Poison and Meat

This chapter examines the role of holiday food programmes in Birmingham and its relationship to modes of distribution across charities, welfare states and the food sector. Access to healthy food, alongside potable water and suitable shelter is central to human life on the planet and yet, even where societies have addressed problems of deadly disease in the form of the distribution of vaccines, access to healthy food is often limited and scarce. Drawing on doctoral research undertaken by Karolina Biernat, this chapter argues that while the moral intentions of holiday food programmes are noteworthy, the idea that food waste can be distributed ethically carries a range of contradictions and paradoxes, such as food that is unsuitable for cooking; not cogent with cultural considerations or in danger of expiration. These quandaries are in keeping with wider notions of Cold War thinking, where improvements in techniques and technologies of distribution ultimately lead to unintended consequences. These have been unsurprisingly and manifestly increased by the effects of public health responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. In conclusion, with reference to Serres, Bataille and Mauss, it is found that the gift of food giving is paralleled by a desire for food to remain immobile in its distribution as its wealth – and subsequent destruction – is derived from its place of origin. For the right food to reach the right people at the right time, the culture of and in food must change to address to the needs of those in poverty rather than those who derive status from its immobility.