Omnivore - Have foodies gone mad?

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It is now impossible to enter any place where cooking occurs without being immediately bombarded with words like “organic,” “local,” “sustainable,” “free-range,” “chemical-free” and “farm-to-table.”

Just a few days ago, I was sitting in a very mediocre restaurant loved by foodies, eating local cabbage and involuntarily eavesdropping on the noisy table next to mine. It was four marketing people who were discussing — no joke — ways to exploit the sustainability movement in the promotion of a product similar to Tupperware. So it goes everywhere.

Soon, Ronald McDonald will morph into Mr. Green Jeans and Mayor McCheese will make a comeback with the head of an heirloom tomato.

I’m all for the sustainable movement but I was interested to see that some of my own misgivings about its blindly obsessional regard were articulated by editor Darra Goldstein in her latest column in Gastronomica. A sample: