Letters to the Editor
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As usual, it isn't simple from any perspective
I worked in the natural foods industry for three years while going through grad school. A mom and pop health food store and a mid-sized co-op. I feel compelled to reply to both calls of elitism and unrealism and of bootstrapism, because in my anecdotal experience, it isn't as simple as either side posits.
I've educated a lot of people over the years about organic, natural and healthy foods. People for whom a trip to the health food store is an exotic, wild adventure. I know that it's not that people simply are shortsighted and lazy and therefor they don't buy what everyone knows is good for them. I've spoken with enough people who know litteraly nothing about organic and natural foods to know that you simply can't take that for granted. They come to my store only knowing that they don't know. The fact that they've even walked through the door is a major event and a lot of time family members will wait outside because such a store is so weird and unfamiliar.
The one down-side I see to mainstream grocery stores entering the organic and natural foods market is that they don't offer the same kind of educational service that staff in small independent grocers do. In order to educate yourself without help, you have to know what questions to ask, then you have to know where to get the answers. And you have to have the time to do both. Not everyone has these. There are vast swaths of America where there are no specialized health food stores, and as I said, the local grocery may carry some organics, but they don't provide education to let anyone know why they should buy them.
On the other hand, I also think there is an element of fear of the unknown and some mental laziness afoot. The old 70's image of bland tasteless health food really persists. The stores I've worked in sell alot of organic chocolate, which elicits chuckles from shoppers because they assume anything that "organic" is just another word for tasteless and yucky and healthy. Ew. Who wants healthy chocolate? We ended up creating a flier to set by the chocolate explaining what "organic" actually means. Whenever I went to community events to represent the store, I'd always take samples of tofu because that is one thing that would really catch everyone's eye and make them totally freak out. It got their attention enough that we could start a dialogue.
The foods that we eat are incredibly important to our self-images. Think about how you feel when you mention something that is your absolute favorite food on the planet, and the person you're with says, "BLECH! GROSS!" You feel a little personally affronted, don't you? The foods of our childhood, the foods of our families and friends, these become part of us. We don't want to hear anyone malign them and we certainly don't easily give them up. We are what we eat, and I'd go easy on people who aren't willing to change who they are just because someone says so. Progress is being made, more and more people are becoming educated. Getting all impatient about it just makes people defensive and reactionary.