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Dan Cathy, the President and COO of Chick-fil-A, has been on a media tour the likes of which I’ve never seen by a fast food mogul.  I have always been vaguely aware of him, and since I was a child, have identified Chick-fil-A as slightly a cut above the other fast food brands, partly for what most seem to perceive as better quality ingredients. But there’s something else, I now realize: the brand is avowedly Christian.

Chick-fil-A is not open on Sundays; a pretty bold move in the fast chain business, but also a fairly obvious marketing tool towards Christians. It sends the message, “We don’t need your money on Sundays, friends. We are taking this Biblically prescribed day of rest, and you should, too.”

What Chick-fil-A also does not need is to procure its food from factory farms and hope that Christians making the connection between spirituality, ethics and knowing where our food comes from, will turn a blind eye.

This Christian will not.

Have you seen this piece, “Every Person Has a Story”? I’m not sure if fast food gets to do that. What do you think?

I admire Dan Cathy, and I pray for him a transformation on the issues of large-scale procurement as they relate to inhumane animal treatment, unnaturally grown food and personal responsibility toward stewarding human health. We’ve all witnessed what is possible for a national fast food chain: just look at how far Chipotle has come.

I think Dan Cathy should visit Joel Salatin. I’ll bet they’d like and respect one another. When Chick-fil-A begins to take steps towards clean, just, sustainable food sourcing, I’ll rejoice. Rather than wishing for the brand’s demise, I hope they’ll choose a new beginning based on the triple bottom line. A resurrection like that? Nothing would befit a Christian more.

My friend Jill Richardson, LaVidaLocavore, has already said it best, but really, guys: is the American public so lemming-like that we will honestly buy the horse manure being served up by the Corn Refiners Association as they petition the FDA to allow “corn sugar” to be used in place of “high fructose corn syrup?”

I want to highlight that the FDA has also approved cloned animals for human consumption, and most recently, GMO salmon. Lest you argue, “the data does not prove, nor indicate compellingly, that GMO foods present a danger to health,” I submit that the entities bankrolling these “foods” have leagues of scientists on the payroll, and that corporations in general do not have human health and wellbeing as their chief directive. Profitability is it.

Broccoli, wild Alaskan salmon – what’s left of it – and non-Monsanto corn do not have an army of well-paid scientists at their beck and call. So I’m asking you today, as someone who cares about not only where your food comes from, but in hope of saving civilization: SAY SOMETHING. Tell everyone you know. Even family and friends who say they do not care. Cheap food is not cheap. Things will not just continue as they always have. The price will be paid – by us, our children and our children’s children.

Recently a childhood friend with whom I’ve reconnected on Facebook made a post about sitting in the drive-thru at McDonald’s, laughing about the items her children were ordering. The children are about 3 and 5 years old, respectively, and I admit I was incensed by this window into a young family’s life, well beyond any and all rights I may have to pass judgment.

actual print ad via consumerist.com

I generally restrict my rage over fast food victimization to drives down Airport Boulevard between, oh, MLK and Oak Springs. The density of fast food chains in that stretch of road is mind-boggling. There are no grocery stores, with the exception of City Market, and residents I speak with about it cite a consistent lack of fresh produce. In my work, this is what is referred to as a food desert. Research is being done as we speak to document and assess the factors, impacts and ultimately, potential solutions to this public health crisis-causing situation.

In the meantime, I seek ways not to feel helpless when seeing and hearing of people – from friends to strangers – consuming fast food. Lest you say it’s none of my business, I argue that it is all of our collective business. If we do not make it so, our way of life will deteriorate even more rapidly than the current indicators of public health suggest. Did you know that one third of children aged 2-18 are now overweight in this country? Low income and ethnic groups other than white, as you might expect, fare the worst, with 40% of Latino children currently being overweight. Where does this lead? To a lifetime of challenges, from diet-related disease to social stigma and economic struggles affecting not only the individual, but all who pay taxes.

I don’t place blame on people who have no other viable food options in their neighborhoods and who face other barriers to access such as finances and transportation – I blame the corporations preying upon them – but I am grappling with those on the “other side” – like my childhood friend who could afford to do better, and most certainly is aware of the perils of fast food. It is those of us living or working on the other side who must take action. The simplest form is to abstain from eating fast food. When one mother in Westlake stops driving the girls through McDonald’s on Bee Cave, but instead takes a half hour earlier in her day to prepare a healthy snack for them, the ripple effect is palpable. Janey tells her mom that Chloe’s mom isn’t getting them McDonald’s anymore and wants to know what’s up with that. Janey’s mom thinks about this, and the social stigma of continuing a behavior her child’s friend’s family has deemed undesirable will affect her actions.

Keeping up with the Joneses can be a positive force, too.

In closing, think for a moment about the power Austin, Texas has. With the national spotlight continuing to shine a halo on us, we are called to demonstrate judgment which puts sustainability – economic, environmental and ethical – at the forefront of each decision. Why not strive for goals beyond just the low-hanging fruit? Why not, no new fast food establishments? No foods-of-minimal-nutritional-value (the technical name for vending machine foodlike items) in schools and work places? In my next posting I’ll be examining how these sorts of measures have worked – or not – in places like Berkeley, LA, Boulder, NYC and others.

The next time you wait too long to eat and your stomach is howling, along with the kids’, who may now be audibly howing, make an exceptional choice. Don’t drive thru. The world is watching!

By now, most of us have read, attempted to digest, or at minimum, skimmed the numerous retorts to Caitlin Flanagan’s anti-school-garden rant in Atlantic Monthly. The allocation of Monsanto’s, and other agribusinesses’, annual ad spends with the magazine, might automatically allow us to dismiss Flanagan or any other Atlantic writer’s credibility on the topic of growing food sustainably – but then, the majority of subscribers are not us. And this is what troubles me.

I grew up reading Atlantic Monthly. It was, indeed, the publication with which I credit a great deal of my love of words. My father encouraged me to read its lengthy and often obtuse articles, and my rhetoric and writing skills grew as a result. Just over two years ago, he canceled his subscription – and last year, I, mine. I cannot read articles on “feeding the world” facing opposite ads by the chemical and seed companies seeking to dominate not only our own country’s market and food sovereignty, but that of the world.

Certainly, I am aware of positive ideologies disseminated by Atlantic, such as our friend Carol Ann Sayle’s food blog and in general, much of the writing of Corby Kummer. I am, myself, consistently faced with the quandry of whether conventional agricultural entities might be brought around to the light by participating in public dialogue with us – such as conferences to which we find ourselves invited, branded by certain meat trade groups. The square I find myself landing on, however, is most often doubt. These organizations and media outlets are enriching themselves and benefiting in the public eye by association with us – those entrenched in the true sustainable agriculture.

While I’ve enjoyed the sea of rebuttals to Flanagan’s vitriol, from Tom Philpott to Kurt Michael Friese, my favorite has been the “renegade lunch lady”, Ann Cooper’s. She cites the great Satan, unregulated marketing to children, a point among they myriad missing from Flanagan’s article which I consider to be the most obvious and yet, challenging, to address in the court of American public opinion, particularly given our government’s love of appointing ex-Monsanto executives to positions regulating our food.

“From the union of government and science…The Mad Farmer walks quietly away,” proffers Wendell Berry.

“Come all ye conservatives and liberals/ who want to conserve the good things and be free,/ come away from the merchants of big answers, whose hands are metalled with power…by the purchase of everything from everybody at the lowest price/ and the sale of anything to anybody at the highest price.”

Our children are being fed, in school cafeterias, with our tax dollars, everything from everybody at the lowest price. Will you stand for it? Will you stand with us?