There is an absolutely fabulous story in today’s “NY Times” called Is a Food Revolution Now in Season? There is also a great story on the new White House vegetable, fruit and herb garden from Thursday by the veteran food reporter, Marian Burros, and a “Room for Debate” page on it. Check out the “Week in Review” too for Eating Food That’s Better for You, Organic or Not by the super genius food thinker and writer, Mark Bittman.
That the Obamas are embracing whole foods is a huge boon in several areas: for nutrition, for education, for the environment and for the economy. That it is manifestly just plain good sense to eat better and to live more lightly on the earth is what the First Lady is demonstrating. The power of common sense and ecological reckoning is also very much at the heart of the NYT story on the “Food Revolution.” That the Dept. of Agriculture is being led by Tom Vilsack and Kathleen Merrigan, that writers with as powerful a message as Marion Nestle, Michael Pollan, and Eric Schlosser are being heard on The Hill, that legislators as progressive as Tom Harkin may now see much more of their program advanced – these are all startling, hopeful developments.
The environmental dimensions of the misguided policy of the corn ethanol boondoggle, the nightmare of our addiction to industrialized nitrogen fertilizer, and the greenhouse gas burden of our factory farms have been discussed at the blog.
I love that Tom Vilsack said in the “Food Revolution” article that he’d starting thinking about eating better when his first grandchild was on the way. The other perspective is that his grandchild will need a healthy planet on which to live and to get to know his grandchildren. That’s a lot of what sustainable agriculture is also about.
