Farming the White House

Trends Food

by J. Michael Wheeler
Before the 2008 Presidential election, Michael Pollan wrote an open letter to the (then unknown) President-Elect in the New York Times (Farmer in Chief 10.9.08). That letter opens:

It may surprise you to learn that among the issues that will occupy much of your time in the coming years is one you barely mentioned during the campaign: food. Food policy is not something American presidents have had to give much thought to, at least since the Nixon administration — the last time high food prices presented a serious political peril.

The letter closes with a get your hands dirty kind of idea:

Since enhancing the prestige of farming as an occupation is critical to developing the sun-based regional agriculture we need, the White House should appoint, in addition to a White House chef, a White House farmer. This new post would be charged with implementing what could turn out to be your most symbolically resonant step in building a new American food culture. And that is this: tear out five prime south-facing acres of the White House lawn and plant in their place an organic fruit and vegetable garden.

The Obamas didn't "tear out five prime south-facing acres of the White House lawn" but they will be planting an organic vegetable garden on an 1,100-square-foot-plot. The raised beds will be fertilized with White House compost, crab meal from the Chesapeake Bay, lime and green sand. Ladybugs and praying mantises will help control harmful bugs. 

The Obama garden will grow 55 varieties of vegetable that from a White House kitchen staff list. The New York Times has a map of the garden: Local Food, From the South Lawn.

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"Don't eat anything that your great-great grandmother would not recognize as food."

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto
"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." These simple words go to the heart of Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food, the well-considered answers he provides to the questions posed in the bestselling The Omnivore's Dilemma. Humans used to know how to eat well, Pollan argues. But the balanced dietary lessons that were once passed down through generations have been confused, complicated, and distorted by food industry marketers, nutritional scientists, and journalists-all of whom have much to gain from our dietary confusion. As a result, we face today a complex culinary landscape dense with bad advice and foods that are not "real." These "edible foodlike substances" are often packaged with labels bearing health claims that are typically false or misleading. Indeed, real food is fast disappearing from the marketplace, to be replaced by "nutrients," and plain old eating by an obsession with nutrition that is, paradoxically, ruining our health, not to mention our meals. 

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