Neither left nor right.

Reader Lee writes in to say:

I consider myself both a foodie and a lefty, but don’t think the two have anything to do with each other. I get annoyed by lefty types who view their essentially sensualist desire to eat well as some sort of political/social virtue; I get equally annoyed by conservatives who mock all attempts at introducing questions of ethics and sustainability to discussions of food and/or animal production, or who use attacks on some of the more strident foodies, like Alice Waters, as attacks on progressives generally.

Well said, and indeed I’ve never considered this a left/right issue. A lot of progressive thinkers instinctively support the Pollanites, I think, because they’re anti-corporate. Yet the movement exhibits a brand of wealthy elitism that one normally associates with conservatives. It is, indeed, a very odd ideology that has very little to do with ordinary people. That simple fact, I have a feeling, will severely limit Food Inc.‘s box office appeal.