Food movement not as small as Washington Post’s Tamar Haspel argues

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In her latest column for The Washington Post, “The surprising truth about the ‘food movement,’ ” Tamar Haspel argues that the number of people who really care about where their food comes from, how it is grown and its impact on our health and the environment is surprisingly small.

We think she’s wrong. . . .

But don’t take our word for it. Listen to food industry analysts like Scott Mushkin, who said last year: “To me, the biggest change is what’s going on with eating trends in the U.S. It’s stunning how much food patterns have changed.” His firm’s research found that the No. 1 one message of women surveyed was that they want to buy more fresh fruits and vegetables.

. . . .

. . . [C]onsumption trends are a reflection that Americans increasingly care about where their food comes from, how it is grown and the health and environmental implications of what they feed their families. . . .

I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a food movement to us.

. . . .

The demand for fresh, local and organic is seen clearly in the popularity of the nation’s farmers markets. Haspel argues that this popularity is waning, citing figures of plateauing sales. But . . . the USDA survey she looked at is done only once every five years, Haspel’s data was from 2007 to 2012, which, as you might remember, coincided with the country’s crippling recession. . . .

. . . .

. . . . Despite what opinion writers such as Haspel say, [people] care about labeling genetically modified organisms (GMOs), farmworker rights and the effects of chemicals used to grow their food.

Read full, original post: The food movement is small? Not from where we sit, it isn’t.

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