Shut Up and Eat – A foodie repents.

Maybe these sentiments wouldn’t strike a chord in Ukraine or Liberia or the territories under the control of the Islamic State, but there’s a moving, warming, generous idea here—that by taking loving care when we purchase summer corn, heirloom tomatoes, organically fed and outdoor-reared chicken, we’re doing something that’s charged with political significance. With these choices, the thought is that we’re doing our humble little bit to save the world. We’re doing something that “matters at every level.”

I’m thrilled by this notion, and yet I find that I can’t submit to it. …If these tiny acts of consumer choice are the most meaningful actions in our lives, perhaps we aren’t thinking and acting on a sufficiently big scale. Imagine that you die and go to Heaven and stand in front of a jury made up of Thomas Jefferson, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Your task would be to compose yourself, look them in the eye, and say, “I was all about fresh, local, and seasonal.”

….I don’t think my choices are going to change or save the world, but this is how I prefer to cook and eat.