Linden Hills Food Co-op plans an expansion, and that's a good thing

I recently got all riled up, even at the distance of a couple of states, about Eric Utne's criticism of Linden Hills Food Co-op, which is planning a move to a new space, eight-tenths of a mile away from their current home. Utne wrote something called "When Growth Isn't Good," in the magazine he once co-owned, Utne Reader.

A response to Utne's essay was posted on the website Fair Food Fight, a project of Equal Exchange, a co-op pioneer in the fair trade movement. Written by El Dragón (a writer also known as Barth Anderson), the response seems both fair and feisty to me.

Fair Food Fight is a wonderful place to vent and rave about this and other food issues. You can post your own fight under the cover of a personal avatar or other more-or-less transparent identity. I'm over there in the comments section as (no surprise here) elenabella. My fighting stance icon comes from a photo of a locker at Harmony School.

Thinking about this issue, I realized that almost nothing makes me more frustrated (mystified, bummed out) than a disconnect with someone like Eric Utne, whom I would otherwise assume to be totally hip to the importance of food co-ops when it comes to creating a more equitable natural, local, and sustainable food economy. But fair enough: this is always a long conversation, if not necessarily a fight.

The best place to read about plans for this upcoming, necessary and really pretty darned cool co-op expansion is at the Linden Hills website, and in their newsletter, the Rollin' Oats Journal.