Let Them Eat Lentils

National Review Online, March 22, 2022

Some “foods” have no place on a plate — anchovies, capers, and lentils, to pick out but three. Don’t @ me.

It was thus dispiriting to read the now-infamous article by Teresa Ghilarducci in Bloomberg, in which she argues that one way of combating the effects of inflation might be to turn to . . . lentils:

When it comes to food, don’t be afraid to explore. Prices for animal-based food products will certainly increase. Ukraine and Russia supply a significant amount of corn and barley to the world market, mainly to feed livestock for human food. Meat prices have increased about 14% from February 2021 and will go up even more. Though your palate may not be used to it, tasty meat substitutes include vegetables (where prices are up a little over 4%, or lentils and beans, which are up about 9%). Plan to cut out the middle creature and consume plants directly. It’s a more efficient, healthier and cheaper way to get calories.

The cost of lentils is rising, as Ghilarducci acknowledges. In fact, it may rise still further. According to the USDA, the price received by farmers roughly doubled between January 2021 and January 2022, so fans of this “tasty” treat are likely to be paying more at the supermarket before long.

Nevertheless, there’s no denying that lentils are cheaper than meat and are also, to borrow Ghilarducci’s depressing adjective, a more “efficient” way to get calories. As for healthy, that too.

I turned to the lentil shills over at lentils.org, a site seemingly put together by Canadians (Canada is the world’s leading producer and exporter of lentils). These particular Canadians would, I suspect, have little time for less virtuous Canadian foodstuffs, whether doughnuts, bacon, Nanaimo bars, or the unfortunately named poutine.

At lentils.org, they are all about the potassium, folate, manganese, protein, and inevitably, fiber — splendid contributions to a diet, of course, some which can deliver quite the punch: “Just 1/2 cup of cooked green lentils packs in 32% of your days’ worth of fibre!”

The entry on potassium offers up a clue to the nature of the audience to which this website is appealing:

We are so driven to reduce salt that sometimes we forget to look at the other half of the equation: getting enough potassium.

If “we” are so driven to reduce salt, that may be because “we” are not paying too much attention to the #science, which increasingly suggests that salt may not be as much of a menace as food nannies — including, ahem, Mike Bloomberg — have long been claiming.

While lentils are, as mentioned above, a healthy food (and, no, salt should not be overdone), it is worth remembering that no small part of the advice we are given on what to consume stems from a desire to control rather than from a sincere worry about our well-being. That was true of Bloomberg’s war on salt, and the campaign against vaping — an effort in which Bloomberg is also participating — may even cost lives.

To be fair, choosing vegetables and legumes over meat would save people money. But is another agenda at work, too? The way in which Ghilarducci describes “corn and barley [mainly being used] to feed livestock for human food,” comes with a faint subtext of disdain, and her reference to cutting out “the middle creature” seems a little freighted, too.

Ghilarducci, writing in Forbes back in January: “It’s always a good time to be a vegetarian . . .”

Oh.

Equally, her view that drivers should consider using public transportation, if it’s an option, was sensible, however it may have sounded (spoiler: not great). But I couldn’t help wondering, the times being what they are and Bloomberg being what it is, whether Ghilarducci’s thinking had also been influenced by the war on the car being waged by climate warriors and other environmentalists, as well as a good number on the left. She’s concerned about climate change and supports a carbon tax — a tax that has supporters across the political spectrum but, unless structured very carefully indeed, will add more speed to the greenflationary ratchet.

And, while Ghilarducci is correct (at least as a general rule) that inflation is regressive, the article’s hint of “let them eat cake lentils” was amplified by the tweet with which Bloomberg Opinion highlighted the piece:

Inflation stings most if you earn less than $300K. Here’s how to deal:

➡ Take the bus

➡ Don’t buy in bulk

➡ Try lentils instead of meat

➡ Nobody said this would be fun

Ghilarducci should not take the blame for that last line (it wasn’t hers, and nor, incidentally, did Marie Antoinette say that thing about cake), but the perception of her piece will not have been helped by her suggestion that those who went in for bulk buying (dupes!) should “try to do it with a friend, so you can split some of the costs and ensure everything gets eaten or used.”

Patronizing much?

And then there was that whole business about pets:

If you’re one of the many Americans who became a new pet owner during the pandemic, you might want to rethink those costly pet medical needs. It may sound harsh, but researchers actually don’t recommend pet chemotherapy — which can cost up to $10,000 — for ethical reasons.

I’m not going to stumble into the middle of that debate, other than to note that “costly pet medical needs” can cover a wide range of treatments, many of which will fall far short of chemo and can significantly improve the quality of both the pet’s life and, with it, that of its owner. Deciding what is affordable will often — for the more fortunate anyway — be a matter of deciding on priorities.

As for those “ethical” reasons, the link to a research paper provided by Ghilarducci does nothing to dispel the notion that she is preaching de haut en bas, in this case passing on the opinions of another section of our contemporary clerisy to the benighted, inflation-struck masses.

From the paper’s abstract:

Employing the most relevant ethical theories regarding the nature of our duties to animals, the Animal Rights View, the Utilitarian View and the Relational (Contextual) view, this paper examines the ethics of using chemotherapy in dogs with cancer.

Tweeting in the aftermath of the controversy that her article had stirred up, Ghilarducci commented:

Anyone who is responding to my Bloomberg piece should actually read the article. Inflation is wildly regressive. And so is the Federal Reserve’s response. You can’t solve inflation with rate hikes.

As to that last sentence, that will rather depend. That said, what will add to inflation, particularly at this time, are schemes like this:

Big problems like these must be met with big solutions. We cannot afford to think small.

We need large-scale public investments that will build on the growth spurred by the American Rescue Plan and create millions of high-paying jobs. A multi-trillion dollar investment in infrastructure like the one President Biden laid out last week will help pave the way for sustainable and equitable economic growth and pay for itself in the long run.

One of the signatories of that statement was Teresa Ghilarducci.