Is Chelsea Clinton Helping or Hurting the Sustainable Food Movement?

If you haven't yet heard, Chelsea Clinton's getting married to her fiancee Marc Mezvinsky soon, and it seems they will be serving quite the sustainable menu to her guests. There will be options that are vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, and for the omnivores, a nice, organic, grass-fed, free-range steak.

Alright, so maybe this isn't the most hard-hitting piece of agricultural news, but I think that anything that raises the profile of alternative, sustainable food choices, or even gets people talking about such food choices, is a great thing. When I mention to friends and family that I write for a sustainable food blog, they always ask me what they should be eating. Since I'm prone to animated lectures on the topic, I usually try to stick to Micheal Pollan's quick advice of "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Although I can't resist elaborating that they should probably cut out factory-farmed meat and fast food entirely.

Food issues have risen in the public's consciousness to the point where people are starting to ask a lot of questions, but it seems to me that there aren't a lot of answers being given. It's still shocking to me that most people don't even know that there is such a thing as "grass-fed" meat ("Isn't all beef grass-fed?" they ask). So when I see someone as high-profile as Miss Clinton promoting the grass-fed goodness, it makes my sustainable foodie heart skip a beat.

Now, a lot of people are giving Clinton flack because they see serving meat — even grass-fed, organic meat — as a betrayal of her ideals. She has, after all, been a vegan since childhood. Depending on your point of view, perhaps it is a betrayal. But from the activist point of view, showcasing this alternative makes a big difference. People already get what vegetarianism is, and most people know what a vegan is, but again, I am shocked by the number of people who don't realize that there actually are alternatives to factory-farmed meat out there. Even the strictest vegan will admit that if someone is going to eat meat (and let's face it, most people are going to), it is far, far better that they be eating grass-fed animals raised outside with fresh air and sunshine. Even Jonathan Safran Foer of Eating Animals fame gave his stamp of approval to a few meat farmers doing it right. Not to mention, abstinence-only education doesn't have the greatest track record. We need comprehensive Food Ed.

No doubt many will continue to criticize poor Chelsea Clinton for everything from her menu choices to what shoes she decides to wear (oh, the burden of celebrity). But I, for one, am excited to see her going with the "compromise" position and bringing attention to grass-fed meat, especially since most people in her position would probably just go with corn-fed, organic beef and call it a day. It can feel lonely working in our growing little food movement, and it's nice to get some publicity for the cause from someone who seems to be interested in more than just greenwashing.

Photo credit: Kyle Cassidy