Where should Bay Area food activists focus their energies to change our busted food system? While marquee activists like Alice Waters and Michael Pollan are cooing over lardo (artisanal preserved pork fat) this week at Terra Madre, the annual Slow Food gathering in northern Italy, lesser-known activists at the Center for Science in the Public Interest scored a real victory by making KFC promise to stop frying up its so-called chicken in killer transfats. Yeah, Terra Madre’s goal is to build a “global counterculture” of food and farming activism, but the two stories make us wonder: Are food activists wasting time and resources in the world of celebrity chefs and rare artisan goodies, or should they aim for practical short-term changes that’ll impact millions? Is the Bay Area’s food activism hung up on an upscale food utopia?
.What Matters More: Fancy-Ass Lardo or KFC Fry Grease?
