As a dedicated follower of all matters gustatory, I’ve been observing with some interest the debate over a certain Alice Waters op-ed in the NYT re: the future of school lunches. The article dovetails conveniently with a piece about Michelle Obama’s stance on the same subject in the same paper. Unsurprisingly, Obama, too, thinks that Americans need to shift their eating habits towards a more sustainable model.

Full disclosure: I think this is absolutely necessary. However, I teach in a low-income school, and I am also someone who actively shops for artisanal cheeses, which means that my stance is predictable. And that, I’m afraid, might be the problem.

This is just a guess, but I doubt that many people, given a point-blank choice between cheap chemicals and healthy local food, would say, “Pass the sodium nitrates, please.” In schools and in life, however, choices are rarely that clear. Fair or unfair, at the moment, the First Lady is preaching to the choir. (Does the term “latte-sipping elitists” ring any bells?) While it would be lovely if her activism could convert the masses, I don’t think she can do it alone – and quite frankly, I’m not sure that being on the same side as Alice Waters, the Grand Poobah of local food, is going to help either. People who listen to Alice Waters are already tending their AeroGardens and looking for good prices on grass-fed beef. If they’re going to sell this idea to the nation as a whole, I think they might need a bit of backup.

Is it accurate to pigeonhole sustainable food as inevitably restricted to the upper classes? Absolutely not. Highly processed food is a relatively recent phenomenon, and before that, everybody – rich and poor – still managed to survive without Kraft Singles. But a glimpse into the aisles of any Whole Foods reveals that a very distinct class element is involved in the marketing of such products. Which is too bad, because such minor issues obscure the very real health, environmental, and even economic benefits that a nationwide dietary shift has the potential to bring. Nonetheless, opponents of Obama and her husband – who, let us remember, touted their populist credentials with great frequency this past fall – are unlikely to be interested by her calls for better eating habits.

What Obama needs to do, in order to get her point across, is to find allies from across the food spectrum – maybe a Rachael Ray or a Paula Deen, support by Taste of Home magazine as well as Gourmet. By allying herself with chefs who count fans from all walks of life, she’s more likely to prove that anyone can eat well without necessarily living in Berkeley. A bit of kitchen bipartisanship will help drive home the point that regardless of one’s politics, getting fat and dying young is in no one’s best interest.

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