Ted Sorensen passed away yesterday at the age of 82. Having been busy with Halloween activities yesterday, I only found out about his passing today, via this fascinating obituary from The New York Times. Today being All Saints Day (widely observed in Hungary) and the night before the midterm elections (here in the U.S.), Sorensen’s passing hit me especially hard. It also made me think about something that I’ve been meaning to write about here for some time now: why I’m gradually going organic with my food choices.
I realize that the connections aren’t immediately obvious. Let me back up for a moment.
Ted Sorensen was one of President Kennedy’s speechwriters and counselors. He was an incredibly gifted wordsmith, credited with ghostwriting much of Kennedy’s memoir, Profiles in Courage, as well as with authoring significant portions of Kennedy’s iconic 1961 inaugural address. Not to mention the fact that, at 34 years old, he penned a letter Kennedy sent to Khrushchev, helping to bring the Cuban Missile Crisis to a close.
In short, Ted Sorensen was one of the greats of 20th Century American politics. His work should be required reading for anyone with an interest in political speechwriting, a field that I was passionate about pursuing at one point in my life. In college, I spent three and a half years working on the Presidential Recordings Program at the Miller Center of Public Affairs where, along with other students, it was my job to transcribe and annotate the secret White House recordings made by Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. I spent hours listening to these tapes, recording every utterance. I knew all the voices on the tapes, and felt an intimate connection to the people behind them: Kennedy, Johnson, McNamara, Rusk, Salinger, Stevenson– and, yes, even Sorensen. He, too, was one of the Best and the Brightest, and I was moved when I learned of his passing.
That said, those that know me well also know that I’ve become somewhat disillusioned with politics in recent years, what with its soaring rhetoric and seemingly empty promises. This isn’t something that’s isolated to any particular administration or party, it’s just a fact of life. It is what it is: the way of the world is much more practical (and complex) than some of our favorite speeches would have us believe, and I find that understanding this has made me somewhat apathetic. Money talks, it’s true. Since I have relatively little of that, I’ve grown silent, at least compared to my formerly vocal, idealistic self.
There is one set of issues, however, that has started to ignite the political fire within me again– and this is the group of issues surrounding food, farming, obesity and health in this country. I was reminded of this recently while attending a screening of the movie Fresh at Ger-Nis Culinary & Herb Center here in Brooklyn.
As Fresh so clearly illustrates, our country’s food system is in crisis, and the factory farming industry is one of the major players in this equation. After the screening, there was a frank discussion amongst the guests, most of whom were Brooklyn-based chefs and restaurateurs (I’m fairly certain I was the only food writer/blogger there– it was quite a treat). In the end, it seemed to me that an understanding was reached: individuals represent another big player in this equation… and we can all do better.
What does this mean, exactly? For starters, it means choosing organic foods over conventional ones, choosing sustainable over unsustainable, choosing local whenever possible and practical.
It can also be argued that not everyone can do better, of course. Lots of folks are just struggling to make ends meet, especially in this economy– and organic foods cost more. Plus, organic foods aren’t always readily available in a lot of areas of the country.
That’s all true– but, as I finally accepted after watching Fresh, it’s not all true for me. As difficult as it is to scrape by as a twenty-something here in New York City, I still have choices when it comes to my food. Plus, as someone who spends quite a lot of her free time thinking, reading, writing and talking about food, I feel I must do better with my food choices (even if that means giving up other indulgences as a way of expanding my food budget).
When I think of my food choices now, I hear echoes of that famous Ghandi quote, about being the change you wish to see in the world. The jaded, former politico in me cringes when I read that sentence– still, I do try to do better, with each trip to the grocery store or farmer’s market (albeit grudgingly, at times).
While I’m rarely one to get up on my soapbox these days, I’d challenge you to do better, too, if you’re able to do it financially (if I can do it, chances are you can do it, too, trust me). You may not be able to do it all at once, and that’s OK. It’s fine to start where you are– but, if the state of the food system in this country troubles you, please: start voting with your food dollars. Start with meats, eggs, then dairy. Then take a look at your produce choices, pantry staples, even your restaurant and take-out choices (organic chicken in that Pad Thai? Unlikely…).
For my part, I vote for chicken: organic, hormone-free, antibiotic-free, air-chilled, free-range, family-farmed chicken– even heritage breed when I can find it. I may pay about twice as much for it as I used to pay for conventional chicken but, after reading Eating Animals, I know it’s worth it.
Incidentally, it’s delicious, too.
Tags: All Saints Day, antibiotics, brooklyn, factory farming, family farming, farming, Fresh, Fresh the Movie, Ger-Nis, hormones, Johnson, Kennedy, Michael Pollan, midterm elections, Miller Center of Public Affairs, obesity, obesity crisis, organics, Presidential Recordings Program, sorensen, ted sorensen, University of Virginia
