Over at TAP, Tracie McMillan engages the thinly-veiled elitism lacing barbara Kingsolver's new book on local eating and much of the sustainable food movement in general. But more worrying to me than organic and local food's occasional status as a luxury item is the sneering disapproval offered to those who cook quickly in the cracks and crevices of the day. Costs of popular food will come down -- organic is already exponentially more available and affordable than it was a few years ago. But when you get finger-wagging like "career moms in many countries still routinely apply passion to their cooking, heading straight from work to the market…feeding their loved ones with aplomb," you're on more dangerous ground. As McMillan rejoinds:
It would be hard to prove that Americans are not lazy about food, but it's pretty easy to show that we work more than most of Western Europe. We're also worrying about paying for health and child care -- two significant expenses that many European governments pick up. In 2005, Americans on average worked 269 more hours than their French brethren -- about 5 hours a week. Those extra hours are precious, as is having the affordable, reliable child care and health care available in France; parents with all three would presumably have more time, and energy, to cook for their families rather than grab a to-go bag.
Prices on well-produced food may drop, but the trends in time for the median American aren't sloping in a direction that suggests they'll soon have more of it. To heap moral opprobrium on that reality is not only careless, but counterproductive.
