From the Omnivore's Dilemma

"So much about life in a global economy feels as though it has passed beyond the individual's control -what happens to our jobs, to the prices at the gas station, to the vote of the legislature. But somehow food still feels a little different. We can still decide, every day, what we're going to put in our bodies, what sort of food chain we want to participate in. We can, in other words, reject the industrial omelet on offer and decide to eat another. This might not sound like a big deal, but it could be the beginning of one. Already the desire on the part of consumers to put something different into their bodies has created an $11 billion market in organic food. That marketplace was built by consumers and farmers working informally together outside the system, with exactly no help from the government."