Let’s Move, the First Lady’s initiative to help kids fight obesity by giving them crummy school lunches, now has a new Executive Director. Debra Eschmeyer, a self-described “food justice” activist, will soon be in charge of the Let’s Move campaign and other nutritional policies. What’s that?… Oh, you would like to know what “food justice” means? Well, brace yourself:
Deb was asked in an interview in 2011 about the term, and the result was kinda like watching Karl Marx host a Food Network program. According to the Free Beacon:
“I was an editor of ‘Food Justice’ (the new book by Robert Gottlieb and Anupama Joshi) so I spent several years thinking about the definition,” she said. “Food justice seeks to ensure that the benefits and risks of where, what, and how food is grown, produced, transported, distributed, accessed, and eaten are shared fairly.”
Well, she definitely does sound like an Obama acolyte. Of course, the best was yet to come:
“It represents a transformation of the current food system, including but not limited to eliminating disparities and inequities,” Eschmeyer added.
Oh, I get it: Tabletop socialism. (Or meal-time Marxism. Or produce progressivism. Or culinary communism. Or…)
That’s right: Even your green beans aren’t safe from the long arm of progressive pet-projects. The “food justice” movement incorporates the quintessential elements of today’s Democrat progressives: Class warfare, government regulation, and “globesity”. (Yes… That is an actual word used in the movement.)
Eschmeyer said during the interview she focuses on everything from “food policy, Farm to School, school gardens, school food, rural sociology, obesity, dairy policy, commodity policy, food justice … basically from seed to stomach. The whole gamut.”
Yeah. I mean, why stop at regulating producers, grocery store chains, and preparation methods? Cradle to grave Seed to stomach oversight of our food… What could possibly go wrong?
Of course, by itself this is nothing more than mildly entertaining… But let’s put things into context here: We’re talking about an America where the government dictates what kind of health insurance is acceptable; and then they tax non-compliance. It’s not that unreasonable to worry that “food justice” might soon find itself embedded in the regulatory web of America’s dietary reality.
People can chose to be gluten free, vegetarian, local-organic nuts, vegan, GMO-free, or “food justice” activists… But when we start embedding these folks into the political machinery that impacts policy, you should brace yourself for a little more arbitrarily enforced “awareness” in your daily life.
After all, Debbie will not only be a “Let’s Move” director, but also a “Senior Policy Advisor for Nutrition Policy” (redundant) with the ability to “advise” on food and nutrition issues beyond Let’s Move. So, next time you buy non-organic steak tartare, or an 8 count meal from Chick-fil-a, you might just be pressured by the Obama Administration to consider your “food justice” awareness level… Heaven forbid you be allowed to grocery-shop without a little politicization.