Today's notes on national stories, local trends, random tastes, and other bycatch dredged up from the food media.
This name-calling is a form of misdirection, an attempt to evade a serious debate about U.S. agricultural policies. And it gets the elitism charge precisely backward. America's current system of food production ― overly centralized and industrialized, overly controlled by a handful of companies, overly reliant on monocultures, pesticides, chemical fertilizers, chemical additives, genetically modified organisms, factory farms, government subsidies and fossil fuels ― is profoundly undemocratic.
While Schlosser points out a few new details to make the blood boil ("The wages of some migrants, adjusted for inflation, have dropped by more than 50 percent since the late 1970s"), I found the essay unsatisfying. It's yet another sermon pitched to the converted ― one more recitation of the sins of the world, one more call for personal salvation. It may help the believers feel justified, but in terms of converting the nonbelievers, it's not much more effective than testifying in front of BART with a microphone and an amp.
As moved as I am by the sense of moral urgency that characterizes the sustainable food movement, the limits of its appeal are becoming more and more apparent as the backlash intensifies. Sure, I'm 100 percent with Schlosser ― it isn't elitist to recognize how screwed up the food system is and want to change it. But I do think it's elitist to assume that if you convince everyone to feel the same righteous anger you do that the "uninformed" will join you in the good fight.
Shopping only at farmers' markets and eating only at restaurants with
the right sourcing policies isn't going to change America's food system. Changing people's eating patterns will require major changes to USDA farm subsidies ― one of the movement's core tenets ― as well as things that are
aesthetically, even a little ethically, squiffy to true believers: Making it more lucrative for large commercial farms to grow good food so chains like Walmart, Walgreens, and Sam's Club stock it. Putting baby carrots in Doritos packaging and re-engineering convenience foods. Persuading chains like Applebee's and T.G.I. Friday's that it's profitable to buy better produce, put less meat on the plate, and serve smaller portions. Being a non-elitist foodie means reaching people (and corporations) where they are. It's going to take creativity, not righteous anger, to combat the "elitist" charge.
