Veggie Grill, Native Foods Cafe, LYFE Kitchen, True Food Kitchen, and Tender Greens all started in the West, their menus filled with ancient grains, leafy greens, meat substitutes or grass-fed beef, and lots of coconut-based beverages. Sure enough, several of them have now opened outlets east of the Mississippi and, in turn, spawned worthy imitators like SweetGreen that have expanded up and down the Atlantic seaboard and then ping-ponged back to California. MORE: The Five Best Sit-Down Restaurants for Real Food But there has been another manifestation of this trend, one that may be more fundamental and is ripping through the heartland like a line of severe thunderstorms. Sensing a change in attitudes, many major fast-food chains are now revising their menus and offerings. Within the past few months alone, we’ve heard announcements that Chipotle will eliminate GMOs, McDonald’s will source sustainable beef, Chik-Fil-A will phase out meat raised with antibiotics, Subway will drop artificial flavors and preservatives, and Panera will lose around 150 questionable ingredients. These companies are either finally seeing the light of healthier foods or are looking for new ways to squeeze profits from a tight marketplace, depending on how high your cynicism meter is dialed up. This all comes at a time when traditional food companies, which long ago replaced real-food ingredients with cheaper substitutes like bleached flour and high fructose corn syrup, have been suffering mightily. One study even found that the top 25 U.S. food and beverage companies have lost the equivalent of $18 billion in market share in recent years. Kellogg’s, Smucker’s, and Coca-Cola are all in downward spirals. Kraft and Heinz, two old-world brands, decided to merge in what seems like a desperate attempt to cut costs and remain relevant. PepsiCo has been steering its Frito-Lay division to reformulate all products to be all-natural. Ovaltine, Jif, Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, and Chef Boyardee, among many others, have been working to clean up their product lines. General Mills has not only acquired several natural foods brands (Larabar, Cascadian Farm, Annie’s), but has also set up the Bell Institute of Health and Nutrition as a legitimate center for scientific research and education that sometimes even goes against the grain, so to speak, of the company’s classic products. There will even be a gluten-free version of Cheerios on shelves later this summer. MORE: The Seven Best Fast-Food Chains for Real Food All this leads to an inevitable question: Has the tide finally turned in the natural-foods revolution? Is the dietary pendulum swinging back to the days before the chemical revolution after World War II suddenly introduced 60,000 new chemical compounds in just a few short years? Realistically, though, despite all these encouraging trends and developments, only about 5% of the money spent on food in the U.S. is for natural and organic, and only about 5% of our country’s farmland is certified organic. Obesity rates are off the charts. Mainstream America, that mythical place where the family with 2.2 kids still eats at McDonald’s once a week, is probably a long way from changing its diet. But the changes at Subway and Panera are easing them into the shifting food trends of the 21st century. And who knows? Maybe there will soon be a Native Foods Café in Nebraska or a True Foods in Tennessee—quinoa burgers and all.
