While I certainly appreciate a good story, I don’t think we always need to rely on celebrities to tell it — especially when it comes to sustainable food.

As a society, we’ve been eating so wrong for so long, and paying attention to most of the wrong voices about food. Over the next several years people are going to be thinking through what “sustainable food” really is — for themselves.

I’m guessing the internet will be a terrific tool for that — both for trading ideas and for reflecting on what makes sense (and what doesn’t).

Thanks for your comments. In this post, I was largely trying to communicate the perspectives voiced by the media representatives on the panel.

What I did appreciate about the Food Network’s Katherine Alford is that she was honest about their entertainment bias. FN viewership is at an all time high, so we can’t say it’s irrelevant.

I also appreciated Barry Estabrook’s acknowledgment that the “food glossies” could do a better job – and are starting to do so at Gourmet.

The Food Network is an embarrassment to food. It has become absurdly irrelevant. The only good show on it that I know of is Jamie Oliver At Home, which is aired on Saturday mornings after Tyler Florence.

A better topic for this post might be, “To Preach or Not to Preach, That is the Question”. There are plenty of food preachers around that many people love and admire. Bittman, Oliver, Waters. Sustainability is the most important issue relating to any modern food discussion today.

Hopefully, by showing great food experiences built on the support of sustainable foods, including local and organic, without “opinion”, readers and viewers will increasingly prefer the added value of eating sustainably.

Cheers,

Rob Smart
a.k.a., Jambutter on Twitter