01/10/06 Organic elitism

Organic elitism really bugs me ! I am not against organic, I 'm just tired of folks flaunting that myth that their family eats healthier then yours simply because they have the financial means to pay two or three times more for organic meat and produce. The snobbery of sustainability irritates the heck out of me. Don't tell me that my 3rd and fourth generation ranching and farming friends aren't sustainable while holding up as a poster child some 4 year old suburban farm the size of a garden. The FFT agtivist movement has struck a note with traditional farmers, who are tired of such rhetoric and are fighting back. I received a letter from one Pendleton wheat farmer who congratulated me on for accurately summing up the hypocrisy of the elite food industry. He wrote that 'we are blessed with 3rd and fourth generation farmers and ranchers yet the elite food industry blithely promotes practices that are unproductive and even foolhardy. So enough of this organic elitism baloney, lets hear it for the farmers that have truly sustained this great nation generation after generation. I'm Susan Allen and this is Food Forethought.