Michele Simon speaks out

A provocative interview

By Culinate staff

December 8, 2010

Last month one of our favorite food-politics blogs, the Ethicurean, ran a sassy Q&A with activist attorney Michele Simon, author of the book Appetite for Profit: How the Food Industry Undermines Our Health and How to Fight Back. Or, as the blog referred to her, “Michele Simon — activist, attorney, badass.” Especially in light of the recent passage of the child-nutrition bill in Congress, here’s just one highlight:

There’s some very disturbing discourse now about how everything government does is bad. And that anything government might do to “control” your behavior is bad, so if government makes food-policy changes, those must be bad, too. But this argument assumes that government is not already involved in your food choices. It completely ignores the reality that government is already involved with everything you eat. Every single meal, every bite you take is already shaped by policy; it’s just that the policy is in corporate interests, instead of the public interest. Government shouldn’t be obstructing Americans’ ability to eat well; it should be supporting it.

For more Michele Simon, the blog Civil Eats also has a recent interview with her.