Hey, it's I'm Pierre's book of the day. I'm Andrew Limbong. I used to wake up to a big bowl of

cocoa puffs drowning in whole milk, and before bed my parents made sure I drank down another big

glass of whole milk. Milk was a big part of my life growing up, and I'd wager to guess yours, too.

And this wasn't an accident. The promotion of milk

as a healthy drink was a choice made by the government and enacted through policy. And there

are tons of examples about how the food we eat is influenced by these sorts of policy decisions.

This is the topic of Andrea Freeman's book, Ruin Their Crops on the

Ground. It's a history of the American government's relationship to food and how it changed

our diet. And in this interview with NPR's Aisha Roscoe, Freeman talks about how food can be a delicious

source of happiness and warmth, but also a tool for control. That's ahead.

Food is a basis for human life, happiness, and freedom. Also oppression, according to

Andrea Freeman, professor at Southwestern Law School. The U.S. government, even before this

became the United States, has used food to subordinate people for political and economic means.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, for instance, settlers in the U.S. government slaughtered bison in order to contain and control indigenous people.

When farming failed to catch on, the government handed out food rations.

Freeman says these rations were largely unhealthy, similar to the commodity boxes of highly

processed foods that native communities are given today.

Her new book is titled, Ruin Their Crops on the Ground,

the Politics of Food in the United States, from the Trail of Tears to School Lunch.

The title, Ruin Their Crops on the Ground, comes from George Washington, who commanded,

this is the deliberate policy that we are going to enact and that indigenous people starve,

die, disappear. So rations have become this program that still makes indigenous people sick and have

...