An architect friend made the food separatism point when grilling me this weekend about Food Policy Councils (FPC), the mainly 21st-century creation of government advisory panels that centralize coordination of food laws. We live in Washington, D.C., which in July held hearings to consider a bill creating an FPC to manage our city’s dizzying food evolution, on the expensive end with our first Daniel Boulud restaurant, the food insecure end with mobile farmers markets visiting areas where fresh food is otherwise in low supply, and every point in between.

My friend questioned the city government funding infrastructure for a group of experts to consider regulations for subjects as varied as feeding the hungry, tackling diet-based disease (resulting from both poverty