Southern delegates headed for next month’s Democratic National Convention can relax. They won’t have to sneak contraband buckets of fried chicken into their hotel rooms after all.
Thanks to sloppy reporting, word got out that convention planners had imposed highly prescriptive rules on foods to be served at the Denver jamboree. Half of each plate must be fruits and vegetables. At least 70 percent must be organic or locally produced. And no fried foods.
Leave it to PC Democrats to bring their nanny state proclivities to dinner menus, critics charged. “Where’s the beef?” meat lovers demanded, giving new meaning to Walter Mondale’s 1984 campaign slogan.
But the feeding frenzy was a tempest in an herbal teapot. The media got it wrong. The catering guidelines are voluntary. Delegates will be free to live on greasebomb hamburgers if that’s what they want.
But the belief that local and organic foods are always better for the environment bears closer examination.
Pick up the summer edition of Conservation magazine for a taste of how black-and-white assumptions about environmental stewardship sometimes collapse when muddy grey complexities intrude.
One article summarizes a startling study comparing the environmental impacts of organic and conventional milk ...
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