Is Grass-Fed Fast Food the Future of Sustainability?

There's something extremely satisfying about cooking a meal from scratch with food you can trace back to the farms they came from. It enhances my appreciation of what I'm eating like nothing else, and it's not just because the ingredients are fresh. But just like most people, I occasionally find myself far from home and hungry, wishing for something quick, easy, and filling.

That's usually when I begin to crave fast food, and although I've sworn the stuff off, that doesn't mean I don't wish that occasionally there was something that met me halfway and provided some grass-fed goodness on the go. Los Angeles does sport a 100 percent grass-fed hot dog cart, Let's Be Frank (which treated me to my first hot dog in years), but there's just one truck, and it only shows up on certain days. But soon, I may have a more reliable option: a fast food chain offering organic, pastured beef is about to open a franchise here in LA.

Elevation Burger offers not just a sustainable beef patty, but fries cooked in "100 percent heart-healthy olive oil." The joint also offers ingredients that are "fresh, sustainable, and local when practical." Elevation Burger recycles, donates its used oil for biodiesel, pursues LEED certification for its restaurants, and uses energy-saving appliances. The chain is also rapidly expanding. So is this greenwashing, or is it sustainable, humane meat's ticket into the mainstream?

That's no easy question. Clearly the organic, grass-fed beef would meet almost anyone's sustainability standards, but does the context mitigate the good? In other words, does the decidedly non-local national franchise, the mechanization of cooking, the easy access to what should still be only an occasional meal (grass-fed or not), and the non-organic bun and toppings outweigh the potential good of popularizing a meat that actually helps animals, our health, and the environment?

Different people will have different answers to that question. Die-hard locavores will likely see any fast food franchise as a gross distortion of the term "sustainable," regardless of the ingredients used. Those who champion organics will likely take issue with the fact that most of Elevation Burger's ingredients are conventional. And any chef worth his or her salt will tell you that olive oil is a terrible choice for frying (it makes for a very greasy dish). But I try to always walk the line between ideological strength of vision and practical utilitarianism. Even if I myself wouldn't choose to patronize Elevation Burger (and I reserve judgment until I get a chance to visit the place myself), I don't feel right criticizing it if it pushes more people to eat grass-fed beef when they otherwise would be eating grain-fed.

Recently I had lunch with my sister and her boyfriend in Santa Barbara. I was enjoying a veggie sandwich while my company scarfed down chicken. Everything I've ever written for this blog, they've heard (and then some), and they've listened to it all with interest and sympathy. And yet here they were, eating an abused and unhealthy animal that ran a good chance of giving them food poisoning. Rather than express my incredulity, I asked, "What would it take to make you eat sustainable, ethical food?" My sister seemed apologetic, but the boyfriend answered, "Convenience." He said that until such food was both cheap and convenient, he wasn't going to change.

It's easy to look down on such attitudes, and we should do what we can to change them. But at the same time, we need to recognize the fundamental reality that, as a population, people are going to do what's easiest. Until the healthier, better choice is plentiful and convenient, our larger food system is very unlikely to change. That is why it is so essential to stop supporting policies that prop up commodity corn and processed food and start supporting policies that make life easier for those going the extra mile to provide organic, ethical, clean, healthy food. And that is why we should perhaps look past our valid criticisms a bit and see grass-fed, fast food burgers not so much as an effort that only makes it halfway, but as a monumental half-leap forward for our broader food culture.

Photo credit: diaper via Flickr