The term "foodie" gets thrown around a lot and I, like Eden, don't really know what it means anymore (if I ever did).
I find this article is attacking the wrong people. The authors quoted above (Bourdain, Pollan, Waters, Fearnley-Whittingstal) are not the rapacious consumers of animal protein they are being painted as. If anything, they are the ones that are asking for proper animal husbandry at a scale that is *not* industrial. If anything, the author of this hatchet-job of an article is taking aim at those who are at the vanguard of responsible eating. I suppose this comes from the fact that the author is a vegan and would like *all* to follow this lifestyle.
Let's face it. The average American eats way too much meat and they do so because it can be had cheaply. It's cheap because of the industrialization of meat production. It treats animals as a cog in a big meat making machine. It's not pretty. It's not healthy. And it's not tasty. It is impractical to assume that Americans (Westerners) are going to give up eating meat en masse. It's not a realistic proposition. If anything, people should be adopting a more balanced way of eating.
Here's what Pollan has to say about it: "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants."
I don't have the quote at hand but Bourdain has suggested that people eat more like Asians where the meat is a condiment rather than the focus of a dish.
Waters and Fearnly-Whittingstal have done more in their respective countries to campaign for eating locally produced, seasonal food as well organically and humanely reared animals. Do a Google for Fearnly-Whittingstal's campaigns:
Landshare,
Chicken Out, and
Fish Fight. These are not the actions of someone who is not concerned with the welfare of animals. He has done more to change people's thinking in Britain about food and where it comes from that probably anyone else. And he has had results.
The author of the article, in my opinion is a cloistered wanker. He can't see beyond his own myopic need to justify his choice of veganism. I am of the opinion that there is a real problem with our food supply. There is, perhaps, even a moral element to be taken into consideration. Things need to change for the better but campaigning for universal veganism is a waste of bandwidth when a more nuanced discussion is needed.