Is Healthy Food Cool?

Food has moved beyond being a necessity; it has moved into the realm of the symbolic. Shopping at Shaws and shopping at Whole Foods say different things. It is about being green, being organic, being healthy… and being able to fit into the size 4 Express skinny jeans?

Our generation of cautious omnivores isn’t necessarily concerned with the saturated fat content of our fresh sushi rolls (with brown rice of course), or the sodium content of our bottled water; but, instead, how it will affect our waistlines, or which celebrity shares our tastes.

Perhaps I am speaking more to the fairer of our two sexes here, but it does seem that body image, celebrity status and food are going much more hand in hand in hand nowadays, right?

Is healthy food now cool?

We hear that organic food is better for us, but science is coming out now that says otherwise. Filtered water is better because it keeps bottles out of the landfills, but don’t carry it around in a Nalgene or Sigg!  New things to eat, and new ways to eat them are tearing us away from the fast, convenient, and cheap alternatives we used to love.

“Green” food is trendy, it speaks to our generation’s obsession with ourselves, but what does that label even mean, “green”? Is it low impact, organic, cruelty free, grain fed, local, cage free? If we are going to buy “green” food just because, perhaps it’s advertising should move beyond trend and towards topics. I mean is Zack Braff really trying to sell me my own water?

So slap on a cool label, throw a celebrity voice-over, and let me think I am saving the world in my own cool way.

Photo Credit: arbron