Are Foodies Promoting a 'Dangerous Strategy?'

I just read a fairly disturbing op-ed in the Chicago Tribune, even though it’s barely labeled as such online.

The column, “Gourmet activists: Food for thought,” is an apparent rebuttal of the fairly impressive grass-roots effort to get President Obama to name a White House Farmer, plant an organic garden on the White House lawn or otherwise make local, sustainable food systems a priority.

The author, David Martosko, isn’t identified in the piece. But he’s director of research for the Center for Consumer Freedom, which appears to primarily be an answer to so-called snobby foodies and granola-do-gooders. [The group also has gone on a major offensive to counter reports of high mercury levels in fish. No. 1 on its fearmonger list is the Chicago Tribune.]

He broadly paints all those who are pushing for local, sustainable food with the same elitist brush. Martosko condemns all of us, namely Michael Pollen and Alice Waters, for wanting to know where our food comes from.

Here’s my favorite part:

Pollan, Waters and others may be happy to pay $7 for organic milk. That’s their right, of course. But asking the White House to lead a revolution against ‘cheap food’ is a dangerous strategy when so many Americans are struggling to feed their families.

This is hardly, to me, a revolution against cheap food. I’m all for affordable, healthy food and supporting our rural economies.

How is this is a “dangerous strategy.”