Thanks Bob.

Counterculture food started in America during the late sixties and early
seventies. At its roots were the work of luminaries, such as Adelle Davis
(Let's Eat Right to Keep Fit), J. I. Rodale (Organic Gardening and Farming),
James S. Turner (The Chemical Feasts), and Francis Lappe (Diet for a Small
Planet). It's core rejected corporate farming and the corporate food
distribution system with the intent of replacing them with communes and food
co-ops. (Some of America's most famous restaurants emerged from this ferment,
including Alice Water's Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California, and Mollie
Katzen's Moosewood in Ithaca, New York.) There certainly were fads, but this
image of "kooks and nuts" was also intentionally promoted by corporate media to
discredit the movement.

The counterculture food movement disappeared in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
It was partly co-opted by businesses (who defined virtually all processed as
"natural," "organic," "healthful," "fat free," etc.) and partly mutated into
health food stores, macrobiotic diets, popular restaurants, support for the
family farm (such as Community Supported Agriculture), green markets, and
concern for food and hunger issues. Today, store-bought yoghurt, herbal teas,
sprouts and soy products are remnants of this movement.

During the 1990s, new concerns emerged to recreate the counterculture food
movement: Globalization and genetic engineering. This movement rejects
corporate farming and the corporate food distribution system. It wants to
substitute backyard gardens, local family farms and food co-ops, and promote
laws against genetic engineering, etc.

How does this sound?

Andy Smith

>
>Andy, I'm afraid I can't get the 60's out of my head when considering
>the whole notion of counterculture. I and many others ate a lot of
>stupid food and bought a lot of stupid toys and utensils because it
>was a kind of trickle-down reaction to genuine issues. We mostly
>rejected the past (as does every generation in its own fashion)
>because it was the past And we were so much smarter than anybody who
>had ever lived before.
>
>We cooked nasty-tasting things in primitive cooking equipment because
>it was cool rather than because we were making many statements of
>protest. Way up at the rarefied top of the philosophical tree there
>may well have been great thinkers pondering universal questions and
>conundrums. By the time it filtered down to us, we were eating things
>because we had the munchies, not because we were terribly worried
>about the plight of farmers in Uganda. The shock of The Great Folk
>Music Catastrophe in the late 50's set the stage for everything to be
>taken over by amateurs. So we wove bad cloth, threw clumsy pots,
>carved embarrassing sculptures, smoked junk weed, embroidered mad LSD
>dreams on our shirts and generally misbehaved thinking it was actually
>a valid rebellion against, um, something.
>
>We ate Alice B. Toklas brownies and blurted out "profound"
>observations about the world and we sang folk songs we had learned in
>New York where there are no folks.
>
>I think there's a great deal of plain and simple fashion and fad in
>counterculture behavior. Maybe a good and important idea way back at
>the beginning, but by the time it hit the streets, it was
>questionable, at best. Like Einstein strolling down Paul Robeson Place
>in Princeton with his fly open.
>
>I know. This is a good example of the logical flaw of extrapolating
>from the particular to the universal.
>
>>>Counterculture food groups have many divergent interests, but many cluster
>>>around the following overlapping issue areas:
>>>
>>>1. environmental and sustainability issues (organic gardening; family farm
>>>vs factory farm, etc.);
>>>
>>>2. health and nutrition issues (chemical additives, pesticides; junk food,
>>>fast foods, obesity, etc.);
>>>
>>>3. legal/political issues (labeling, approval processes, political power
>>>of food companies, etc.);
>>>
>>>4. ethical/moral issues (animal rights, vegetarianism, religion,
>>>humanitarian matters, hunger and malnutrition, food advertising/promotion,
>etc.);
>>>
>>>5. science/technology issues (GMOs, cloning, etc.);
>>>
>>>6. globalization issues (NAFTA, WTO, EU, etc.).
>>>
>>>What obvious issue areas have I left out?
>
>To me, this feels like the current picture rather than an overview of
>the various movements that ran counter to the prevailing culture's
>notions about food and health, etc. Think of the Kelloggs, Graham,
>Leibig. Later, McFadden et al. And more recently Euell Gibbons and the
>like. Might even tuck Robert Atkins in there. An ungenerous look calls
>them faddists. But they were also countercultural and, for better or
>worse, helped to shape the futures of the mainstream.
>
>Pastorio
>
>
>>>
>>>Andy Smith
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