Rachael Ray and the Organic Movement
In her last post on the Well Fed Network, Sheryl Kirby made a comment that caught my eye. She said: “I’ve discovered that the ‘30-minute meal’ crowd really don’t [sic] want to know where their food comes from, and that’s so incredibly disheartening to me that it makes me want to cry.” As a member of the 30-Minute Meal crowd who buys organic, local produce and cares where her food comes, I was intrigued my Sheryl’s comment. After a little bit of research, I discovered that while Sheryl may think that way, there is at least one major player in the organic/local movement who would likely disagree.
While Growers and Grocers is about food production and markets in general, you may have noticed that articles here tend to slant to coverage of organic practices, the virtues of buying local foods and the slow food movement, which seeks to fight all things fast food by opposing “the standardisation of taste” and “defends the need for consumer information,” among other things.
I firmly believe that those who want to make 30-Minute Meals can do so while still accomplishing all of the aforementioned goals. Apparently, a major figure in the organic/local food movement agrees with me: Michel Nischan. He is the author of Homegrown Pure and Simple: Great Healthy Food from Garden to Table and chef at the Dressing Room: A Homegrown Restaurant (owned by Paul Newman). Nischan also opened “Pure, a restaurant in the Taj Lands End hotel in Mumbai, India, based on the ‘wellness’ recipes he developed when he ran Heartbeat in the W New York hotel on East 49th Street starting in the late 1990?s.” Nischan’s website describes him as follows:
A renowned chef, best-selling cookbook author and avid proponent of sustainable farming, Michel Nischan is credited with creating a cuisine of well-being. His cuisine is focused on a respect for pure, local, organic ingredients and their intense flavors ? without the use of highly processed, overly indulgent ingredients.
What may surprise some is the fact that, according to the New York Times, Nischan is also a regular contributor or Rachael Ray’s new talk show and other cable shows.
Instead of depracating Ray, Nischan apparently decided to understand that some people simply have a limited amount of time to devote to purchasing food and preparing it. He may also realize that some people have the time to do so, but choose to spend that time doing other things, like writing, spending time with loved ones, or volunteering, as the case may be. That does not mean that these people do not care about what they eat or want “fast food.” I applaud Nischan for embracing the realities of life and trying to help people eat well in a way that fits with their lifestyle. Someone who wants to eat organic, local, “slow food” may also want to cook it quickly.
[Photo from michelnischan.com]
Sheryl Kirby’s remark is so incredibly disheartening to me that it makes me want to cry.