Ruin Their Crops on the Ground: The Politics of Food in the United States, from the Trail of Tears to School Lunch

By Andrea Freeman. A history of the use of food in U.S. law and politics as a weapon of conquest and control. The title is from George Washington order to his troops to “ruin their crops now in the ground and prevent their planting more” to subjugate Indigenous nations. From frybread to government cheese, draws on over fifteen years of research to argue that U.S. food law and policy have created and maintained racial and social inequality. Narrates an account that moves from colonization to slavery to the Americanization of immigrant food culture, to the commodities supplied to Native reservations, to milk as a symbol of white supremacy. Traces the long-standing alliance between the government and food industries that have produced gaping racial health disparities, and shows how these practices continue to this day, through the marketing of unhealthy goods that target marginalized communities, causing diabetes, high blood pressure, and premature death. Read more.