Food For Thought: A Different View

"Meanwhile, Professor Pollan, eat all the "plants" you like -- but don't try to pry me from my Haagan-Dazs dark chocolate ice cream. I bought it at Safeway, and it's sitting on my IKEA kitchen table."

... so states Charlotte Allen in her Los Angeles Times OpEd that was published in Sunday's paper.

Here's the link to the entire opinion piece:

Keep your self-righteous fingers off my processed food

Truthfully I feel conflicted about Ms. Allen's piece, an opinion piece that critically evaluates a new book by Ellen Ruppel Shell. Shell's book "Cheap" (which I have not read, or actually even heard of until today) explores America's constant pursuit of the cheap commodity and the damages it causes to our society and environment.

Anyway, the piece is critical of the sustainable/local food movements and how these movements to some degree take for granted the availability of inexpensive food and commodities . I must say I do appreciate the availability of choice in our marketplace today (including my much loved and appreciated IKEA bookshelf and my closet full of Target and H&M wardrobe pieces) and though I can't say I fully agree with Charlotte Allen's point of view, I do think that it is a great way to continue the conversation about the way in which the sustainable/local/green food and commodity movement must learn to move beyond white middle and upper class America in order to be successful.