Michael Pollan was making his case for food as a national security issue Monday on Fresh Air. Terry Gross asked him about Obama being mocked for liking arugula instead of iceberg lettuce. Pollan said he would have advised him not to talk about it:
Dukakis did the same thing. He talked about endive in Iowa, and these…candidates get to Iowa, and the farmers are complaining about their low crop prices, and the [candidates talk] about specialty crops that get really good prices.
But you know, it is not realistic to think that Iowa’s going to be growing endive or arugula. I think it’s a bum wrap. Arugula is a perfectly good green… It’s been grown on American farms for many, many years, but it got this kind of high tone, fancy-chef marketing treatment about 20 years ago that completely ruined its image. Look, there is a real issue of perception of elitism, and it’s one of the ironies of our society that junk food being sold by multinational corporations like McDonalds, and Kraft, and whoever else, appears to be populist, and food grown by struggling, scrupulous farmers is regarded as elitist, and I think that there’s something wrong with this picture, that those agribusiness companies have seized the populist high ground.
When you look at how that supposedly cheap, populous food is produced, it’s depending on government handouts. It is dependent on brutalizing of workers, and brutalizing of animals, and it suddenly appears in a very, very different light. I think though that this movement to reform the food system is – it’s mistaken to think, it’s a left or liberal movement. There is a ground swell on the right also. There are many, many people who are trying to take back control of their family dinner from the fast-food companies. There are evangelicals who are very interested in this food movement. And that you can understand it, I mean, restore – you know, what is a more traditional value than sitting down to a dinner with your family, and not going to McDonald’s? I mean, this is the culinary equivalent of home schooling.
Pollan makes clear that his Dear Mr. President-Elect letter was aimed at both McCain and Obama. He went on to say that the era of cheap food is over:
I think it is a challenging time to be talking about these kind of issues. But these issues are not driven by my desires. These issues are driven by the fact that the era of cheap food is over. It’s over, because of high energy prices, and it probably won’t come back.
So we are going to have to rethink the whole food system. You know, Americans spend less on food than any people on the planet, less than 10 percent of their disposable income goes to food. To give you an example in a place with equal or higher standards of living, like Europe, people spend 15 to 18 percent of their income on food.
So, we are going to be spending more money, and for some people, it’s really just about readjusting their priorities, and realizing, well, I’m going to put more money into better quality food, and less money into health care, into, you know, telephone bills, TV bills, all this kind of stuff that we do spend the money were saving on food on.
So, I do think that we’re going to have to dig down on our pockets a little deeper. For people who can’t do that though, and there are probably 20 to 30 million people in this country who can’t afford to spend another nickel on food, we have to look at food assistance programs. We have to make good local food more accessible. We need programs that give you vouchers that you can spend in farmer’s market specifically. We need to teach people how to cook, because if you cook – I mean, to have healthier food, you either have to invest more money or more time.
And some people who can’t afford to invest more money could invest more time, and what I mean by that is cooking the food yourself, spending a Sunday making three or four meals for the week. You know, once again, learning the traditional talents of the kitchen, which in the old days got, you know, three or four meals out of one chicken, rather than just buying chicken breasts, you know, and getting one meal out of it.