For some reason I have been having been having extreme difficulties trying to think of a way to start this post. I have gone through about a million different ways to phrase it, and it never seems to turn out right. So finally I've decided to just write and see where it takes me.
This morning my mom sent me a text telling me to "Come outside and get some sun." So I picked up my homework, brought it outside, and sat on a bench in my backyard to finish it. I felt proud, like I had bettered myself today by simply making a choice to step outside. This feeling got me thinking and I wondered, why nature made me feel better about myself.
Why did more "natural" things in general make Americans feel better about themselves? I decided to focus on the food industries change to be more natural.
Everywhere you looks nowadays, people are changing to try and be more "natural" with their food. In grocery stores there are large organic food sections. Even the normal food sections in the store feature newer, "healthier" options. Frito Lay chips for example now display their "All Natural Ingredients"stamp on the front of all their bags. Also Sara Lee now has "Whole Grain White" bread, containing "No High Fructose Corn Syrup." The bread still looks the same, but contains none of the ingredients though to be unhealthy anymore. Although the ingredients are changing to become more natural, all the labels insist that everything still contains the "Same Great Taste!"Its not just the ingredients that are changing, its also the labeling. More shades of green, brown, and blue are appearing as the dominant colors in packaging.
Its unclear exactly when everything started changing and why. I think that with all the technology surrounding us today people have started feel uncomfortable with it. We live surrounded by artificial things (air, food, chemicals, etc.) everything is processed over and over again before it finally get to us, the consumers. People have started doubt the quality of the products we receive through this long process. With new organic products, people find they trust nature more to make their food great, not machinery and chemicals. Many people prefer to get their fruits and vegetables from farmers markets because then they know their food was produced naturally. Consumers feel better about themselves when they purchase more natural foods because it is now seen to be the smarter choice.
What do you think about this change to more natural food sources? Where else can you see examples of this need to be more green?
I really enjoyed reading this post Alexi, and I think that the question that it poses is very interesting, now I shall add my two cents (be it even this, my thoughts are probably worth less than a penny). I like to believe (it is a preference of thought, I do admit) that this technologically induced overdose that has become apparent in modern day society is suspect of a much larger sentiment on behalf of the American people; and that is a dissatisfaction with artificiality. As the world is becoming more and more connected, I fear that some historically sound aspects of society fail to meet the technological quota, and are in turn replaced by upgrades, or advances that really sever the visceral emotion that you feel when you bite into a carrot that you made for yourself, we begin to sacrifice emotion (or quality) for efficiency. Another area that I would point to that may prove thought provoking for you would be to take an introspective look at the emergence of condensed textual language used in the exchange of information via cellular telephones (also known as "texting"). I, for one have never seen a word in a text message that exceeds three syllables, this is because it is inconvenient to type. What are we sacrificing with this? Possibly the same thing we are with food. Hopefully the change will spill over!
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