President Obama's got an awful lot on his plate. Sadly, it's all lousy leftovers from the previous administration: rotten bailouts, curdled wars, moldy policies. Is there any room for grass-fed, grassroots-led reform?
The eat-better-brigade's hoping our new Commander in Chief will be "the prize delivery guy...delivering fresh, steaming change in 30 minutes or less" as Raj Patel put it in a speech last Friday at the Farming For The Future conference in Pennsylvania. Patel bemoaned the monocrop monarchy that rules from our school cafeterias to our diners and dining rooms. He ended with the rousing declaration that we are "not consumers of democracy, we are its proprietors."
Who's minding the store, though? Will Obama even attempt to emancipate eaters from the military industrial complex cabal that helped Big Ag give small farms the boot? Our government's policies have played a scandalously large role in exiling wholesome, unprocessed, uncontaminated foods to the fringes of our culture.
The "Chewable Pampers" commercial on Saturday Night Live last weekend was pretty hilarious, turning brown to green with an eco-friendly edible diaper that comes in three different flavors: "tangy cheddar, spicy lentil, and corn chowder." Gag me with a biodegradable bamboo spoon.
OK, so it was funny--but how farfetched, really? Thanks to our tanking economy, folks are eating crap en masse. Who knew that a pyramid scheme would generate its own food pyramid? Frank Rich took a peek at the ponzi'd-out pantry in his Sunday op-ed in the New York Times:
What are Americans still buying? Big Macs, Campbell's soup, Hershey's chocolate and Spam - the four food groups of the apocalypse.
