Tom Lee isn't happy with Michael Pollan's tendency to point out that "since 1960 the average American household's spending on food has dropped as a share of income, from 18 percent to 10." As Tom says, incomes grow. Nutritional requirements don't. Fair point. Though I think Lee is slightly missing the thrust of Pollan's argument: Pollan believes we need more sustainable, healthful, local, diets. These diets may be somewhat more expensive. Pollan is implying that that would be okay -- food could be a bit pricier and still chew up less of our incomes than it did 40 years ago.Which reminds me of a different problem I have with Pollan and the California-based food movement. It's easy eating local if you live in California. Even the winter is delicious. That gets a bit harder if you live in a colder climate. Try the Idaho farmer's market in January. It's a bad scene. At times, the axis of Alice Waters and Michael Pollan and all these others Northern Californians advising us to eat sourced, local fare can seem a bit like some retirees in Florida advising folks to keep a tan year-round. I would if I could. 
But the food movement has developed a relentless emphasis on localism, and for little reason. It's not the best way to cut carbon emissions (as you can see in the graph on the right, where "delivery" and "freight" are those tiny slivers of color at the beginning of the bar, and the various shades of production dominate the rest of the image). It won't have massive public health effects (except insofar as you substitute processed food with produce, but you could do that at Safeway). It's not an easy thing to do. It is, arguably, the most delicious change we can make to our diets, and if we all started eating local it would have profound effects on the nature of American agriculture (demand for local foods grown sustainably would create supply of local foods, grown sustainably), but it can scan as a bourgeois virtue that folks are trying to recast as a pressing policy solution. So far as food policy goes, localism is small, trucked-in potatoes compared to eliminating corn and soy subsidies, pricing carbon, or cutting meat consumption. Indeed, unlike cutting subsidies, localism isn't something government can actually do. Government can make it easier by encouraging farmer's markets and regional meat inspection, but the effects are indirect at best.On some level, this is simply a difference in perspective: I'm asking Pollan to be a political writer when he's really a food writer. He's more focused on the micro question of what individuals can do than the macro issue of What Should Be Done. But for better or worse, he's been appointed to head the political arm of the new food movement, and that requires setting priorities -- and he's accepted that role. Indeed, I even agree with his central point: America needs a new food policy. But that means being clear on what's most important in that policy. And encouraging localism is a cooking priority more than it is a political priority.
But the food movement has developed a relentless emphasis on localism, and for little reason. It's not the best way to cut carbon emissions (as you can see in the graph on the right, where "delivery" and "freight" are those tiny slivers of color at the beginning of the bar, and the various shades of production dominate the rest of the image). It won't have massive public health effects (except insofar as you substitute processed food with produce, but you could do that at Safeway). It's not an easy thing to do. It is, arguably, the most delicious change we can make to our diets, and if we all started eating local it would have profound effects on the nature of American agriculture (demand for local foods grown sustainably would create supply of local foods, grown sustainably), but it can scan as a bourgeois virtue that folks are trying to recast as a pressing policy solution. So far as food policy goes, localism is small, trucked-in potatoes compared to eliminating corn and soy subsidies, pricing carbon, or cutting meat consumption. Indeed, unlike cutting subsidies, localism isn't something government can actually do. Government can make it easier by encouraging farmer's markets and regional meat inspection, but the effects are indirect at best.On some level, this is simply a difference in perspective: I'm asking Pollan to be a political writer when he's really a food writer. He's more focused on the micro question of what individuals can do than the macro issue of What Should Be Done. But for better or worse, he's been appointed to head the political arm of the new food movement, and that requires setting priorities -- and he's accepted that role. Indeed, I even agree with his central point: America needs a new food policy. But that means being clear on what's most important in that policy. And encouraging localism is a cooking priority more than it is a political priority. 
