“She’s as sweet as Tupelo honey”- Van Morrison (Tupelo Honey)

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“You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant” – Arlo Guthrie (Alice’s Restaurant)

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‍“We’ve got to get back to the garden” – Joni Mitchell (Woodstock)

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“Feed your head” – Jefferson Airplane (White Rabbit) 

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In the beginning, it was all about the vibes, man.  They came to San Francisco, the new Mecca of “the movement”, drawn by the promise of good times, the freedom to “do your own thing”, and the possibility of creating a new society.  In the early days, heady with potential, they didn’t even have a name.  “Hippie” was yet to be coined, and “beatnik” was already obsolete- having connotations that simply no longer fit the new styles and consciousness of the young people pushing every envelope they encountered.  Catalyzed by the liberal use of mind expanding drugs- still legal prior to the autumn of 1966- the creative possibilities seemed literally limitless. And this meant that  the old assumptions and expectations of the “establishment” no longer held.  Clothing, music, language, social conventions, and yes, even food were all being seen in a fresh, new, psychedelically tinged light.

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To the young seekers of the mid to late Sixties, “vibes” meant anything associated with “good energy”- a sufficiently intuitive abstraction that upheld their spiritually correct sense of what was real and natural. Compared to the “straight” society they had left behind, the natural world was reliable, wholesome, and reassuring, being in accord with the hippie’s psychedelic vision which embraced aspects of natural law, karmic cause and effect, cosmic justice, and other spiritual insights and values. For those early voyagers of inner space, these were values of paramount importance, for they provided a road map of ethics and behavior.  To put it slightly differently, their emerging spirituality offered relatively practical guidelines as to what constituted a way of life in accord with “cosmic principles”, not unlike those found in the perennial philosophies of the far East, such as Taoism, and Buddhism.  This was all the more important given the fact that these young seekers were basically throwing out most of the values, assumptions, and beliefs of the culture they were raised in, which were commonly seen as overly materialistic, unjust, and out of balance with the real needs of the planet. A favorite derogatory word of the times used to describe the establishment or anything lacking in integrity was “plastic”, and if you weren’t being straightforward, you would be quickly told to “get real”.

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In such a rapidly evolving scene, it was probably inevitable that this social experiment would quickly encounter health foods- and of course, that is exactly what happened.  In fact, it was almost as if these two movements- the newly emerging hippie/inner space explorers and the much older, deeply rooted health food movement- were destined for convergence.  What was perhaps unforeseen in this encounter was the profound depth with which each was able to transform the other.  What emerged from their meeting quickly  morphed into a vigorous new hybrid, exhibiting a vitality that has carried through to the present day.

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It is cliché to state that the Sixties were about revolution.  Yet in hindsight, it is perhaps equally accurate to view the Sixties as being more about evolution.  What is noteworthy to our story, however, is the observation that food and diet in this country changed enormously, profoundly, pervasively, quickly, and amazingly, irrevocably.  What is fascinating about this era is the lightening-like speed with which these changes swept across America. It is almost as if one day it was all Sara Lee, Betty Crocker, and Swanson TV dinners, and the next, it was granola, whole wheat bread, brown rice, tofu, and yogurt. Without a doubt, we can trace our currently evolving culture-wide acceptance and embracing of whole grains, vegetarianism, fasting, soy foods, macrobiotics, juicing, the modern health food store and many other tenets of health foodism as we know it today to the hippie-inspired jump start that occurred in the last half of the decade of the Sixties.

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It would be a mistake to write off (as some have done) the youth-led rebellion of the Sixties as mere hedonism or youthful idealism.  Initially at least, the counter culture had a clearly articulated purpose. It also culled from the ranks of its generation many of its “best and brightest”- writers, artists, thinkers, philosophers, and innovators.  Psychedelics offered nothing less than the tantalizing prospect of the possibility of the transformation of the individual- and by extension, the transformation of society as well, and it was precisely this sort of utopian vision that fueled much of the early counterculture’s momentum and ideology. 

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Some of the characteristics of such a hopeful transformation included adopting the values of community, sharing, cooperation, non violence, and the recognition and acknowledgment of the one-ness or inter-relatedness of life. This last ideal meant that unprecedented numbers of people would soon begin to experiment with, and embrace, vegetarianism as a somewhat more extreme form of health foodism, making it in many circles the norm for the first time in American history.

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In many respects the much touted “generation gap” was more than just a journalistic platitude; perhaps never before had America seen such a dramatic shift in values, outlooks, and goals from one generation to the next.  Yet having left one world behind for a new one, the baby boomers were faced with a unique problem: where were the maps, tools, and guidelines to be found with which to help navigate their new paradigms? 

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This problem could have been potentially devastating in the arena of food. By dismissing much of the mainstream culture’s approach to food such as fast food, corporate branding, junk food and other synthetic and chemical foodstuffs, the danger existed of creating a “food vacuum”.  Two inter-related principle tenets of the budding youth cultural were first, the eschewing of all established (and establishment) forms of commerce and its products and second, self sufficiency and the development of skills of self reliancy.  Yet fortunately, the hippies and other counter culturals had a safety net available: they didn’t have to entirely reinvent the wheel.  The rich heritage of health foods, marginalized to the point of extinction in the conservative social climate of the Fifties, and whole previous generations of health writers were waiting in the wings to be discovered.

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These health influences on the social experimenters of the Sixties were manifold.  Many streams of influence emanated from earlier generations of American writers and thinkers, but equally seized upon were contemporary principles and practices imported from other cultures.  Macrobiotics, to mention one notable example, was a recently imported nutritional school of thought that soon exerted an enormous influence on young Americans.  First brought to the northeast United States in the early 1960s, Macrobiotics was introduced to America by a Japanese teacher named Georges Ohsawa where it soon attracted a small but ardent following. 

Spreading from its modest roots in Boston, and embraced by many among the youthful intelligentsia at the prestigious Ivy league schools, Macrobiotic cooking was the single most important factor in bringing influential foods- and future counter cultural staples- such as brown rice to American consciousness.  Macrobiotic foods and importantly, its principles, quickly fired the imagination and curiosity of untold numbers of the young, for its three-fold emphasis on balance, naturalness, and simplicity lent it perfect harmony with the tenor of the times.  By the late Sixties, Macrobiotic staples such as brown rice, sesame seeds, azuki beans, sea vegetables, tofu, and tamari or shoyu (natural soy sauce) were standard fixtures in virtually every hippie home, commune, and health food restaurant.  In telling the tale of health food today, the significance of Macrobiotics can’t be underestimated; for many, soy products, brown rice, and other whole grains would forever supplant wheat as the “staff of life”. 

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Other factors quickly reinforced this new influx of novel ideas around the themes of food and health.  By the mid Sixties increasing numbers of adventurous young people were traveling to distant lands in search of fun, adventure, or enlightenment. In particular, travelers were setting their sights on Japan, as well as exotic “spiritual” places such as India, and Nepal.  The beat poet/philosopher and later hippie “respected elder” Gary Snyder, exemplified this trend, living in Japan from 1956 through 1964, where he primarily studied Zen Buddhism.  By the time he returned to America in the wake of John Kennedy’s assassination, the undercurrents of change and the beginnings of a new “counterculture” were clearly afoot: LSD, still legal, was  actively being “researched” by Tim Leary and Richard Alpert at Harvard, while on the west coast, the San Francisco  Haight scene was just getting underway.  Inspiration and fresh ideas were being sought everywhere, and Snyder’s first hand immersion in oriental cuisine, health, and Buddhist spirituality, coupled with his esteemed status as a  successfully published poet lent great credibility to his embracing  rice, miso, sea vegetables and other exotic items as legitimate ways to eat. 

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By the time the “hippie” movement was in full swing health food was simultaneously emerging as its adopted cuisine.  In fact, health food- seemingly effortlessly- became inseparably insinuated as part of the identity of countercultural youth.  Commonly eaten foods became part of the insider’s shared cultural heritage, much as was rock music, communal living, and in some circles, drugs. In fact, this sometimes odd juxtaposition of interests and priorities was soon immortalized in the Grateful Dead song, “Truckin’” in which lyricist Robert Hunter wryly mentions a street waif “living on reds, vitamin C, and cocaine…” 

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Freed at last from the confines of musty little fringe health food stores frequented by small scatterings of “health nuts” in the 1940s and 1950s, by the late 1960s health food was at last out of the closet: the staples of an emerging food ethic were being seen everywhere.  As much as blue jeans, rock and roll, embroidery, long hair, and macramé the Sixties were home to whole wheat bread, brown rice, yogurt, nutritional yeast, soy protein, granola (resurrected from Sylvester Graham, circa 1860, who originally called it “granula”), natural peanut butter, honey, trail mix, herbal teas, and more.  

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Numerous other influences informed, reinforced, refined, and further inspired the Sixties’ quest for health.  One writer who intrigued many young seekers of the time was “the sleeping prophet”, Edgar Cayce. Although many were investigating Cayce for insight into reincarnation and other arcane matters, readers inquiring into the mysterious workings of his trance readings also quickly discovered his many unorthodox healing channelings, which frequently gave quite specific nutritional advice and warnings. Cayce was probably the first introduction many in the Sixties got to the concept of “improper food combining”, referring to the importance in avoiding certain food combinations which could stress the digestive powers.  Cayce also spoke of keeping acid and alkaline foods in balance, a concept quite sophisticated for the time of his readings, circa the 1920s.  Finally, Cayce also warned repeatedly against eating refined foods, sugars, red meat, and fried foods, and frequently recommended eating whole grains, raw vegetables, short fruit fasts, detoxification regimes, and enemas and colonics.   In short, Edgar Cayce, in his trance states, consistently advocated nutritional health practices some forty years before they came into vogue in the 1960s.

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 Perhaps the earliest writer who influenced the hippies was Henry David Thoreau. Thoreau’s writing, particularly his 1854 classic, Walden,  in which he espoused living a simple, quiet, peaceful, and dignified life given to introspection and wholesome, rewarding activities greatly resonated with many young people. Thoreau advocated living a “principled life”, grounded in integrity, which impressed many, and his obvious conviction and sincerity, combined with his wry wit and humor won admirers throughout the counter-cultural scene.  In the eyes of many of the disenchanted young of the Sixties, Thoreau practically attained the status of a patron saint, or at least a prophet.  And, along with three other influential writers, Thoreau’s pursuit of “the good life” would became a kind of clarion call to yet another quintessentially Sixties pursuit- a movement that would quickly synergize with health food and natural living. Known simply in the media as the “back to the land” movement, numerous latter day colonists of the Sixties and Seventies began to rediscover, and re-inhabit, rural America.  And in so doing, they initiated a process that would ultimately revitalize American organic agriculture.

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Along with Thoreau, the other writers of central importance to the “back to the land” hippie faction were Jethro Kloss, the author of Back to Eden, and the husband and wife team, the Nearings- Helen and Scott- who wrote an influential and much loved tome entitled Living The Good Life. 

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The discovery of Jethro Kloss must have been somewhat of a revelation to the young people who first came across Back to Eden.  Originally written in 1939, Kloss was a voice from a far different era, having been born in “that primitive Indian country”, Manitowoc, Wisconsin way back in 1863 where he learned the lore and value of “wild and cultivated herbs, grains, nuts, fruits, and vegetables.”  Really an original “flower child”, as a youth Jethro spent his time out of doors, exploring and gathering from the land “many kinds of leaves, barks, and berries” for his parents who in turn used them in healing sick neighbors and friends.  With its straightforward approach and abundance of natural lore, Back to Eden served as a key handbook for many young aspiring herbalists and healers, and so Kloss himself was seen as a wise mentor, one of the select few elders from another generation with deep experience and wisdom to impart. The publishing history of Eden says it all: “Published continuously by the Kloss family since 1946”.

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  It would be impossible to understate the importance of Eden. Being a virtual staple in the homes of hippies coast to coast, the 697 page book was a treasure trove of useful information on an amazingly wide range of health oriented foods, practices, and especially, herbal healing, and the back-to-the- land folks ate it up.  When Eden was first “discovered” in the mid Sixties, American herbalism was virtually non existent save for a few isolated pockets of Appalachian old timers.  Yet by the end of the decade, herbal medicine was enjoying the full swing of a resurgence that has persisted and flourished to the present. 

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 Kloss’s contribution was also notable, because he contributed strongly to the restoration of “power to the people”.  By “turning on, tuning in and dropping out” – to use Tim Leary’s memorable slogan- the hippies literally turned their collective backs on much of the “straight world’s” infrastructures, including mainstream medicine.  This meant that an intrinsic part of the hippie/back to the land ethic was the development of skills and knowledge that would ultimately help them achieve a large degree of self sufficiency and autonomy.  Back to Eden was instrumental in this regard, because it provided detailed information for do-it-yourself healing, and therefore helped in the important process of imparting the skills and confidence building so necessary for the type of social experimentation being conducted in rural communes and homesteads throughout America in the 1960s.

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If finding Jethro Kloss was a breath of affirming fresh air and inspiration, back-to-the-land seekers in the mid to late Sixties must have had their minds completely “blown” to come across two humble volumes co-written by Helen and Scott Nearing.  While Kloss was an experienced and invaluable guide to the world of natural healing, the Nearings provided a crystal clear road map that illuminated practically the entire realm of self sufficiency.  Discovering the Nearings provided a virtual “Rosetta stone” for anyone attempting to decipher how to live a satisfying, successful life of self sufficiency in a rural setting. And what guides they were! Helen and Scott were not just advocates of living autonomously- they were true masters of every aspect of the art- including the arts of organic gardening and eating healthily.

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The Nearings could never be termed “hippies”- the word simply didn’t apply to people of their ilk, for the Nearings had been around “forever”, having “dropped out” of the straight world and moving to rural Vermont in 1932!  Nonetheless, Helen and Scott were more than kindred spirits to the movement; they were part of its conscience, its role models.  As increasing numbers of young disenchanted drop-outs found out about the Nearings, the couple’s status as bona fide wise elders was forever secured.  In the late Sixties and Seventies virtually anyone seriously thinking about “moving back to the land” learned from their books, Living the Good Life, and Continuing the Good Life, or made the trek to learn directly from the masters at their rural homesteads in Vermont, and later, Maine.

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The Nearings wrote their first book, Living the Good Life in 1954, reprising it in a new edition in 1970 where it met with an entirely fresh generation of readers and admirers.

Though they eschewed drugs (and presumably, rock and roll) Helen and Scott’s sensibilities were pure hippie.  The following, taken from the introduction of Living the Good Life could have been written by virtually any rural or country living hippie drop out of the late 1960s: “We thought of [dropping out and moving to the country] as a personal search for a simple, satisfying life on the land…devoted to mutual aid and harmlessness, with an ample margin of leisure in which to do personally constructive and creative work…”

The Nearings were consummate pioneers, and were fiercely passionate about their convictions.  They built their own homes-twice- out of stone they found or plucked off  their land in Vermont and then Maine, homesteaded, and generally problem-solved the many challenges they encountered in living in the  rather cold and harsh New England climate. In so doing, the Nearings demonstrated at least two important things to their young admirers.  First, they showed that through a combination of hard work, thoughtful planning, persistence, and cooperation virtually any problem could be solved; and second, that one could reap the substantial rewards of the deep satisfaction that came from the knowledge that one was living in accord with one’s highest principles.  In a real sense, the Nearings were twentieth century versions of every hippie’s friend, Henry Thoreau.

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The Nearings interest lay in two main themes. One was resolving the complexities of how individuals can live peacefully but peripherally to the larger, mainstream society while remaining true to their inner vision of a just, simple, integrity-laden life.  The second was solving the problem of promoting and sustaining health.  For the Nearings the two were inseparably linked. The married couple refined these themes over more than fifty years of experimentation with a considerable degree of success. Now, counter-cultural seekers of the late 1960s found themselves wrestling with remarkably similar questions.

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For Helen and Scott, the questions of how to live self sufficiently and independently from a social fabric that they perceived as frequently indifferent (at best) and too often outrightly exploitive and how to cultivate true health had one and the same answer: grow your own food.  Through the years, the Nearings became accomplished, passionate, and innovative gardeners, and they wrote about their problems, solutions, and views at length.  In The Good Life, for instance, the reader is treated to the couple’s views on organic agricultural methods, the dangers of DDT, the shortcomings and hazards of eating refined, processed foods, and the virtues and implications of vegetarianism (which both members of the couple ardently embraced).  Obviously the couple’s walking their talk worked- neither ever saw a doctor, and Scott lived to be an even one hundred, working and lucid until his final moments; Helen equally productive and vital to the end of her days, lived into her nineties.

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The social experiment that was “the Sixties” likewise saw numerous attempts at creating a new society, often in accord with drug (psychedelic) inspired visions of harmony with nature.  Usually these were non-traditional and non-hierarchical, and frequently embodied novel ways of sharing resources, work responsibilities, and even relationships .  Usually, though by no means always, the setting was rural, remote from the mainstream, and rustic.  They were, (and still are) in the parlance of the times called “communes”, and they helped define the counterculture of the Sixties.  The most successful and famous of these was a commune in Tennessee known simply as “The Farm”.

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The young people who eventually colonized the area of rural southern Tennessee that would ultimately become home to anywhere between three hundred (at is lowest point) to fifteen hundred persons started in the crucible that was at the heart of the hippie movement- the Haight scene, in San Francisco.  At first, the young urban dwellers found their common cause in listening to weekly lectures by Stephen Gaskin, an articulate, witty, slightly older (Stephen was all of thirty one in 1967) hippie-professor-guru with “a good rap” and good vibes.  Ultimately assembling a motley caravan of sixty buses, campers, and refurbished RVs, some three hundred initial colonists hit the road in 1970, in a west-to-east reversal of other, earlier westward pushing American spiritual quests such as those undertaken by the Mormons and Adventists.  Purchasing one thousand acres (they would later buy an adjacent additional seven hundred and fifty) at seventy dollars an acre, the nouveau country folk quickly learned the intricacies, challenges, and successes of farming amidst the many other nuances of country living.  

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In some ways The Farm epitomizes the relationship of the Sixties counter-culture to health food.  As a community, The Farm firmly emphasized vegetarianism.  Its rules also forbid cigarettes and alcohol.  Members grew soy beans (acres and acres of them), and made soy milk, tofu, tempeh, and even soy ice cream- which later became the first commercially  marketed soy ice cream in America.  In some ways, one could say that health became the principle “business” of The Farm; The Farm published its own vegetarian cookbooks, has hosted conferences on organic farming, solar technology, and natural healing, and has pioneered a resurgence in traditional midwifery that is now internationally known and respected. 

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 The Farm (and other successful rural communes and communities) highlighted the ability of alternative minded people to successfully navigate the complexities of twentieth century survival without greatly compromising their core values.  By the end of the Sixties, spiritual, mental, and physical health had become goals in and of themselves.

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Two women also figured prominently in the philosophical underpinnings of the social ferment of the Sixties and both are central to this story of the history of health food.  Both were enormously popular writers, and both exhibited the same passionate courage and conviction.  Each challenged the status quo with eloquence backed up by the best science available at the time.  And each had legions of followers and admirers.  Their names were Adelle Davis, and Rachel Carson.

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Adelle Davis was the single most widely read health and nutrition writer of her time. And her time spanned more than three decades.  Beginning her career in the late 1930s with a degree from the University of Southern California in nutrition, Adelle Davis soon developed a penchant and flair for counseling clients.  And writing.  Adelle’s books quickly became hugely popular successes, to the point where it is no exaggeration to say that she was the single biggest promoter of health food in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s.  By the end of the Sixties, her books, Let’s Eat Right to Keep Fit, Let’s Get Well, Let’s Cook It Right, and Let’s Have Healthy Children had sold over four million copies.  In the oddly conservative post World War II transitional time before the hippie counter-culture made health food its own, Adelle Davis practically single handedly kept the nation’s small health food stores alive with customers and true believers.  And, if the baby boomer’s mothers knew or imparted anything non- mainstream about health to their offspring, it most likely was because they read it in Adelle Davis. 

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It is no wonder Adelle is sometimes thought of as the godmother or midwife of the hippies. By the time the baby boomers were young adults, Davis was right there waiting for them, dispensing nutrition advice and social criticism with equal ease, candor, and wit.  A typical Davis observation that it is “…propaganda that the American diet is the best in the world. Commercial people have been telling us those lies for years” reflects her pointed, no nonsense style.  Davis relished pointing out that the corporate food emperor wears synthetic clothing, a trait that seemed to endear her to many who were still in diapers when her all time best seller, Let’s Eat Right to Keep Fit was first published in 1954.  In a 1971 interview/article in Look magazine, Davis was fondly referred to as an “earth mother to the foodists”, which wasn’t at all far off the mark.

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As if being an “earth mother” wasn’t enough of a link to the youth culture, Time Magazine further dubbed her “the high priestess of nutrition”, which in addition to being a compliment, turned out to be a sort of inside joke as well, for in addition to her nutritional musings, Davis also wrote a very different kind of book under the pseudonym Jane Dunlap.  That book, Exploring Inner Space, described her still legal experimental journeys on LSD.  It turns out that under the drug, Adelle had the same sort of profoundly moving spiritual awakening that many others were having at the time. With typical good humor, Davis wrote LSD gave her “a new faith in God…so satisfying and rewarding that my lasting gratitude goes to Sandoz Pharmaceutical Laboratories.” Though from an earlier generation, Adelle Davis exemplified the sort of open-minded approach to life that so many in the Sixties were experiencing.  Nourish the body, nourish the soul.  As Grace Slick of the acid band, Jefferson Airplane would lustily sing, “feed your head!”  Why not take it literally?

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Around the time Adelle was dabbling with nutrients, vitamins, and lord knows what else, another woman scientist was poised to generate shock waves of her own.  In May, 1962 a national phenomenon was unleashed, with the publication of Silent Spring.  Its true significance was unanticipated at the time, but with it, its author, marine biologist Rachel Carson, fifty-five, had single handedly kicked off the environmental movement.  

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Silent Spring was a true phenomenon. Everyone knew about it and discussed it; most read it. Between May and December the book went into six printings to keep up with demand. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas called it “The most important chronicle of this century for the human race.”  President Kennedy instigated a commission to look into its allegations. Immediately, America acquired a new vocabulary.  J.I. Rodale and a few others had been beating the drum of poisons in our food for years, but with Carson’s book, suddenly everyone seemed to take notice.  DDT, pesticides, agricultural chemicals, and organochlorine, became household words overnight.  

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In retrospect, with Silent Spring’s publication, early in the decade, the stage was finally set for the Sixties to unfold with all their ensuing dramas. By daring to question the sanctity of the American agricultural dream, and its related slogan, Dupont’s “Better Living Through Chemistry” Rachel Carson accurately jabbed the vulnerable underbelly of America’s bread basket, setting it on the defensive, and effectively defining a polarization of views that would only accelerate in the ensuing years. Carson’s brilliance lay in her skillful joining of impeccably compelling science with a poetic evoking of the fragile beauty of nature. Finally the status quo could be met on its own terms, questioned, and successfully challenged.

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Suddenly the environmental movement had a focus, and a voice. With Silent Spring’s publication, all the elements were finally in place for a true revolution in outlook. Although America was still firmly a technological and chemical based society- including food and its production- the momentum that would lead to a truly alternative way of eating had begun.

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Perhaps the most unexpected faction to arise out of the hippie era was the specter of hippie entrepreneurship.  Certainly many young people were quite wary of anything that remotely smacked of materialism. And most were even more fervently anti-business. Yet in reality, business was a natural and further extension of the already entrenched hippie ethic of autonomy.  Who was to say that business too couldn’t be done righteously? . As Paul Hawken, the founder of Erewhon Foods in 1968 said, “Being in business is not about making money. It is a way to become who you are.”  Besides, taking matters into one’s own hands offered a satisfaction that was clearly evident in the writings of inspiring mentors such as the Nearings, and was an easily traceable theme as far back as Thoreau. So, inevitably, enterprising young people began to investigate their own personal versions of following their bliss.  

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It was only natural that many of the earliest incarnations of “alternative” business would be food oriented. After all, who better knew what their friends appreciated and ate?  By the late Sixties, it seemed that virtually any major area housing a reasonably sizable alternative population had its own health food store, often cooperatively run.  In this way, many young people had a chance to safely get their feet wet in the health food business, helping to further jump start the food revolution while deepening the sense of community and shared values so important to the emerging identity of the times.

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Besides these retail stores, many young people seemed to have a knack for producing or wholesaling food as well.  One such company was Erewhon, a distributor of health food founded in Los Angeles in 1968. Actually a palindrome for “nowhere”, Erewhon was the name of a utopian novel written in the 1800s by the English author Samuel Butler. Appropriately, Erewhon was a place where people took responsibility for their health!

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The same year also saw the birth of at least two other companies that are still active players in the modern health food world.  Aveline Kushi, who with her husband Michio were students (and subsequently, important teachers in their own right) of Macrobiotic pioneer Georges Ohsawa, began her company, called Eden, in Michigan. Eden quickly expanded, finding its niche by importing and distributing Macrobiotic staples to the increasing numbers of people who were embracing that philosophy to varying degrees.

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Nineteen sixty eight was also the year when nineteen year old Mo Siegel and a couple of friends decided to pick and sell herbs that they found growing in the foothills near their home in Boulder, Colorado-  then as now also a Mecca for young, alternative minded people.  One of the first health food stores in the Rocky Mountains, known as “The Grainery” bought the entrepreneur's herbal blends, which they packaged in hand sewn muslin bags.  Within a year Mo and friends sold ten thousand of the bagged herbal teas, a blend called “Mo’s 36 Herb Tea” and so began Celestial Seasonings, today the largest seller of herbal teas in America.

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Now ten thousand bags of tea was a good start, but what do you serve four hundred thousand people over three days?  That was the question facing the organizers of the Woodstock Music Festival, held in August 1969.  The answer was- health food- and lots of it.  The job of food procurement fell to Lisa Law, a communal participant, photographer, and dyed in the wool hippie earth mama.  Whisked off to New York, Law came back to the festival site with 1200 pounds of bulgar wheat, 1200 pounds of rolled oats, six hundred pounds of currants, and two hundred pounds of wheat germ!  In addition she brought with her “five kegs of soy sauce and five kegs of honey”.  Of course, in keeping with the earlier example of nutrition high priestess Adelle Davis, many of the revelers at Woodstock were probably too high to have an appetite- they had already “fed their heads”.  But, oh, the munchies afterwards!

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Chapter Afterward

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 America in the post war years could not keep the lid on its conformist, button down style for long. In retrospect, too many elements were conspiring against it, not the least of which was American’s intrinsic restlessness and love of freedom. In his closing address to the American people, outgoing President Dwight Eisenhower had warned of the shadowy threat posed by “the military-industrial complex.” The Fifties myth of complacent consumerism, reinforced by a complicit media as the answer to life’s problems was beginning to appear more and more fatuous- and superficial.  By the end of the Fifties and the beginning of the Sixties, psychologists, researchers, and covert CIA experiments involving LSD were starting to blow the lid off of the Pandora’s box of the subconscious, rock and roll was similarly beginning its journey and role as a dominant social force, and the beatnik subculture was about to metamorphose into the hippies.  Life as we knew it was about to change forever.

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The Sixties, it has often been said, was “a state of mind” as much as a time or place.  As we have seen, many influences converged to allow the fulcrum of change to inexorably tilt forward.  The wisdom of those times lay in people’s willingness to learn from the past.

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As deeper questions began to be asked (the environment, America’s role in Indochina, society’s chauvinism towards woman etc. etc.) easy answers, cover ups, and quick fixes were increasingly discarded. Pre-packaged homes, jobs, lifestyles, and food- all were subject to the same scrutiny and skepticism by those savvy, dissatisfied, or jaded enough to look.  In increasing numbers people were seeking as much as possible ways to take power back into their own hands.  In this climate it was only fitting and appropriate- and in retrospect, inevitable- that increasingly synthetic, chemicalized, and fast food would begin to be replaced by more substantive and nourishing options.  Organic, natural, self grown (when possible) whole foods were the logical- and intuitively obvious- choice for nourishment.  The revolution- and evolution- was going to occur in the kitchen as much as anywhere.