American Elephants

From Dana Milbank’s column in Friday’s Washington Post:

Let’s say you’re preparing dinner and you realize with dismay that you don’t have any certified organic Tuscan kale.  What to do?

Here’s how Michelle Obama handled this very predicament Thursday afternoon.

The Secret Service and the D.C. police brought in three dozen vehicles and shut down H Street, Vermont Avenue, two lanes of I Street and an entrance to the McPherson Square Metro station.  They swept the area, in front of the Department of Veterans Affairs, with bomb-sniffing dogs and installed magnetometers in the middle of the street, put up barricades to keep pedestrians out, and took positions with binoculars atop trucks.  Though the produce stand was only a block or so from the White House, the first lady hopped into her armored limousine and pulled into the market amid the wail of sirens.

Then and only then, could Obama purchase her leafy greens.  “Now it’s time to buy some food,” she told several hundred people who came to watch. “Let’s shop!”

Cowbells were rung.  Somebody put a lei of marigolds around Obama’s neck.  The first lady picked up a straw basket and headed for the “Farm at Sunnyside” tent, where she loaded up with organic Asian pears, cherry tomatoes, multicolored potatoes, free-range eggs and, yes, two bunches of  Tuscan kale.  She left the produce with an aide, who paid the cashier as Obama made her way back to the limousine.

There’s nothing like the simple pleasures of a farm stand to return us to our agrarian roots.

Oh, do read the whole thing, and check out the prices.  The rest of it is just as delicious. Ms. Obama is making a cause out of healthy eating, which is fine and good.  But she is also making a cause out of “organic” food, which is not.

The term “organic” is a marketing ploy, nothing more. It refers to a process.  Organic foods are fertilized only with manure, not “chemical” fertilizers.  Organic food is not fresher, more nutritious, healthier in any way, but it is about 30 percent more expensive.  It takes far more land to grow food using the organic process.

Since we are putting a goodly amount of our food crops in our gas tanks instead of our stomachs, the world is that much shorter of food to feed the hungry.  There is no difference between organic produce bought at a farmer’s market and regular produce bought in the grocery in quality or nutrition.

The Greenies, logical as always, ardently believe that all food should be organic.  They also ardently believe that we should switch from gasoline to ethanol or other biofuels for transportation. They believe that we should be sure that hungry children around the world get enough food.  They believe that we should all become vegans and get rid of all the animals that produce meat and dairy products—— and manure.