mink

“Not only do salmon efficiently convert the sun's energy into food for humans, but they also deliver that food in meal-sized packages right into the hands, hooks and nets of waiting humans.”
― Nicholaas Mink

“Plastic holds a place in my heart; my veins; my lungs and my stomach.”
― Anthony T. Hincks

“Microplastics will the death of everyone.”
― Anthony T. Hincks

“We are food even before we are dead.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“14 - Maneater

In miniature you look easy enough,
A gentle enemy, how foolish I was,
I pressed in, pressed my luck,
Took a bite, had my fill,
I never knew you were poison ‘till
My lips wet with blood, my own swill,
I collapsed on your corpse,
You held me still,
Your vines drew me in, your leaves enclosed,
Oh how quickly the poison goes,
Oh how thickly the forest grows.”
― Apollo Blake, Nocturnalisms

“I just love microplastics. That's why I keep them in a special place within my heart.”
― Anthony T. Hincks

“Our food chain is broken, and our bodies are telling the story.”
― Calina Aliman-Dorneanu, SUPPLEMENTS: Symptom of a Broken Food Chain