If integrating a school garden into curriculum can help teach kids subject matter better and get them to eat healthier, then I’m all for it. Likewise, I think improving school lunches and making them healthier are something worth spending money on. People like TV chef Jaime Oliver and school garden maven Alice Waters who are working to push these issues into mainstream deserve praise. Unfortunately, it seems that these genuinely useful policies and programs are being bogged down with wasteful progressive ideas.
Case in point is this paragraph from a recent Atlantic piece on Alice Waters:
…Waters recruited chef Ann Cooper (a.k.a. the Renegade Lunch Lady) to revamp what was on the school lunch menus in Berkeley, which then reflected typical school-lunch fare. As Director of Nutrition Services, Cooper banned processed foods and started making everything from scratch. She sought local produce, dairy, and bread, and, as much as possible, organic foods, too.
The first problem here is teaching kids to spend any time or money on organic foods, or spending public funds on such things. This may be good for the earth, but as several comprehensive literature reviews have shown, organic foods aren’t any healthier. Here’s liberal wonk and foodie Ezra Klein summing up the evidence:
The most recent data on this come from a massive literature review commissioned by Britain’s Food Safety Agency (their version of our FDA, essentially) and conducted by Britain’s London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. They concluded that a “systematic review of literature over 50 years finds no evidence for superior nutritional content of organic produce.”
Local is useful so long as it means more fresh, as fresh foods deliver more nutrition than frozen. But local for the sake of local is the kind of thing you worry about when you’ve got time and money to spend on luxuries; it’s not an important value to instill in kids, and especially not poor kids.
Waters and her organization are touting a new study showing that school gardens get kids to eat more vegetables. This isn’t surprising, but how much does it impact their lives once they graduate? Are future blue collar workers really going to take the time to grow themselves vegetable gardens in window boxes outside their apartments? A lot of working people, like Megan McArdle and Matt Yglesias, frequently don’t have time for fresh vegetables. Like Matt, many people have to teach themselves late in life how to make quick delicious snacks out of frozen vegetables. This would be a much more valuable lesson for poor kids then how to select the freshest kale at your local organic farmers market, or even more ridiculously, how to grow your own.
From every description of these programs I’ve read they have an obsession with local, fresh, organic, and growing your own food. The obsession should be on quick, easy, delicious, and inexpensive. These sets of descriptors are damn near antonyms.
If you can get kids to eat and prefer frozen vegetables then you’ve got a sustainable improvement in diet and nutrition. If you get them to like fresh organic vegetables they’ve grown in the garden or bought at the farmers market, then you’ve temporarily instilled in them the tastes of upper middle class people with enough time and money on their hands for such luxuries.
If people like Alice Waters and Jaime Oliver want wider support for heathy schools movements they need to purge them of the wasteful upper-class liberal obsession over local, fresh, and organic foods, and instead focus them on practical and sustainable lessons like how to prepare frozen vegetables cheaply, quickly, and deliciously.
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Thursday ~ September 30th, 2010 at 2:14 pm
Dan
A minor quibble, but the arguments for health benefits of organics that I’ve heard mostly revolve around pesticide residues on non-organic foods, something the study you cite doesn’t look at for whatever reason.
I think what folks behind these kinds of programs are trying to change is precisely the amount of resources (both time and money-wise) that people are willing to allocate towards improving their diet. The thesis is that 1) the quality of our diet has a drastically underestimated long term impact on our health; and 2) the benefits of eating local/fresh/organic etc food justify the costs involved, to the extent that even low income people should forego other consumption to do so.
Whether this is true or not is largely an empirical question (that I unfortunately haven’t looked into enough), so the arguments you made above wouldn’t sway supporters of these programs… They are trying to get people to spend more time and money on their diet.
Thursday ~ September 30th, 2010 at 6:11 pm
Robert Waldmann
I can’t say how strongly I agree with this post. The mixture of nutritional, aesthetic and ideological beliefs about food is very costly.
To Dan. The empirical question has been studied at immense length. The absense of solid evidence of any advantage of organically grown food is, by now, very telling. I might add that this includes evidence that pesticide residues are a health problem.
The argument that people should spend a lot of time on (allegedly) healthier food is the argument that the best should be the enemy of the good and that the concept of efficiency has no place in public spirited efforts.
Thursday ~ September 30th, 2010 at 8:32 pm
Adam Ozimek
Thanks Robert. The biggest shame of it is that I think a healthier school food movement could get a lot of bipartisan support, but the liberal ideological baggage that I’m sure helped sell it in Berkley California will prevent it from being sold around the country.
Dan, I agree with Robert.
Thursday ~ September 30th, 2010 at 11:10 pm
Matt
Amen to this. Ann Cooper has come to Boulder to pull the same sort of stunt with the schools here, with predictable results. Her whole program is too expensive so, even with substantial donations from some wealthier members of the community, they are reduced to haranguing the parents to get more kids to eat the ‘healthy’ school lunches. Unfortunately, the food is very bland and (somewhat surprisingly) is not well prepared, and the kids know it. (And of course, since they’ve banned frozen veggies, usually the only vegetable comes from the slowly mouldering salad bar.) If they had been less obsessed with the whole local and organic food thing, they might have succeeded with making truly healthier lunches that would be appetizing enough for the kids to eat.
Friday ~ October 1st, 2010 at 10:46 am
ly
Mmm, lots of excellent critiques of this argument in the comments section on kevin drum’s blog. pretty much rips this post to shreds, i must say.
Friday ~ October 1st, 2010 at 12:57 pm
Adam Ozimek
I saw some early comments but then forgot to check back, thanks for the heads up. I went back and responded some and may post a response here if I feel like it, but it’s almost entirely misunderstanding by commenters who haven’t read my post, so I’m not sure it’s worth it.
Saturday ~ October 2nd, 2010 at 12:00 pm
Dan O. (Not Dan)
I agree that supplying schools with organic and local produce isn’t necessary, but I don’t think you are giving enough credit to the school garden idea. Sure it would teach students how to grow their own vegetables, but that’s not all it could do. For example, I have seen in schools where the agriculture and business departments team up to grow their own flowers and sell them in the spring. The planning and marketing for a project like this can teach a lot more than reading it from a book. Using a school garden in a similar way could have incredible educational benefits.
But, do Waters and Oliver want more school gardens only to teach students how to grow their own vegetables? If so, than that is ridiculous and stupid because they could be used for so much more.
Finally, as sad as it may be, I wouldn’t be surprised if 3 out of 10 ninth graders couldn’t tell me that carrots come from the ground and not trees. Providing students with a little general knowledge about agriculture and nutrition would at least slow the production of idiots in this country.
Saturday ~ October 2nd, 2010 at 12:24 pm
Adam Ozimek
Dan O.
Well this explains a lot the issues I’ve been having with my carrot tree.
I think a school garden as a means to a desirable end can be a good thing. In my first sentence I said “If integrating a school garden into curriculum can help teach kids subject matter better and get them to eat healthier, then I’m all for it.” The business example you give sounds like a reasonable use of a school garden.
The descriptions of the integration of the gardens into the curriculum that I read all sound like english class and math class becoming excuses to teach more about gardens rather than vice versa. The emphasis always seems to be on inculcating upper-class liberal values about local, fresh, organic, and gardening, and these things become an ends in themselves at the expense of other topics.
Monday ~ October 4th, 2010 at 8:26 am
cleek
Also, kids should not be encouraged to draw pictures of unicorns or space monsters in art class because those things do not exist and nobody uses crayons anyway; they should be encouraged to render website mockups using Visio because that’s the most likely use for “drawing” skills these days. That, or advertising. Perhaps some kids could be taught how to best sell a crappy product to their gullible classmates.
Furthermore, school plays? What’s up with teaching kids to act like knights and trees and rocks? They should be taught how to act like smart consumers!
I blame Obama. As should you.
Monday ~ October 4th, 2010 at 8:40 am
Helen South
As a progressive & as a small business owner in my sixties who can’t afford to get off the treadmill, I have to agree with what you wrote. Some frozen vegetables are excellent, some are not. Kids & adults need to be discerning when buying these products so they don’t get turned off.
Just as importantly, they need to learn all about microwave cooking. NO! It won’t kill you! If it was going to kill someone I would have died long ago as I’ve been using a microwave oven constantly for over 3 decades. In fact, vegetable (fresh & frozen) cooked in a microwave are far healthier & far more tasty than vegetables cooked any other way. They invite the addition of herbs & allow for unusual & very tasty mixtures. Chicken & fish are naturals for microwave cooking too.
Busy people don’t have time to grow fruits & vegies, so making good use of frozen items & learning to save both time & cooking costs by microwave cookery are essential facets of 21st century life.
Monday ~ October 4th, 2010 at 8:40 am
Jay
Fresh vegetables are now the “tastes of the upper middle class?” This whole post is idiotic. Fresh vegetables are available year round from every grocery store I know and have been for my entire life. 2 months ago I wen to a largely vegetarian diet and it cut my grocery bill in half. IN HALF. Vegetables, even organic veg, is cheap.
Monday ~ October 4th, 2010 at 8:40 am
Joshua K.
Adam,
While I agree with you about the questionable utility of pushing strictly organic food as a part of the curriculum, I also found one of your own statements to show the same kind of liberal, yuppy ideology that you are critiquing here. Specifically, you say:
“Are future blue collar workers really going to take the time to grow themselves vegetable gardens in window boxes outside their apartments?”
Um, this makes a whole lot of assumptions about the options available for working class people, what they might want to spend their time on, as well as who they are and how they might want to define themselves. (One might note that you refer to a couple of bloggers then–who I would NOT consider “working class.” If your job is to type at a computer screen and read a bunch of other websites–you are not blue-collar…)
I live in Madison, Wisconsin, and on the east side of Madison–which is more working class, but also more liberal (if you can believe it!) than the west side–and we have various kinds of communal garden plots that you can rent for very little money ( Like $20 I think..) and plant a full garden for those who have no access to any space. Beyond that, however, a more relevant point is that most of the working class here still do own homes with garden areas and–this is even more important–most of the working class that I know actually come from traditions that are more into gardening and growing their own food than upper middle class are.
Basically, I think the perspective that gardening is some “upper class” activity is one that comes a very specific, highly urban, perspective that sees it as a luxury-activity. In reality–or at least from a less urban and perhaps just upper Midwestern perspective–food gardens are a long staple of family life and something that large swaths of the population–but perhaps especially the working class–are engaged in. (One might note that hunting represents a similar kind of activity here and it is practiced by the same groups for the same reasons.)
In any case–I know you were specifically referring to programs in cities, but I’d argue that if even if you go to cities like Chicago, you will find many, many parts of the city–say on the south side, west sides, and even much of the northwest side, where people still have their own homes and where gardens are options.
Obviously, these gardens aren’t going to solve all problems–but inculcating the idea of where exactly food comes from, and how to make your own food seems like a great way to educate students in ways that are both hands on and also highly open to many different avenues of theoretical education (business, science, etc..).
Respectfully Yours,
Joshua K.
Monday ~ October 4th, 2010 at 9:29 am
Tinare
“Are future blue collar workers really going to take the time to grow themselves vegetable gardens in window boxes outside their apartments?”
I also read that sentence and nearly spit my coffee onto my monitor. I grew up in a very blue collar neighborhood in Pittsburgh, and everyone had their own vegetable gardens. Where the idea that growing your own vegetables is some sort of upper class or effete liberal activity is beyond me. I’m a city girl. I grew up poor. I grow and can my own tomatoes and other vegetables. Seeds are down right cheap. Decent top soil is too. K-Mart and Walmart sell them. Gardening does not take that much time. I grew up in the 70s and my school had a very small garden that we used to learn about how seeds germinate. How plants are pollinated. How nature works. Live and in color. But you’re right. More useful to teach them how to open a frozen bag of food. They’re too dumb to do more.
Monday ~ October 4th, 2010 at 9:48 am
milkstained
No, Joshua. Future blue collar workers should familiarize themselves with the low, low, low prices of their nearest WalMart’s frozen food section. Duh.
Monday ~ October 4th, 2010 at 9:06 am
Joe M.
As a non-elite San Francisco family that eats organic as much as possible, I have to admit there’s a bit of what used to be called ‘enthusiasm’ involved in the organic movement, that can seem both silly and elitist. But the folks I know eat organic mostly to avoid pesticide and herbicide residues, and to support what they believe is a more ‘conservative’ agriculture, not because they believe in magical chemistry — although there is admittedly some of that too.
You are spot on when you contrast “local, fresh, organic, and [home-grown]” with “quick, easy, delicious, and inexpensive.” The problem is, for most folks “quick, easy, delicious, and inexpensive” means fast food, and usually not very good fast food. That paradigm — “quick, easy, delicious, and inexpensive” — is so entrenched in our culture now, perhaps it’s understandable why some go to seeming extremes on the other side just to counterbalance. If it were merely a matter of dueling mindsets, it would be trivial, but obese and unhealthy as we are as a nation, clearly it is more than mere mindset.
Just something to chew on.
Monday ~ October 4th, 2010 at 9:09 am
Jeff
People like Adam who waste their energy, talent, and intellect on expressing rage about “progressive ideas” make me sad.
Monday ~ October 4th, 2010 at 9:18 am
notchris
Don’t garden much, do you Adam? At the community garden I participate in (not sure if I am yuppie or working class) I have Ford truck assembly-line workers, HS kids, Russian immigrants, three generations of a Hmong family, white yuppies and everything in between. The idea that fresh, good food is a white, yuppie vanity is preposterous, uninformed and quite simply stupid.
I can certainly understand why spending tons of money on school-lunch lady celebrity chefs is a mis-use of funds, but to simply assert that kids that learn to like veggies in these programs will simply move past them once they leave that school is assumptive and a bare assertion.
You seem more determined to be the first to stake some sort of intellectual claim here to oppose something that started in Berkley than you do actually understand what you are talking about and therefore actually contribute to the conversation.
But, go ahead and ignore this comment too b/c I probably “misunderstood” your post…..
Monday ~ October 4th, 2010 at 9:42 am
milkstained
Every time I go to buy cheap, frozen, non-organic OR organic produce at any of my non-liberal local grocery stores OR those wacky Whole Foods & Trader Joe’s dens of liberal liberality, there’s a little notification on the back of the petroleum-laden plastic baggie that says that the product inside was grown in China. Similarly, a lot of bottled juices or frozen concentrates – apple, especially, it seems – cull together apples from all over the world.
So my non-political take on it is that the amount of manpower and energy – jet fuel! – that it takes to create stinkin’ juicy juice and frozen spinach somewhere in the far east and then bring it back to little old me and my little old family here in Philadelphia is nothing short of ridiculous, bad for the environment, and wasteful. Additionally, after the rash of toy recalls from China as well as the melamine-tainted infant formula scandal, I try to keep from eating their produce. Similarly, I’m not too keen on how the U.S. seems unable to provide adequate oversight for food safety…which leads me to do things like avoid mass produced eggs or frozen vegetables and try to buy fresh, local foods – organic or not – so that I know where they’re coming from. Were I to eat meat, if I know the Lancaster farmer who butchered the cow whose 1/4 carcass is cut up in packages in my freezer, at least I know where to turn to when I get sick. The way Americans eat, it’s like finding a needle in a haystack trying to put together the puzzle pieces of where bacteria outbreak occurs – packaged meat having products from a number of animals, bottles of juice created from apples from all over the world.
I understand what you’re saying here. At the same time, I think you are misunderestimating the full spectrum of what the local/fresh/organic/coveredinglitter movement is going for and why they’re doing what they’re doing.
And, with all due respect, but as someone who comes from a long line of blue-collar working folk, I think you are also underestimating our intelligence, ability, time, and desire to treat ourselves well and eat food that is good for us and good for our communities. Just because my mom was raised in a post-war house with 8 siblings and never learned to cook with a spice other than salt or pepper doesn’t mean that she couldn’t or wouldn’t want to garden. Working folks BUST ASS to make it – why shouldn’t they have the pride that comes from cultivating some herbs in a window box? Why shouldn’t they know the farmer that grows the food they eat? Why are you simply delegating them to opening the freezer and pulling out a bag of frozen corn to whip up some snacks and a meal with it and expecting that they should be thrilled with that and nothing more?
WIC and food stamp benefits are including more farmer’s market and fresh food options, too, which leads me to believe that your last sentence putting the blame on Ms. Waters & Mr. Oliver and their rich, white, liberal elites might just be a little bit off-track.
Monday ~ October 4th, 2010 at 10:17 am
Kyrre
Your point on organic and local-grown is well taken, but to suggest that one has to subsist on frozen vegetables because of work is absurd. I work long hours; sometimes I stump for a ready-made pizza (generally bought fresh from the grocery store on my way home, though), but most days I make something simple with fresh ingredients bought a few days prior and kept in the fridge. Magic.
Monday ~ October 4th, 2010 at 11:02 am
beth
Linda Watson, at COOK FOR GOOD (http://www.cookforgood.com/ ) has a great plan for cooking simply and locally, at a cost of $1.76 per meal. That’s less than what food stamps allow per meal. If you cook ahead (one afternoon a week), it’s faster than “fast” food.
It’s just a matter of learning how.
Monday ~ October 4th, 2010 at 11:16 am
Nancy
Having poor kids grow organic veggies (and *gasp* learn to like them!) will only give them tastes and aspirations that are totally unsuited for the lives of low-wage desperation that are clearly in the cards.
Seriously, though, as others have pointed out, there’s a strong blue collar tradition of having your own little vegetable plot in your yard — or even a few tomatoes and herbs in pots on the porch. Many poor and working-class neighborhoods in my city have community gardens — access to a convenient vacant lot and some inexpensive fencing seem to be the main criteria for starting one. Getting kids interested in gardening connects them to these traditions and their parents/grandparents, gets them away from the TV, exposes them to new interests, and teaches them a lot about where food comes from and how it’s grown. This is on top of the nutritional benefits of eating more veggies and the educational benefits of giving kids a practical application of the concepts they’re learning in school.
It’s perfectly reasonable to suggest that kids learn that frozen veggies are nutritious and convenient alternatives to fresh ones. But the condescension that you showed towards people of lesser means undermines your reasonable comment.
Monday ~ October 4th, 2010 at 11:20 am
SWNC
I live in a blue-collar neighborhood in a mid-sized North Carolina city. I’d say that around 85% of my neighbors have vegetable gardens. Folks here have been growing and canning their own fruits and vegetables long before the NY Times ever started talking about gardening in its Style section. I’m not sure where you get the idea that working-class folks don’t garden.
Monday ~ October 4th, 2010 at 11:31 am
Juice The Blog » Blog Archive » Yuppies and Vegetables
[...] different places to buy your food probably isn’t high on most people’s lists, but this Adam Ozimek post about frozen vegetables is absolutely absurd: Are future blue collar workers really going to take [...]
Monday ~ October 4th, 2010 at 12:07 pm
Larry Saltzman
I intend to continue to push for liberal obsessions on food. Children and the poor are as entitled to nutritious, tasty, healthy food as us middle class progressives. Numerous studies now exist that show the health benefits or organic. Organic food frequently has higher levels of anti-oxidents and vitamins. Organic food doesn’t have the levels of toxic carcinogenic chemicals in it. Organic agriculture is not poisoning the planet and destroying vast ecosystems. America’s industrial food diet is killing our kids and destroying the planet.
Industrial agriculture is a major contributor to global warming. The harm global warming is causing will affect poor kids as much as rich kids.
Monday ~ October 4th, 2010 at 1:06 pm
David Sucher
Agree with poster above:
Lots of blue collar people live in detached housing and can have a garden. Even those in apartment complexes are able to, though admittedly more difficult.
Why would you assume that poorer people can’t/won’t garden?
Monday ~ October 4th, 2010 at 2:37 pm
Gretchen
Ridiculous to teach poor kids how to grow food? Many inner-city neighborhoods have community garden space available, and a packet of seeds is far cheaper than buying produce. For a person who has a hard time affording good food, nothing is more helpful than teaching them to grow their own!
Monday ~ October 4th, 2010 at 3:16 pm
tyler
School gardens have greater purposes than to get kids to eat vegetables or develop politically correct sentiments. Gardening teaches children about the processes of nature in a way that supplements book learning. A certain kind of child who cares for a garden will learn to value life, will intuit his place in it, and will come to care for his body as part god’s creation. He might develop greater foresight and patience and gratitude. Not every child, to be sure: a lot of kids could care less, but some will care, and the garden will be their haven.
Monday ~ October 4th, 2010 at 4:38 pm
mulp
How many ways can you prepare frozen corn, frozen peas, frozen french fries, frozen broccoli, frozen squash that don’t involve adding some combination of fat, sugar, and salt?
I’m guessing you class 3-5 day old fresh mixed salad greens prepared in a factory in California or Mexico to be better than local greens in season, whether from farmers markets or one’s garden to be better because one can add a combination of fat sugar and salt to given them some flavor.
It is ironic that we must use the term “organic” to justify blemishes on food grown using a wide variety of fruits and veggies instead of picking the seed that has been selected for its ability to withstand pests and pesticides instead of taste. When growing an evolving seasonal mix of crops in the same plots, use of many herbicides and pesticides limits the farmers options. Depending on chemicals to replenish minerals like N K P while degrading the soil’s humus is not going to result in high garden productivity, so composting and mulching and ideally adding local manure from chickens, pigs, cows along with crop rotation are the better – organic methods of improving and maintaining the soil.
But I think the most interesting thing about most of the arguments against organic local foods is this:
In a time of high unemployment, and the resulting welfare burden on government and society, the government should not be wasting its precious tax dollars on labor intensive local organic foods. These are times when government needs to cope with high unemployment by slashing spending on labor intensive activities by either going to low labor manufactured goods even if that results in lower quality, or by importing those goods from low labor nations. As has been noted, the Chinese are well suited to cheap labor production and saving which complements the US skills are low labor consumption and borrowing to fund this consumption via either private or public borrowing.
Monday ~ October 4th, 2010 at 6:23 pm
Brian Glover
What disturbs me the most about this rant is the idea that poor Americans should “know their place” and “not ape their betters.” They’ll just be spoiled by “luxuries.” We used to think of ourselves as a classless society, and look with pity on the English and their rotting class hierarchy. It looks like things have changed. I can’t express how much Ozimek’s attitude disgusts me. That’s not the America I know.
Note to all the new “populists”: the desire live a better life is not elitist. Good food is not elitist. Art, music, theater, and literature are not elitist. In a democracy, all children should be treated like future Presidents — not just “future blue-collar workers.”
Oh, but wait: if we treat workers like free citizens, then they might want to organize and negotiate a fair price for their work. No, better to keep them unhealthy, stupid, and docile. I can’t believe I’m hearing this in the USA.
Monday ~ October 4th, 2010 at 11:35 pm
Sam
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How are these antonyms at all? How is a local, fresh, organic tomato not quick, easy, and delicious? You chop it up and put salt on it and eat it. It is probably delicious. A non-local, non-organic tomato will probably also be delicious. The fresh is the important part.
How is growing your own food expensive? This year I bought two packages of dried beans at the gardening store and a bag of topsoil. I spread out the topsoil and planted the beans. A few weeks later I had more beans than I could possibly eat. I do not have a green thumb by any means. Have you ever tried to garden?
Tuesday ~ October 5th, 2010 at 4:17 am
Chris
“Are future blue collar workers really going to take the time to grow themselves vegetable gardens”.
This displays all the ignorant class bias that you are supposing in the Waters effort and the imagined slights of San Francisco yuppies you are receiving.
My family of Midwester plumbers and concrete finishers all grew vegetable gardens, it was culturally part of who they were/are. My grandfather’s was on a scale beyond most home gardens, but that’s who he was, he would tend it when he wasn’t working.
Overall, your point about organic and frozen isn’t bad, however.
Tuesday ~ October 5th, 2010 at 8:16 am
School gardens and progressive values « Modeled Behavior
[...] Adam Ozimek There were many comments here and over at Kevin Drums’ blog in response to my previous post on school gardens and progressive values. I think much of the criticism reflects a misreading of [...]
Tuesday ~ October 5th, 2010 at 8:48 pm
Francine05
Elitist snob that I am — who gardens and cooks, I felt this post was just wacky and misguided. No, it doesn’t need to be organic … though if it comes out of the backyard garden, it probably is! Can’t hurt to learn how to grow your own food.
Wednesday ~ October 6th, 2010 at 1:33 pm
Sarah
I think the organic argument aside, your discontent with eating locally and growing your own food is absurd. I hail from a very rural area in southwest Virginia – land of coal miners and factory workers. The people here are very much “blue collar”, yet have always had gardens, both family gardens and community gardens. It actually is much cheaper than shopping at our only grocery store in town and knowing that our produce is grown in country is extremely important to us here. I grew up in a coal town and always, ALWAYS had freshly picked tomatoes, cucumbers, jalapenos, banana peppers, onions, cabbage…at our dinner table. My upbringing was not atypical for the area.
The assumption that gardening is some yuppie indulgence is ignorant. In fact, dare I say that many of these blue collar people prefer to be more connected to their land. I also take issue with the attitude that these kids shouldn’t expect too much in the way of their food…or their future.
Wednesday ~ October 6th, 2010 at 1:46 pm
David Sucher
There are a number of issues gloating out there.
While Mr. Ozimek is wrong about blue collar gardening, I think he is correct to suggest that locavorism is of secondary (if at all) importance.
Saturday ~ October 9th, 2010 at 12:43 pm
Bourdain Backs Me Up « Modeled Behavior
[...] of praise, for slow food maven Alice Waters, who I’ve also criticized, and praised, here and here. Here he agreeing with the substance of my criticism of the school gardening movement and [...]