The Guardian asked me to weigh in on the Whole Foods Boycott that has been circulating the interwebs. Please go check out the op-ed I wrote for them (and I can’t take credit for the “rotten core” line - that was the editors, not me).

Mostly, I try to argue the following:

1. Whole Food consumers have a right to take issue with the company because:
   1. Whole Foods actively courts progressives, and portray themselves as progressive to their customers
   2. customers put up with, and often defend, Whole Foods’ higher prices because many believe that they are making ethically conscious purchases by frequenting Whole Foods stores;
   3. it is well known that their lefty clientele commonly see the health care debate in ethical terms
2. Mackey only has the bully pulpit he has because of the success of his company, therefore it is reasonable to take into account issues he advocates for when shopping at Whole Foods
3. Therefore the Whole Foods statement on Mackey’s stance is not reflective of Whole Foods positions falls flat with the concerns of their customers and will be construed a non-apology
4. This dust up doubly hurts the Whole Foods image because it also brings up Whole Foods anti-union practices, practices that up until this point were not widely reported on.  This can lead to a “Whole Foods is no better than Wal Mart” argument by detractors

I’m currently watching Jill, Dave, Emily, and Eddie on the food panel at Netroots Nation.

Care2 has partnered with LocalHarvest.org to ask America which Farmers Market they love best.  All summer, Farmers Market fans are encouraged to vote for their favorite Farmers Market.  The top vote-getter will receive a $5,000 grant. Not a bad way to support your local Farmers Market with the click of a button.

In many ways, the Farmers Market is the front line of the food movement - its where many people learn to reconnect with their food.  It’s great that Care2 - an organization with 10 million members gets it:

“This is the best time to support America’s farmers markets,” said Randy Paynter, president and founder of Care2.com. “More and more Americans are taking an interest in local foods, sustainable farming and healthy eating. Care2 is proud to reward the farmers markets that our members love, and to grow the local food movement, one vote at a time.”

“People across the country are rediscovering the benefits of local food,” said Erin Barnett, Director of LocalHarvest.org. “Not only is the food at your farmers market fresher, tastier, and better for the environment, it’s also good for your local economy. By supporting farmers markets, we support family
farmers and help them stay in business.”

My folks were slightly too young to take part in the historic protests of the 60s. My mom was barely 15 at the time of Woodstock, and my dad was just forging his way as a southern hippy as a freshman at University of Tennessee. Still they had great clothes and even more inspiring hair (can you say fu manchu?) but they definitely missed out on the sit ins and sleep ins that marked that time.

In general I am not a big fan of those tactics.  They are of a bygone era, where closing down of a student union actually got some column space.  As the Iraq War protest taught us, marches on Washington no longer carry the same type of media coverage that it used to.  That being said, this kind of protest just seems like a lot of fun, media impact be damned.

An Eat-In is a potluck that takes place in public and gathers people to support a cause - like getting real food into schools.

On Labor Day, Sept. 7, 2009, people in communities all over the country will sit down to share a meal with their neighbors and kids. This National Eat-In will send a clear message to Congress: It’s time to provide America’s children with real food at school.

Are you eating in?

A highly controversial tactic is being employed by Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine in the nation’s capital this week.  PCRM is the advocacy arm of the Good Medicine quarterly magazine. They have a heavy focus on preventative medicine such as funding research on things like diabetes and cancer and advocate for better nutritional information and healthier school lunches. It’s that last mission that has put PCRM front and center in the question of good taste and even ethics.

PCRM has launched a metro ad campaign in Washington featuring 8-year old Jasmine of Florida asking “President Obama’s Daughters get healthy school lunches.  Why don’t I?”

Yes, Sasha and Malia eat very well.  They go to a wonderful private school that serves items like organic strawberries and roasted local squash.  We should hope that every child in the country gets meals like theirs, and we should aspire to that lofty goal, but those meals are not designed by the Obamas.

Jasmine has also written a letter to Sasha and Malia asking them to join her campaign. Advocacy organizations run these kind of campaigns all the time - run ads in places where lawmakers will see them, have cute little girls write hand written letters to their congressman, etc.  But their target usually is adult elected officials.  Not little girls.  Especially this young.  Sasha is the youngest resident of the White House since JFK Jr. in 1961.

Sasha and Malia are celebrity daughters, just in the way that Jolie-Pitt brood are.  It is expected that some public photos will be made available and that with their parents they may make public appearances.  This is completely different than pressuring small children about policy crafted by their parents.  That is what this campaign amounts to.

Who knows if Mrs. Obama will allow Jasmine’s letter to be passed onto her daughters.  Now that the Politico and Fox News has picked up the story, it may become hard to ignore.  While this will not take an emotional toll on the girls like when People put Chelsea on the front page during Clinton’s Monica-gate, it is by no means right to put two small children in the middle of a policy argument.

It can only be assumed that this ad was meant to provoke a response from the White House.  Something tells me that the response may not be the one PCRM was looking for, and one that the food movement would want to be associated with.

Michael Pollan makes the interesting case that if we really want true change in our food system, we need to pit Big Healthcare against Big Ag. It’s a compelling argument.  Wonder what Monsanto and Cargill will do when they find themselves toe-to-toe with Aetna and Blue Cross Blue Shield.

Several national food advocacy groups kicked off a call for a floor price to be set on dairy. Food and Water Watch asked members to call on Agriculture Secretary Vilsack to raise the price on dairy, while Food Democracy Now asked their members to send him an electronic fax, calling for a floor price of $17.50 cwt. (CWT stands for centum weight - wholesale milk is sold in 100 lbs increments) The floor price is much needed due to the uncompetitive market dairies sell to:

Increasingly, dairy farmers are at the mercy of these giants, such as the Dairy Farmers of America, the country’s largest dairy “cooperative” which controls 40% of US milk production. Last year, the DFA was fined $12 million for price fixing by the US government and has also been implicated in the recent massive increase in imported milk products.

Already banks across the country are cutting off farmers’ access to credit and at least two dairy farmers have committed suicide in California. The latest estimates are that the crash in domestic prices might lead to the loss of up to 30 percent of the remaining dairy farmers by the end of this year — as many as 20,000 family dairy farmers could be off the land by the end of this year.

Additionally, the National Family Farms Coalition, Farm Aid, and Iowa Farmers Union held a rally in Iowa last Saturday to call attention to the plight of dairy farmers across the country.

Farm Aid circulated a petition to Secretary Vilsack to institute an emergency floor price of $18. Currently, farmers are receiving $8-10 per hundredweight for their milk, below 1970s prices. Other speakers exposed the corruption in the industry and the changes needed to give farmers a fair price for their milk. “Dairy farmers are among the hardest workers I know,” said Farm Aid board member Willie Nelson. “This rally was for a fair price for farmers and local milk for all of us. It’s about the little guy, not the big guy; the family farm, not the factory farm; consumers and farmers together, not corporate greed.”

Arden Tewksbury, a Pennsylvania dairy farmer and manager of Progressive Agriculture, spoke at the rally about S. 889, the Federal Milk Marketing Improvement Act of 2009, introduced by Senators Bob Casey and Arlen Specter to factor in farmers’ cost of production in the milk pricing system. Tewksbury said, “It was a very rewarding experience driving 14 hours to Iowa to get Midwest farmers to support our bill. I asked the dairy farmers in Iowa if they were tired of their milk prices and if they wanted a new milk pricing formula that covered their cost of production and they responded with a booming ‘Yes!’ to both questions.”

Everyone is mobilizing on this. Now its time to see if its enough to push our politicians out from under the thumb of DFA and the rest of Big Dairy.

The most amusing mouth piece of Big Ag that I have found so far has to be Steve Kopperud of the Brownfield Network.  Steve has quite the industrial resume, boasting:

Prior to joining Policy Directions Inc. , Steve was senior vice president of the American Feed Industry Association (AFIA) for more than 18 years, where he headed state and federal government affairs programs, and was treasurer of the Feed Industry Political Action Committee (FIPAC). Steve is also former president of the Animal Industry Foundation (AIF), and chairs the Farm Animal Welfare Coalition (FAWC).

Steve spends a good deal of his time taking on dastardly evil entities like the Humane Society.  I’d like to link, but it seems that Steve’s tech team haven’t figure out what permalinks are for.  Check out this five alarm fire he is trying to build:

And let me repeat a warning and some advice: Do not think this war can be won with only science and statistics. Both of these weapons are critically important, but the key to this is the emotional side of this war. Everyone out there must be reminded it’s real live people who raise the animals, care for them, and provide the food consumer buy. There is a price we will all pay if animal rightists are successful, not only when it comes to the cost, availability and safety of food – and these costs are significant – but there’s the human cost in the number of farm families who leave the land because they can’t afford to farm the way their grandfathers farmed.

And a very contemporary reminder: Just this week, the governor of Maine signed a bill banning the use of farrowing stalls and laying hen cages. No fireworks, no expensive referendum. Just an unanswered challenge.

This week, Steve goes after (shocker) PETA.  It is not completely clear what for, as he doesn’t link to any news reports or cite specific examples.  Just the vague charge:

In the food chain, the animal rights movement has identified our “weak link,” and that would be the retailer.

Understand, this is not a criticism of retailers when it comes to activist attacks. When you step back and consider the food chain — from farm to fork — it’s the retailer who is the most vulnerable to the expertise of the animal rights gang when it comes to generating negative press that sways the fickle consumer.

So I went over to PETA’s site to see if there was any recent press releases attacking the local Piggly Wiggly or HyVee. The only release I could find in the past coupleof weeks was one trumpeting that “After learning from PETA that baby chimpanzees and orangutans who are used in advertising are routinely removed from their mothers and abused in behind-the-scenes training sessions, Matthews, N.C.-based grocery chain Harris Teeter has pledged never again to use great apes in its ads”.  I really don’t know how the supermarket chain will ever survive after that concession.  These PETA monsters must be stopped!

PETA’s effectiveness is questionable, and they lean way too heavily on naked people, particularly naked celebrities to make their point.  Their current campaign trying to lead a boycott against Canadian maple syrup to protest the baby seal clubbing is a somewhat odd tactic to say the least, ie should Maple Syrup producers have to bear the PR brunt for a practice that is at the very least somewhat nauseating.

PETA can be heavy handed and in your face.  But they are not the face of the food movement.  However, people like Steve Kupperud really, really want PETA to be the bad guy.  Like the right’s obsession with Ward Churchill, the unknown left wing professor who some detestable things, Big Ag is looking for someone who does some questionable things that they can elevate and use as a foil to paint the rest of the food movement as a bunch of crazies.  It’s BS, and I’m calling you on it Mr. Kupperud.

This post was originally published on CrooksAndLiars.com.

Are you movement?

I know many of us here consider ourselves to be part of the progressive movement. And for those of us who have been around for a while, we remember how lonely and uncertain it was. There was nothing but uphill battles to be fought against political Goliaths who had industry and riches behind them. And there was no way a rag tag bunch of outsiders armed with nothing but a little online savvy and a lot of righteous outrage was going to take on the system. But we proved everyone wrong, and while the fight is not over (universal healthcare) and there is still work to be done (public financing), no one can say that the progressive movement isn’t a force to be reckoned with.

Now there are some new kids in town. Like the progressive movement, they have huge, fearsome opponents with an endless supply of funds. Like the early years of the progressive movement, no one is taking these new comers seriously yet. Like the progressive movement they are up against unbelievable odds. Yet their cause is true and right and they cannot fail.

They are the food movement.

The food movement encompasses an extensive battlefield covering everything from energy independence to salmonella outbreaks to equitable trade policies to caring for the neediest among us here and abroad. Their opponent is Big Food, with more resources than Big Oil and lessons learned from Big Tobacco. They are masters of manipulation and keepers of Congress, and for decades they have run amok unchallenged. But the status quo is changing. Organics are no longer the realm of the DFHs. Americans are asking why there is recall after recall. Food prices sky rocketed last year. Obesity exploded in the last decade. There is something very, very wrong about what we eat and how we eat it.

As for me, I became interested in food policy after learning about soil depletion and how it is leaving our produce with fewer and fewer nutrients. That’s right - even if you’re eating your carrots and apples, you STILL may not be getting your daily allowance of vitamins. And the kick in the shins? Those dietary requirements are written by food lobbyists who are motivated only by their bottom line. So who really knows anymore? That’s what the food movement is all about - giving people the access and information to start making food choices for themselves instead of Madison Avenue telling us all what to eat.

The food movement has some good starts. Books by people like Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser, and Mark Bittman are national best sellers. Movies like Supersize Me, Fast Food Nation, Food Inc and the upcoming Fresh are bringing the issues to the masses. Me? Along with several other fab food policy bloggers (check out my blogroll for some great suggestions) I’m doing my part to bring food policy into the realm of food consumers with GastroNomalies.com. GastroNomalies isn’t for the wonks – it’s for the rest of us who are just trying to figure this food stuff out and have a lot of fun doing it. Because food is FUN and if it stops being fun, then what are we all doing this for?

The food movement shares many common values and several common goals with the progressive movement. The two are natural allies. So stop on by.

www.GastroNomalies.com

Yesterday, the Center for American Progress hosted a discussion with Mark Bittman, of How to Cook Everything fame, and Jose Andres, possibly to top chef in DC and owner of Cafe Atlantico.  On the menu?  A conversation about the two foodies new books, Bittman’s Food Matters and Andres’ Made in Spain.  And lunch!

Lunch was catered from Jaleo, another of Andres’ restaurants.  Jaleo is fantastic - the mint and strawberry sangria is closest thing to nectar from the gods as far as I’m concerned.  Unfortunately, the lunch wasn’t quite on that level.  To be fair - mass producing 200 or so boxed lunches is never a pretty endeavor, but can you blame us for high expectations?  The tin in the center contained white asparagus with a cream sauce, a few crushed hazelnuts and a drizzle of olive oil.  The cheeses were Spanish in origin - I’m believe one was a manchego, but nothing to write home about.  Two olives stuffed with pepper and anchioves were pretty good.  And you can’t go wrong with a little prosciutto tossed in on the side.  But the unknown goop that could be found in the lower left corner was a little terrifying.  It seemed to be a mixture of egg salad and mixed vegetables that you would find in a frozen bag.  Not recommended for the feint of heart.  At least the conversation was much better than the food.

There were two major themes of the discussion.  In line with his new book, Bittman was proposing that in order to get Americans healthy again we need to rethink the American diet, move away from the massive amounts of meat and towards vegetable and whole grains.  He was very clear that he was not advocating a vegetarian diet, he was recommending eating less meat, not eliminating it completely.  Numerous times he went back to the statistic that Americans consume 10 billion with a ‘B’ animals a year in this country, and if we can cut back to 9 billion, this would be a huge improvement, not just in people’s waistlines, but also a massive reduction in greenhouse gasses. As he says, “The individual impact is tiny, but the collective impact can be great”.

Most notable was Bittman’s repeated return to the central question, what are the food options for the lower and middle class.  Multiple times, he waved off buzz words like ‘organic’ and ‘local’. As he put it, “The first choice is between the buger and the apple or rice and beans, not McDonald’s and the local and/or organic burger.” This is a huge step forward for the food movement, in that a major icon is strongly and persuasively taking on the food police criticisms that have often been leveled at the food movement. Andres backed this up, declaring, “anything we do must be inclusive” and “this isn’t socialism, this is just common sense”.  Bittman also pointed to the larger food justice question, asking “what about neighborhoods where you can more easily buy cheetos than carrots?”

For his part, Andres was adamant about getting chefs involved in making food policy.  He makes the point that chefs need a seat at the decision making table.  His activism is great to see, hopefully he will become an example for other chefs to follow and encourages chefs across the country to get involved.  Like high fashion influencing the clothes that end up in Target, high end chefs have huge influence in trends we eventually see in fast foods restaurants and packaged frozen dinners. Chefs have the potential to be key partners in advocating for improvements in the American diet.

You can check out the entire discussion on the Center for American Progress’s website.

Laura Shapiro makes the case for Alice Waters in Gourmet this week.  It’s a little sappy, a little sweet, and hits certain chords.  Waters has become a lighting rod of sorts in the food wars, most of it is overblown, but whether the firestorm is manufactured or hyperbole, as with most things, there are a few nuggets of truth. The piece doesn’t really add much of anything new, but a few of the commenters home in on the underlying issue that Water’s critics have with her:

I don’t quite understand what is sustainable (or responsible) about having 6 children with an annual income of $22,000. Quadruple this annual income and it is irresponsible in a world that is already overpopulated. Though, just like Alice Waters, I’m sure people will have a problem with the above statements as even though it’s true, people don’t like to be told how to live, even when it is detrimental to society which includes themselves.

Posted 5/8/2009,12:38:31am by rjm1987 (more…)

The Green Fork celebrates their first anniversary today, and to commemorate they have surveyed several policy foodies on their thoughts. They ask:

It’s also been a big year for the larger food movement.  To recap, we’ve tapped some of our favorite foodie writers, bloggers, activists and advocates to answer this question:

What is one of the most powerful things you’ve seen and/or learned over the last year? And what is one thing you’d like to see happen over the next year?

My personal favorite was Eating Liberally’s Kerry Trueman’s response:

Kerry Trueman of Eating Liberally: Oh, geez. I thought this was gonna be easy until I started to think of all the great things that happened over the past year: the resounding success of Roger Doiron’s Eat The View campaign to get a kitchen garden established at the White House; the MacArthur Foundation awarding Growing Power’s Will Allen a much-deserved “genius” grant; the support that the Coalition of Immokalee Workers has received in their struggle to improve conditions for our farm workers; the passage of Proposition 2 in California thanks to the tireless efforts of our friends at the Humane Society; the extraordinary and ever-growing influence of Michael Pollan, who’s got Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer talking about food sheds and urban ag; and Slow Food USA’s shockingly savvy decision to make Josh Viertel its new president.

The most powerful thing may be that folks like Pollan and Viertel have actually been granted access to our new administration, giving us an opportunity, at long last, to loosen the stranglehold of Big Ag and Big Food on our agricultural policies.

According to Pollan and Viertel, President Obama is receptive to the sustainable ag agenda, but demanding evidence that we are, indeed, a real force to be reckoned with. “Show me the movement,” he’s reportedly saying.

Happy Birthday Green Fork!

The NYT Business section has a huge sprawling piece on food activism today. It covers the gamut of issues from school lunches to sodium consumption to food safety. I’m not going to attempt to rehash all of it right now, but in the midsection of the article, I think the author gets to the heart of what food policy advocates must grapple with:

Nancy M. Childs, a professor of food marketing at St. Joseph