LAST MONTH A group of Stanford scientists started a food fight when they published a study that found organic meat and produce is not more nutritious than the conventional stuff. Some seized on the findings as evidence that organic proponents have unwittingly drunk the Kool-Aid—there is nothing superior about that $5 organic heirloom tomato but the price. Meanwhile, champions of organic foods poked holes in the study’s methods and said it was beside the point anyway: most people buy organic to avoid consuming pesticides, antibiotics, and growth hormones, and because they are concerned about the environmental effects of dumping chemicals on fields year after year.

This skirmish was a reminder that the mechanics of food production are no longer the preoccupation solely of aging hippies and back-to-the-landers. Food has become a tendentious theater in America’s ever-morphing culture wars.

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