Michelle Obama, The New First Lady Of The Food Movement
For a while now, I’ve been saying that we need an Al Gore for the food movement. Â The food movment needs a good salesman and a connector, someone with ties to the ‘inside’. Â More importantly, the food movement needs someone that the public recognizes and trusts to have their interests at heart. Â With Michelle Obama fielding even higher approval ratings than her husband, she is poised to take the reins of food activism in the United States. And, she has done just that.
At a celebration of the First Garden’s first harvest, Mrs. Obama delivered a speech that hit upon some of the most hot-botton food issues and in which she laid out her plan for change in the world of agriculture and food policy. Obama Foodorama has a fantastic deconstruction and analysis of the First Lady’s position at the head of the Food Movement.
Here is the outline of her plan (via Ob Fo):
- Reduce Diet-Related Disease By Changing America’s Eating Habits, Which Will Lead To Food Processors Offering Better Foods
- Better School Lunches
- Lunch Plan, Part II: Farm-to-School Programs
- Eliminating Food Deserts, Increasing Food Security
- More Gardens, More Garden Tech
- Encouraging Ongoing Nutrition And Health Education, Encouraging Food Facility
Read the full text of Michelle Obama’s speech here. Or visit Obama Foodorama’s article on the matter. They do a great job of relating her speech to current activism and policy already in the works on Capitol Hill. To wit, the article underscores how realizing Michelle Obama’s plans is crucial to fulfilling many of the President’s own policy goals (like healthcare reform and small business development).
Will Michelle Obama be for the food movement what Al Gore was for climate change? We foodies certainly believe (and hope) so:
So, yep. Michelle Obama, Leader of The Food Movement, has served notice that things must change, and we now know exactly what issues are deemed critically important for round one, what can be successfully asked for, and what the Obama administration is willing to focus on. Certainly the food initiatives will get bolder in the coming years, but the issues Mrs. Obama has already raised are things that have been tirelessly worked on for years, and which need to be addressed immediately. With the First Lady’s leadership, the time frame for these issues can get compressed. Announcing the White House Kitchen Garden as organic was essentially testing the waters to gauge America’s response to food change. Organic practices, in the past, have registered with the public as the province of both elitists and hippies; Mrs. Obama has now made organic foods and gardening seem like just a regular old thing, something regular people can and should embrace. The pushback over the organic issue has been fairly minimal, and came primarily from the most obvious suspect–the chemical lobby. And that’s a good thing. Because there are a lot of changes needed in the food system, across the board, which go far deeper than round one. But luckily, Mrs. Obama has some very important allies for her campaign—Chef Sam Kass, who is her Food Initiative Coordinator; her husband, who just happens to be the most powerful guy in the country; and every Eater in America.
June 22, 2009
Tags: Health, heroes, Michelle Obama, obesity Posted in: Health, Politics
3 Responses
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