Myers's case for indicting the food movement with these cherry-picked quotes and stories is not only weak, it's ludicrous. Of course eating good food can be enjoyable, enormously so, and there's nothing wrong with that. Fred Kirschenmann, a farmer and philosopher who inspires many people who care about good food, has written about the joy of eating fresh, wholesome food as he experienced it growing up on a farm. "The pleasure of good eating was about much more than the taste of the food," he writes. "It was about a deep appreciation for--and connection with--everything on our plates." It's hard to find anything resembling reckless pursuit of physical pleasure in Kirschenmann's kind of eating.

Similarly, in The Unsettling of America, Wendell Berry, another inspiring farmer-philosopher, writes that "growing one's own food is not drudgery at all." Working to produce the food oneself rather than having someone else engage in that toil makes eating it all the sweeter, he notes. "It is--in addition to being the appropriate fulfillment of a practical need--a sacrament, as eating is also, by which we enact and understand our oneness with the Creation, the conviviality of one body with all bodies." Would Myers also toss Berry onto his heap of gluttonous foodies?

In sharp contrast to the warped picture painted by Myers, America's food movement emphasizes not only mindful consumption but also reducing waste, conserving natural resources, and respecting the people and animals involved in food production. Moderation and conservation are its fundamental values. Undoubtedly, the movement has evolved this way largely because it is a reaction to an industrial food system that--while claiming to be efficient--externalizes its costs, throws away nearly half of the food it produces, and depends on various public subsidies, including direct payments and anemic enforcement of environmental laws.

In fact, the food movement's most prominent standard-bearers have explicitly articulated the importance of conscious and moderate eating. Michael Pollan (whom Myers references twice) coined the phrase, "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Certainly a prescription for such moderation. Mark Bittman's bestselling book Food Matters issues a similar clarion call. "[T]he bottom line here is that to eat well we must first eat moderately, and limit our eating to real food," Bittman writes in the opening chapter, titled "Rethinking Consumption."

Myers singles out meat eaters for particular scorn, suggesting they relish the suffering of animals and engage in particularly offensive form of gluttony. Yet lately, noteworthy cookbooks and books on meat, including The River Cottage Meat Book by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, whom Myers names, are distinctly anti-gluttonous. "This entire book," Fearnley-Whittingstall announces, "is based on the argument that meat should be something precious, always to be savored, never to be squandered. Personally I think it would make better sense for almost all of us to pay more money for less meat, of better quality." Similarly, James Beard Award-winning chef James Peterson's recent book Meat: A Kitchen Education says, "As you learn to appreciate the flavor of fine meat ... you'll find yourself satisfied with eating less meat." My own book, Righteous Porkchop, encourages: "Eat less meat; eat better meat."