Incongruous in Iowa

I'm home now, but the last six days in Iowa were disappointing and confusing on the food front.

I know there are people in Iowa who care about soil conservation, diversity in cropping, alternatives to CAFO's, and local food security, but not in the hotel where our meeting took place or any of the places I ate. And there was fair ignorance of the New American Oxford Dictionary's 2007 word of the year, "locavore". There also seemed to be a general confusion of vegetarian with vegetables. There were no whole grain foods, and one of the dinners I was served appeared to be a one pound bag of deluxe frozen mixed vegetables which had been boiled and buttered.

The incongruity oscar, though, goes to the folks at the meeting who one evening had a lengthy conversation about Michael Pollan's seven latest words (Eat well. Not too much. Mostly plants.), CSA's, Farmer's Markets, etc., and the next went out to dinner at a restaurant where the smallest portion of feed lot mammal on the menu was a 14 oz. steak.

Next time I go to Iowa I'm packing prunes and soy nuts.