A History of Political Eating in America

Plus a really good lentil shepherd's pie.

Eating in public in America is inherently political. Just ask any of the overly muscular men who make their living on social media pretending to live exclusively off sticks of butter and slabs of meat.

The whole eating meat to trigger the libs thing has always felt weird to me. Almost 90% of Americans identify as meat eaters in any given survey, which means that the coastal elite soy boys they’re supposedly fighting against are just as likely to enjoy a $300 dry aged restaurant tomahawk steak as they are a tofu bowl. And in this day and age, who among us doesn’t enjoy a nice oat milk latte every once in a while?

Still, the fact that public eating is political is undeniable, and this isn’t the relic of social media I once assumed it to be. Political eating is an American tradition, and it’s not going anywhere anytime soon.

Snacktime with the Yeoman Farmer

The disconnect between what we eat and what we say other people should be eating has been present since day one too.

Not to compare our Founding Fathers to the manosphere influencers who performatively chow down on organ meat smoothies, but Thomas Jefferson, the famous French courtier and gourmand, loved to talk about how republican virtue and agrarian simplicity were hand in glove, advocating that his fellow Americans build their diets around plain food grown by yeoman farmers. Never mind that the old pal paired that Virginian ham and simple country cooking with the finest of French haute cuisine.

That abstemious instinct stuck with us into the 19th century, when abstaining from alcohol (and making a big deal about it) became a marker of protestant moral seriousness. Health reformers like Sylvester Graham (grandaddy graham cracker himself) preached vegetarianism as a pathway to civic and spiritual virtue. Healthy eating meant healthier Americans and a stronger, more resilient state. No wonder it felt so critical to make sure everyone was getting their fiber in.

Meat’s Back on the Menu

Theodore Rosevelt’s arrival on the political stage meant that meat was back in a major way — and it was firmly linked to nascent ideas about manhood. The Rough Riders chowed down on bully beef and salt pork, and fresh meat consumption was tied to nationalism and vigor, just as it is by conservative-minded influencers today.

And, just like today, the rising popularity of meat was tied to suspicion toward immigrant and working-class foods by nativist movements that worried they were sapping the manly strength and diluting the warlike potential of a younger generation of American men.

World War II caused a swing back, as abstaining from certain foods became an explicit civic duty and a marker of class. Abstemious virtue returned with rationing and the rise of Victory Gardens and meatless Tuesdays (the original meatless Mondays!), patriotic acts that meant food choice was nationalized in a very explicit way. None of this applied to the ruling classes, who quietly ate just as they liked all war long. After the war, new technologies were applied to the creation of convenience foods, and patriotic eating became associated with microwaved dinners at home, a slab of meat once more on every plate.

The Culture War Gains Steam

As the countercultural movements of the ‘60s and ‘70s popularized plant-based eating again, we saw the rise of things like whole-grain bread and microbiotic eating. Diet for a Small Planet linked meat consumption to global inequality, turning communal farming, vegetarianism, co-ops, and whole-food consumption into markers of left wing identity that some today might class as virtue signaling. Meat eaters on the right pushed back. I remember a friend’s father telling me that his own father insisted on serving big slabs of steak with every meal while his newly vegetarian friend returned from his Berkeley college co-op for a visit home.

These tensions only continued to intensify through the culture wars of the ‘80s and ‘90s, as animal rights groups and environmentalists pushed vegetarianism further to the left and fast food hamburgers became associated with working class, right-wing Americana. Political correctness touched food, too, as conservatives struck back against what they saw as elite moralising.

In the 2000s and 2010s, the link between eating vegetables and coastal liberalism only intensified with Michael Pollan’s work causing debates and Whole Foods becoming a cultural marker. Right-wing critics frame the natural food obsession as elitist and out of touch.

Political Eating Today: Fighting in the Meat Wars

These days, meat consumption has become more political than ever. As it becomes increasingly clearer that we all should reduce the amount of meat we eat for climate reasons, the national obsession with protein maxing is only growing. Beef has become a marker of conservative performance, as carnivore kings decry the rise of soy boy culture.

Food remains the site of a proxy war over American anxieties about class, gender, nationalism, and virtue. Social media might be new, but the performative aspect of eating politically in America seems to be a tale as old as time.

So where does that leave me, someone with a growing family and hungry toddler who constantly proclaims his love for “braised pork meat” but picks through his meals to find every scrap of spinach or kale? Somewhere in the middle, I guess! I do love a good steak every once in a while, but I can see the appeal in beans, too. This lentil pot pie is a nice place right in the middle too, virtuously vegan but savory enough to appeal to even the most conservative-minded eater. Just maybe don’t invite any social media carnivores over for dinner!

Emily Beyda’s writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Built, Refinery29, Smartmouth, Fodors, the Thrillist, the Austin Chronicle, and more. Her novel, “The Body Double,” was published in 2021.

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