VOTING WITH THEIR FORKS

If ‘67 was the summer of love, this is the summer of food

The reasons behind this sudden consciousness-raising are myriad, but Pollan summarizes them most succinctly. In an e-mail, he says Americans are starting to understand “just how important the food issue is — how it is linked to energy and global warming (17% of our fossil fuel use goes to feeding ourselves); to environmental pollution (farming is the single biggest source of water pollution); health (obesity and diabetes turned attention to the way we produce food); world trade, the federal budget and the welfare of animals.”"Increasingly,” Pollan adds, “people recognize that the industrial food system is failing us — it is not keeping us or our world healthy. And there are alternatives.”