Editor's Letter: The politicization of food

last updated 8 January 2015

Many Americans who gathered around the table this Thanksgiving found an extra helping of politics next to the cranberries. It’s not merely that everyone and his plumber has an inflamed opinion of President Obama, Sarah Palin, and the merits of health reform. In many households, especially those in which conscientious guests pass judgment along with the mashed potatoes, the meal itself is a political battleground. Vegans, locavores, vegetarians, pescatarians, and omnivores all claim a stake (though not all condone eating one). A host who invites a self-righteous vegan and a militant meat eater to the same feast risks a food fight. Segmented and divided by professional polarizers in Washington, we are increasingly segregated by ideological appetites at home. If Sarah Palin feels compelled to stress her carnivore credentials in a new memoir, and if the local farmers’ market projects the fervor of a political clubhouse, it’s a good bet that mealtime is no longer safe for consensus. Do I dare to eat a peach?

The politicization of food has been a long time coming, of course, and the forces driving it are compelling, from the advance of animal rights to the sanctity of global supply chains and the evolution of American tastes. Just as Americans have developed separate sources of news and opinion, they increasingly get their nutrition from distinct suppliers, with class playing the vital role of middleman. On Thanksgiving, organic and free-range connotes one thing, a mass-market Butterball another. Straddling the gastronomic faults, we find ourselves eating political turkey as well as talking it.