Getting Closer to Our Food

Mark Thoma at Economist's View talks about how the political divide between conservatives and liberals can be narrowed over the topic of where we get our food from  He refers to a January 4, 2006 New York Times article by Marian Burros discussing how Oregonians are successfully obtaining "local" food and the associated success of the New Seasons chain of grocery stores in the Portland area.  New Seasons provides locally grown meat to its customers, and extraordinary personal service.  Employees are empowered to "do anything a customer wants."  Burros also refers to Michael Pollan who points out that industrialized organic food is not much of an improvement over standard non-organic supplies.   Pollan has written a fascinating article titled "Power Steer" (originally in the New York Times) about the life cycle of typical beef cattle -- definitely inspires me to keep working at obtaining local, grass-fed beef!