2010: Will Real Food Start a Comeback?

Activism is, historically, a progressive, living, breathing part of society. It grows and evolves side-by-side with humanity. The masses reject one thing, and society moves forward. Then, with their newly, more open boundaries, they tackle the next issue. Americans fought to de-segregate society, allow interracial marriages, and now, we are fighting for gay marriage, for example. It's a chain reaction.

But where does food activism fit in for our society? It's not a natural progression of our activism, because it's actually a rejection of what we formerly considered "progress." This is something new. How often have we seen people really rise up against a nation's progress? There weren't mass movements against electricity, cars, microwaves, or laptops. And food has become a similar luxury item, pushed forward by factories. But suddenly people are making the connection between rising health problems and food's "progress," and they're rejecting this notion of advancement.

I can connect the dots for how I personally ended up here. I started off as an animal-rights activist when I became a vegetarian at twelve, stood up to my high school at fourteen by refusing to support the factory-farmed pigs they used for dissection, and eventually became the co-president of my school's Animal Protection Club. The environment slipped into my consciousness somewhere along the road, and I began my quest to become a more self-sufficient person. That, plus my love for cooking, is what drew me to organic farming. And, well, once you're pursuing organic farming, it's pretty hard not to become a food activist.

But for the rest of America, where does this fit in? How educated are most people about these issues? Most of my friends have no idea that the majority of their food isn't food, but "food-like substances." I myself wasn't fully aware of the situation until I read Michael Pollan's books. Movies like King Corn and Food, Inc also helped to inspire and inform me. But the majority of citizens have not yet even heard of many of the authors and films behind this movement.

In 2010, this may change. Check out The Green Fork's post, "2010: The Year Real Food Makes a Comeback?". We're seeing these issues mentioned far more often, people are buying tickets to films like Fresh and Food, Inc and copies of Pollan's books. The public is slowly becoming more informed. So maybe, just maybe, this new decade will mark a turning point for the proverbial American melting pot: instead of chemical flavors, perhaps we will begin to add real food, from real farms, nourished by real soil.

"Whatever lofty things you might accomplish today, you will do them only because you first ate something that grew out of dirt" -Barbara Kingsolver