High prices drive quality down, so food critic quits

[Robin Garr]

Ari LeVaux, the dining critic for the Weekly Alibi in Albuquerque, is hanging up his fork and leaving the food-critic business.

His problem is this: Most restaurants these days, even the good ones, are so pinched by rising food costs - and especially the cost of quality locavore, organic and natural food - that they have little choice but to start with lowest-common-denominator crap ingredients. A good chef can make crap taste good, but she can’t make it healthy, and only a handful of farm-to-table eateries are willing to make the necessary sacrifices, so LeVaux is out.

I feel a lot of this. I don’t like it one bit. I can’t quit. but I wonder if there are anyanswers.

You folks got any?

Restaurant Industry’s Dirty Secret: Why I’m Mostly Going to Stop Eating Out

Well, I'm not gonna call you a mamby pamby food snob, so cut me a little slack.


Let's just say many people don't place as high a value on the source and conditions in which there food is raised that you do. I'm not being judgemental. Folks should be allowed to follow their own values.

This is a classic problem of niche markets and niche products. It adds costs to raise food the way you'd prefer and it adds costs to keep track of all that in a supply chain. This restaurant critic might be making the right choice for him. If the chain of custody of ingredients cannot be produced, then the worst must be assumed. Certainly that chain will be much shorter for local foods.

I have a lot of sympathy for the localvore movement and don't think it's a socialist plot.
There are many advantages to health, and I think even public safety, to non industrial, small batch foods, for many reasons. And this is all before considering how the animals are treated.

It's just that I can't be a pure locavore, because I like year-round fresh vegetables. And sorry, I can't pass up the half pork loins at $2 per pound at Kroger. These have pretty much replaced beef in much of my cooking. And why is beef so expensive now anyway?


So back to your question...

You are doing what you have to do to support your cause: getting the message out. But there are not enough people as committed to the effort to keep the costs down low enough for wide acceptance. Everything about what you want raises the costs. And since the idea of scaling up operations defeats the whole purpose, those costs can never really be reduced.

So sorry, but you will always be stuck dealing with a small, boutique market to get the kind of foods that you want.

Yeah...every consumer and producer in the food economy has to make a decision about balancing cost and quality (however defined). Some of us make sacrifices and eat out less often so we can move that slider farther towards the quality end of the spectrum. Some of us move the slider towards minimizing cost, and have to eat lesser quality stuff as a consequence. Many of us are at one point on the spectrum and wish we could move farther. Leading a happy food life means finding that balance for oneself, and being a good neighbor means being slow to judge others who make different decisions.

I read this as Mr. LeVaux's personal account of finding that balance for himself, and I wish him well in it. It's tempting to read it as a finger-shaking screed against the rest of the food economy that doesn't bend over backwards to line up with his preferences, especially since it comes from such an extreme left-wing site like AlterNet. But reading it that way wouldn't be charitable, so I try not to.

[Robin Garr]

Thanks for the civil and generous responses, guys. I have to confess, though, that it surprises me a little that there's not more outrage about the profit-driven excesses of the industrial pork, poultry, beef. dairy and corn industries in particular. That $#!+ ain't good for you, and I'm not talking about going vegan here, just a rational concern about eating food that's been laced with growth hormone and antibiotics and delicious goodies like that.

Everything is profit driven. The folks you are buying your pure and humanely raised food are also driven by profit. Profit is not a dirty word. Figure out a way humane biodynamic producers to make more money, and you'll have more of the foods that you want.

<mounts soapbox>
And food production is an area where you should be experiencing some cognitive dissonance. Your default position is that nationalizing regulations and ceding corresponding enforcment to the Federal government is necessary for progress.

But here is a case where the Feds have hijacked what "Organic" means, fought for years the right to even put a label on foods as to where it come from, and continues to insist that there is nothing wrong with industrially produced food. I know you disagree with all those and probably their ideas about GMOs too. And yet you still want to trust them with ever more power. I don't get it.
<steps down>

I think there is economic factors at play here. We've seen real median income decline for 10 or 15 years now. As far as I can remember, eating out has never exactly been cheap, but an increasing percentage of the population is being priced out altogether. Rising food costs + lower median income is simply not a recipe for a culinary renaissance. The result is that many more people are choosing either to eat out cheaply or to rarely go out at all.

Thanks for the civil and generous responses, guys. I have to confess, though, that it surprises me a little that there's not more outrage about the profit-driven excesses of the industrial pork, poultry, beef. dairy and corn industries in particular. That $#!+ ain't good for you, and I'm not talking about going vegan here, just a rational concern about eating food that's been laced with growth hormone and antibiotics and delicious goodies like that.

You know how I feel about it all Robin... as my father says "I'm again 'em". I think the problem that goes unaddressed when talking about industrial agriculture is that it is subsidized in the wrong direction. Our tax money is allocated in the Food Bill every year to go to more corn, and soy production, antibiotic supplementation, GMO research, and industrial kill facilities. We are therefore lining the wallets of the giant conglomerates, industrial operations, and politicians who are poisoning us. Those subsidies obscure the cost of our healthcare, food costs, and the true price of production. So profit driven as all business may be, our government doesn't have to encourage the wrong types of production with our own dollars.

We are therefore lining the wallets of the giant conglomerates, industrial operations, and politicians who are poisoning us. Those subsidies obscure the cost of our healthcare, food costs, and the true price of production. So profit driven as all business may be, our government doesn't have to encourage the wrong types of production with our own dollars.

This is an excellent point. We should support any efforts to eliminate these subsidies, and even get rid of the Dept. of Agriculture for good measure.

Wow! All great points everyone.
Maybe what it is finally come down to is that we are realizing we cannot have it all, in vast amounts, all, the time, year round. I spoke with a woman at the grocery store that was complaining about the high cost of raspberries. "Well, " I said, "it is after all mid-January." She answered, "yeah. So?"
We have lost our appreciation for our farmers and what they must go through. But 'the times they are a' changing' and I think perhaps we need to revisit government involvement in our food chain. Old programs that had a place and a good reason once upon a time need either eliminating or revamping. I do feel strongly about GMO labeling and outsourcing meat production to countries where there is no supervision of cleanliness. All that said, if I am going to eat food that I know isn't going to make me sick or alter my DNA or kill off all the bees I am willing to pay for it and then simply cut back on my consumption.

I do feel strongly about GMO labeling and outsourcing meat production to countries where there is no supervision of cleanliness. All that said, if I am going to eat food that I know isn't going to make me sick or alter my DNA or kill off all the bees I am willing to pay for it and then simply cut back on my consumption.

I fear that GMO labeling is part of what is at stake in the Trans Pacific Partnership agreements. Or at least that is what we know from what has been leaked online, since it is being with held from public scrutiny...

I feel better hearing some of these posts on here though... The Beastie Boys made it abundantly clear that "you gotta fight for your right to party."

Food Freedom!

This has all happened before, browse "the Jungle" by Upton Sinclair. That one book exposed a lot of abuses and the backlash caused by it put a stop to a lot of them. This needs to happen again, we have regulators owned by the companies they are regulating and that's not a good thing. The profit motive if unchecked, has and will subjugate everything and drive out quality. Check out Krogers meat aisle, it's all watered down with salt water now to the point you can't grill it. We bought some store brand sour cream and read the label and found it was mostly corn starch with additives and about 15 ingredients, the Daisy brand was only sour cream. They are pretty adept at labeling items organic and natural, which basically rounds up the suckers, who don't look further. I hope this is a cyclic thing but I kind of doubt it.

I would like to point out that we have a lot of really good "ethnic" restaurants serving local ingredients here in town. Mayan Cafe, Nam Nam Cafe spring to mind.

[Robin Garr]

I would like to point out that we have a lot of really good "ethnic" restaurants serving local ingredients here in town. Mayan Cafe, Nam Nam Cafe spring to mind.

Con Huevos is all Kentucky Proud ...