I enjoy columnist Alex Beam's writing in the Boston Globe, perhaps more than any other writer there. To me, he has long been a reason to buy the paper (though still, I read it for free online, and was doing so long before I left the paper's employ almost four years ago).

One facet of my enjoyment is his consistent curmudgeonry, though I suspect that in his case, it's congenital. So often, he infuses his countercultural positions with a credibility I'm surprised to see.

But in this case, in which he hopes we're finally seeing the "Twilight of the Foodies," he achieves but a veneer. I have no problem with his having an opinion — as a columnist, he damed well better! —  and I don't quarrel with elements of this one; food culture has disgusting extremes, such as "Man Vs. Food." But Beam bungles it when he mixes the tripe with the tenderloin. (Ugh.) The fact is — yes, fact, not opinion (Hi, Ron!) — our food system is seriously broken, and that's got nothing to do with rampant foodie-ism:

* To maximize profit and ease of production, industrial agriculture has narrowed the plant strains it uses to a very few, making swaths of our food supply vulnerable by a single well-evolved bug. It's all very Michael Crichton-ish until the long-shot hits — hello, Japan.

* Of an equal threat is the broad reliance on petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers. That stuff is actually, literally noxious to life — by design! And guess what? Pouring petrochemicals on our food ties it to oil-price volatility — hello, Libya. If you think people fighting for liberty is compelling, wait until they're fighting over food.

* Meanwhile, more than fun, food actually is a building block of life. Yeah, I know I'm a sissy-priss for saying it, but nothing composes our flesh and blood more than what we put into our mouths. And what do we feed on — merrily, cavalierly? Crap we value more for taste and fashion and convenience, rather than nutrition. Oh so revealingly, we call it junk.

Beam sneers at Mark Bittman's pretensions — a point that may have some merit — but then reveals his failure to think by attempting to illustrate his point with perfectly reasonable Bittman proposals. Breaking up the USDA is a good idea, Alex — having one agency both to police and promote the food health and safety is just stupid: How can you advise people not to eat, say, high-fat food while you're also helping pizza-parlor chains maximize cheese sales?

And on what grounds would anyone not in the food industry oppose the odious feedlots that concentrate vast outputs of animal waste in which meat marinates while still on the hoof? The animals are routinely pumped with antibiotics because the operators know the livestock can't help but become ill in such an environment. This is an awful existence for any of God's creatures, and undermines the value to antibiotics to all.

But Beam mocks the proposal — on the grounds of pretension? A clear foolish misstep among several. As I say, there are merits to the piece — there always are in his work — but he fails to acknowledge (or is it understand?) that true issues of health and even survival can exist alongside pop culture excess.