He's a foodie fascist.

Small farmers and their employees need to make living wages.

So do we all. And we're more likely to do so if we aren't all being taxed to pay for a business you've opened which is fiscally unsustainable.

Small farmers actually tend to do very well. The image of the impoverished small farmer is one that's promoted by farmers to gain more subsidies.

Good to know that this guy didn't bother to do even a modicum of research before coming up with his ideas.

I don't think that the word subsidize means what he thinks it means.

There are several dangers here. One obviously is the idea of a new subsidized industry. I agree that farming subsidies need to be phased out. (Clinton's administration was on that path, but then Bush reversed it. Shame, shame Mr. Bush.)

However, the second and more insidious danger is foodies and their nutsoid ideas about nutrition and farming productivity. Yeah, growing your own cukes and heirloom tomatoes in the backyard can be fun; I've done it. Is it an efficient use of land? Hell no. If all food were grown that way, all of the Earth's land surface would not be sufficient for the existing population. Let's not forget the lessons of Bourlag; mass production farming is simply the only way we're going to feed a planet of six billion people. (And no, I do not advocate population reduction as the solution.)

Could mass production farming be better? Yes. Anything that is subsidized is, by definition, not as efficient as it could be. Clearly agribusiness is not delivering what a lot of people want: food that is reasonably fresh and tasty. Thus, you have a bunch of people shopping at Whole Foods who don't give a whit about organic farming or any of that; they simply want food that tastes better. But can everyone afford to shop at Whole Foods? Er, no. What are they supposed to do, starve because they don't meet some prissy foodie's idea of how everyone should eat?

But here's the third and biggest danger: the notion that anything I like should be subsidized, and anything I don't like should be banned. Discuss.

I am still astounded at the number of people who think it is a good idea to send our money to Washington, let them skim 10 percent, and give it to somebody else.

I have a modest proposal. We make this voluntary, and cut out the middleman. You take your money and spend it to support the free range yak farm. I take my money and use it to support my local craft brewer. We eliminate the middleman, and each of us gets what he wants.

Only a true New Yorker could believe that people need people need subsidies to eat at home

Any one of us can go on the Internet, call Grandma, call the neighbor, call Gregg (don't do that unless you're me or you might get growled at) and ask for tips on how to cook things.

Or you can just order Joy of Cooking: 75th Anniversary Edition from Amy's Amazon linky and not get growled at, even Grandma. Cooking is really just applied chemistry: follow the instructions and the food cooks itself.

Is there any school these days that DOESN'T provide "food education" for children?

Or you could call or email me - I love to share my cooking tips! I'm always discussing ways to cook things with other people when I'm at the grocery store, so much so that a couple of people have asked me if I'd be willing to give cooking lessons. And I would, if it were one-on-one or two. Three max. I can't get into the idea of giving cooking lessons to more than that at a time. I'd get confused and in turn, confuse others. Too many cooks spoil the broth, and all that. But my daughters' friends will come over on any given day and hang in the kitchen while I cook dinner, and take it upon themselves to make dessert. We have great fun ceating meals together! Do we need to be subsidized for that? Hells, no!

Madness.

Last night I bought asparagus for $2.50 a pound...in February. Food this guy approves of is already becoming available at lower and lower costs with longer seasons of availability. The invisible hand of the supermarket is taking care of bizz these days, and he comes up with subsidies?

And it's not just Chilean asparagus, the markets for organic and locally grown food are going Kaboom right now too. If there's much of any demand, the suppliers will find it, but some folks just aren't ok with the fact that demand for fresh veggies is not universal.

One subsidy I could agree with is handing out a full Ikea starter kitchen set to everyone who signs up for food stamps, complete with a vegetable steamer. Not having the basics is a serious disincentive. When I got divorced I started out with bare cupboards and the first month was pretty much frozen pizza cut with a Swiss Army knife.

Subsidize me for my home cooking? Nah, thanks anyway.

If that happened, it probably would open the way for government inspectors to make sure I was doing it right, in a government-approved kitchen, with government-approved food of course (so I'd be down to the quality of prisons and airports).

The only thing good would be that I could probably be allowed to feed the homeless. Maybe. Probably more red tape and regulations involved.

Would I be penalized for ordering pizza?

No. No, the whole thing is too horrible to contemplate.

If that happened, it probably would open the way for government inspectors to make sure I was doing it right, in a government-approved kitchen, with government-approved food of course (so I'd be down to the quality of prisons and airports).

I suspect that will be handled by his Civilian Cooking Corps.

Honestly, I used to roll my eyes at posts like this: "Jeez, simmer down, Alkon... we get it... 'science'... carbs are bad..."

Then I read Taubes' new book and I find myself yelling at the TV whenever some moron comes on and starts yapping about oatmeal and whole grain bread.

He's also wrong.

He's not wrong that corn and soy are subsidized (nor is he wrong that that's bad, but his reasons aren't ones I agree with).

He's wrong that somehow the subsidies are "for processed food". (For one thing, a lot of that subsidized corn is made into ethanol for fuel.)

He's triply wrong about "processed food" being somehow bad; as if cooking, chopping, or other "processing" is somehow evil or unhealthy.

Whenever I hear someone complaining about "processed food" as a synonym for "food they don't like", I know they're an idiot, at least on that subject.

WTF is wrong with people?

To steal something I read by a commenter on this forum previously, 'there's no end to the good you can do with other peoples money.'

He wants to subsidize 'small farmers'. But one of the reasons small farmers suffer is because of the harm caused by agricultural subsidies in the first place, that benefit larger farmers more. This is always the problem. Distort a market. Unintended consequences pop up. Solution? Throw MORE market distortion at the problem. Endless downward spiral ensues.

"Only a true New Yorker could believe that people need subsidies to eat at home."

Ha! Great comment. And the irony is: New York is one of the few, if not the only, metro area in the U.S. where building codes permit a residence to be constructed without a kitchen.

New York is one of the few, if not the only, metro area in the U.S. where building codes permit a residence to be constructed without a kitchen.

I've seen studios elsewhere that lack a kitchen. But the point still stands. Most New York apartments, even pretty good ones have tiny, barely functional kitchens. It's a totally different concept of living space than most of the country. That's one of the reasons (and the weather!) I like the West Coast cities better. In LA and San Francisco, you get enough more space for your dollar that you can have a real kitchen and dining room without breaking the bank (relatively speaking, anyway).

I agree that subsidies should be gone. Then real money would be spent at the real cost for food.

You'd be amazed at how much it truly costs.

I'm not against all govt subsidies and interventions... the booksellers on the Seine are subsidized by the govt. Which makes them, in effect, more like a park or a work of public art than a business. Which is fine.

And the reason Swiss chocolate is so good is that while you are welcome to make crappy chocolate, it is against Swiss law to market it as chocolate. You have to call it something else.

I don't know how I feel about this subsidy in particular. I have to think about it more.