Melania Trump’s New Love for Gardening

Food policy wonks can exhale now. Gardening is back in fashion at the White House. On Friday, First Lady Melania Trump hosted a happy contingent of school children to plant and pick in the White House kitchen garden.

“I’m a Big Believer in Healthy Eating”

The First Lady dressed for the occasion in a red plaid shirt, jeans, and sneakers. Her FLOTUS baseball cap didn’t appear. She offered brief remarks:

I’m a big believer in healthy eating because it reflects on your mind and your body. I encourage you to continue to eat a lot of vegetables and fruits, so you grow up healthy and take care of yourself.

And then she was off to the kitchen garden. She and about a dozen kids from the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Washington picked lettuce, kale, peas, radishes, Swiss chard, and mustard. They also planted cabbage, cauliflower, turnips, carrots, spinach, and kale for the fall.

Foodies were thrilled – and some were a little skeptical. For example, Eric Kessler of Arabella Advisors saw duplicity lurking in the shadows:

When this White House holds a garden event, you have to assume it’s meant as a distraction from some policy shift that will make good food less accessible to families that need it most.

Eva Gabor as Lisa Douglas on Green Acres

Truthfully, it’s hard to know whether this was a flashback to Michelle Obama or to Green Acres. But who cares? The garden lives on.

Click here for more from Politico and here for more from CNN. If you want a critique of FLOTUS farming fashion, click here.

First Lady Melania Trump in the Garden, White House photograph / Twitter

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September 24, 2017