Notes from Fresh Air

There have been a million things I have meant to blog about in the past couple of months, particularly with the uproarious outrage of McCain’s naming of Palin as his running mate and Obama being pushed to the brink of changing his middle name to Steve.  But instead – I have just finished eating some dinner and found myself taking notes on Terry Gross’ conversation with Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food and The Omnivore’s Dilemma.

Last week, in the October 12, 2008 issue of the New York Times Magazine, Michael Pollan’s letter titled Farmer in Chief was published.  I haven’t read the whole article yet, but during the episode of Fresh Air, they covered many of his recommendations and suggestions for the President-elect regarding agricultural and food policy.  Here are my notes.

• How do we define food?  Food subsidies are given to a portion of the population, and although it seems sanctimonious to define how it can be spent there is already a restriction on buying alcohol, but red wine is arguably more nutritious than soda.  Why don’t we redefine food to restrict empty calories, too, including those based on corn and soy?
• Forgive culinary school federal loans if graduates spend 2 years making food and teaching in schools.
• White House garden!! Set an example!  Carbon footprint of pesticides and fertilizers used on White House lawn create a large carbon footprint.  We need a farmer in chief!  Use ~5 out of the 17 acres.  Harvest should go toward local food banks.
• Redefine animal lots as factories or cities rather than farms. Farms are subject to lax restrictions, unlike treatment of factory or city waste.
• Agricultural policy must change by making produce and healthy calories more competitive than the currently subsidized empty calories (e.g. high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated soybean oil).
• Agribusiness has seized the populous high ground = subsidy, brutalizing of workers and animals; good healthy produce, produced through hard labor, is viewed as elitist; this needs to change.
• There are evangelicals interested in a new food movement, working to own dinner again. It’s not just a leftist issue.
• We are producing sustainable salmon in Alaska, shipping to China to be fileed, then shipped back to the US. Same with chicken from California.  Shipping by boat is cheap, and labor so much cheaper in China than California, that financially it’s been worth it to use up the fossil fuels. But not for much longer.