By Suzanne Lenzer
It seems like a good thing: Lay’s–the potato chip people–have a mobile farm set up in Times Square to help educate people about where their food comes from. It’s cute. There’s the “mobile farm” itself, with live plants and nice baskets of vegetables next to each one to help identify what’s actually growing; there’s a section where you can have your picture taken with a farmer (or at least someone wearing a straw hat); and there are a couple of very nice people handing out plastic cups with basil seeds inside so you can grow your own fresh herbs at
home.
You can lead a horse to water, but, more often than not, he’ll drink the Kool-Aid instead.
This is exactly what infuriates me. This is basically the "greenwashing" that I despise from companies. "Learn about the plight of the potato farmer, and here is a box of McD’s fries." Also…I wish people would really start making connections: seeds in PLASTIC cups. Cups which will momentarily be disposed of in the garbage (if we’re lucky). There are no connections being made. A valiant effort with disappointing, but usual, results. This is on par with Wal-Mart going "green." Yea right.
I was *so* waiting for the Lay’s ads to show up as "This S#!* Has Got to Stop, Pt. X." I mean, really. That Lay’s is associating itself with whole foods is terrible–an insult to the American public.