Chefs Collaborative board of overseers member Ann Cooper (executive chef at the Ross School in New York and the Putney Inn in Vermont) rants about saving the world from conventionally produced food and fast-food restaurants while playing up organic, locally produced food. While suggesting we change the way we eat, Cooper shows no regard for those who can’t afford the fancy food she produces for her highbrow clientele, noting that, “We pay less for food, as a percent of our income, than any industrialized nation in the world… We’ve turned food into a commodity, like a shirt or a chair or a widget.”
When asked about genetically improved foods’ projected ability to feed the world with higher yields and lessened pesticide use, Cooper downplayed their potentially lifesaving contributions to people starving in other lands, saying, “One of my challenges as a chef is that we play to a white-tablecloth audience. I have a lot of angst over great food going only to people who can afford it. But much of the world’s starvation is due to distribution and politics.”
