Other Views: Dems shun fried foods

July 25, 2008 11:07 am

— Stephanie Simon, of The Wall Street Journal, reports that organizers of the Democratic National Convention in Denver are having trouble planning a party that will please all of the disparate elements of the party.
Take food, for example. The Denver organizers issued a 28-page set of specifications for caterers that included no fried food (the better to please the party’s health-nut wing).
Each meal had to include “at least three of the following colors: red, green, yellow, blue/purple and white” (and garnishes don’t count), and at least half the content of each plate had to be fruits and vegetables, the better to please the party’s nutrition zealots.
At least 70 percent of the food was to be organic and locally grown, the better to please both the health nuts and environmentalists (often one and the same) who are worried about the high carbon cost of transporting foods long distances.
And then there was the organic fanny pack dilemma. Each of the convention’s 15,000 volunteers is to receive a souvenir fanny pack, but to please various constituencies, the packs have to be union-made in America of organic cotton and stenciled, if possible, with soy-based ink.
After Simon’s report and a similar story in The New York Times appeared, party planners claimed that the dietary rules are all voluntary, not mandatory. Delegates and others at the convention will be able to get chicken nuggets, hot dogs, French fries and other politically incorrect food.
Will any true Democrat eat fried food in public? Besides Bill Clinton, that is?
— The St. Louis Post Dispatch