Archives for the 'secretary of food' tag
We Don’t Need a Goddamn Secretary of Food
We just don’t. But NYT scribbling head Nicholas Kristof has ordained it.
And lefties who can’t stand unregulated eating–from big-government cheerleaders Michael Ruhlman to Ed Levine to Michael Pollan, who Kristof quotes in the piece–are cheering him on.
Kristof’s reasoning–which he seems to have stolen without credit from British nanny stater & chef Jamie Oliver–goes like this:
A Department of Agriculture made sense 100 years ago when 35 percent of Americans engaged in farming. But today, fewer than 2 percent are farmers. In contrast, 100 percent of Americans eat.
100 percent of Americans defecate, Nick. But by golly we all get by just fine doing so without a government department dedicated to the function. In fact, it should be clear to anyone with an ass and a brain that it’s because there’s no Department of Feces that there’s no shortage of crap in America.
So what’s the need for a department of food?
Besides killing corporate subsidies, which I fully support, Kristof fails to define any new mission for the newly renamed department.
Renaming the department would signal that Mr. Obama seeks to move away from a bankrupt structure of factory farming that squanders energy, exacerbates climate change and makes Americans unhealthy — all while costing taxpayers billions of dollars.
[...]
The farm lobby uses [its clout] to inflict unhealthy food on American children in school-lunch programs, exacerbating our national crisis with diabetes and obesity.
Sadly, we already have government agencies devoted to tackling obesity, doling out school lunches, fighting diabetes, and the like. And look what it’s gotten us: more obesity, crappy lunches, and more diabetes.
If Kristof were really concerned with our health, and the billions it’s costing us to support an ineffective and arcane agency like the Department of Agriculture, he’d call for it to be abolished, not retooled.
Update: This and this are apropos.
Update II: And we apparently need a Department of Sport, too.
