Is This 12-Year-Old the Next Michael Pollan?

Posted by Tara Lohan, AlterNet at 4:04 PM on October 16, 2009.

It was extraordinarily refreshing to read a recent guest post (What the Heck is ProFood Anyway?) on one of the great food blogs, Every Kitchen Table. The author explains exactly what this new word, ProFood, is all about and why it's important we care. And better yet, this author, Orren Fox, is only 12 years old.

He says delightfully cute things like, "To be ProFood means you are FOR food. That sounds funny, but what I mean is that you think about food, you care about food and you will make an effort for good food. I am also Pro chocolate and Pro Red Sox."

While I may disagree with the Red Sox part of his assessment, he's spot on with everything else. Like calling out this country for being not being very ProFood right now:

People don't really think about food, we expect it to taste good, be available all the time, be convenient, be safe to eat and I guess not cost too much. People don't value good food. It seems as if people are always trying to find the cheapest food, not the best food. I think people might care more about the quality of the gas they put into their car than they do about what ingredients they put into their body. I don't think most people would say they are ProFood.

If America were ProFood we wouldn't accept food with dangerous ingredients in it. Unfortunately there are chemicals in our food that aren't good for us kids.

Well said, Orren. He's also got some great tips:

How can we make America or even just your own home or school ProFood?

* Choose pesticide free, hormone free, and artificial color free foods
* Drink water instead of high fructose corn syrup sweetened drinks
* Eat fresh foods like an apple or sliced red pepper rather than foods that never rot
* Ask where your food comes from and how it was raised
* Plant some seeds in the spring in a little pot and if you grow too much share it with a neighbor
* Respect the farmer, rancher, farm workers, animals (they are farm workers too) and the planet. (Some of these ideas come from Food, Inc.

Orren's also reading Novella Carpenter's new book Farm City, which is absolutely wonderful. Thank god some twelve year olds are more interested in raising ducks than playing video games. Check out the rest of his post here.

Tagged as: food, profood

Tara Lohan is a senior editor at AlterNet.