Political Cuisine

Salad is a beautifully simple American food. Its powerful allure draws the enthusiasm of vegetarians, meat-eaters and dieters alike for the bitter taste of fresh leafy greens atop lush slices of summer tomato. As simple and delicious as salad can be, it is often wrongfully prepared and asunder from original context. Hopefully, with greater public awareness of history and culture, we can end America’s misinterpretation of the salad and allow it to be great once again.

To begin, a brief history.

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A recent report accused American rice of being contaminated with arsenic, slandering a delicious staple of the human diet and encouraging people to avoid eating rice. The problem? It reeks of smelly food politics.

Obesity is the greatest 21st-century U.S. health concern, costing American taxpayers billions of dollars every year on increased health care, missed days of work and a generation of youth unable to join the military. Ultimately, obesity causes societal stress on American families who are forced to watch beloved family and friends suffer from ailments and diseases such as lacking mobility, diabetes and heart disease.

In the 1990s, citizens of Maryland were inundated with public service messages to “Save the Chesapeake Bay” from its plague of horrible pollution. Television commercials, radio announcements, newspaper articles and vanity license plates all sported the slogan to “Save the Bay.” Environmental scientists pleaded with people to help the effort, as they warned of pending doom for Maryland’s precious watershed if the bay could not recover from its years of pollution.