We’ve gotten a variety of reactions when people see the subtitle of our book, A Yuppie’s Guide to Hippie Food. Younger people most often chuckle. Those a little older, hippies and yuppies included, usually let out a little smile.  Some, however, don’t like it much, and a few actually hate it -- it’s that provocative.

I think many companies shy away from having their product associated with Hippie Food because image is everything. The fact that the hippie image is so hard to shake, at least here in the South where I live, is exactly the reason we made it our tagline. Read on...

If the hippie image is a barrier to change for some people, how can we best remove this long-standing stigma? I think the answer is to bring more attention to it, to talk about it and ask questions.  When I first started eating healthier in the early 90’s, my friends teased me for eating “hippie foods.” At the time, I didn’t have much of a comeback because I hadn’t given this association any thought. I have since, and I’ve discovered a startling truth: Natural foods aren’t hippie foods at all! Let me explain…

After WW II, agribusiness kicked into high gear and made the use of pesticides, fertilizers, and hormones a normal part of agriculture. In the 1960’s, Hippies took a stand for traditional farming methods, the kind that our ancestors practiced for centuries. In fact, most people today have forgotten that our grandparents grew up with all organic foods, dairy (milk, butter, yogurt, cheese) without hormones, chickens without antibiotics, and definitely no flounder genes in tomatoes (yes, fish genes have been genetically inserted in tomatoes).

It’s true that Hippies were into experimentation. Aside from hallucinogenic mushrooms, Hippies brought new foods into our culture like tofu, tempeh, curries, chapatis, hummus, and sprouts. If there is such a thing as “hippie foods”, these are them, but a closer look reveals that these and other natural foods, while popularized by the Hippie movement of the 1960’s, are the quality foods that our ancestors in other cultures have always eaten.

The truth is that people have been standing up for quality foods for years. The Hippies laid the foundation for the natural food stores today. Because of their efforts…

"We now have the choice to buy foods that are simple and whole, that contain no refined flours or refined sugars, hydrogenated oils, fake fats, synthetic sweeteners, or a long list of additives. Today we can go to a store in our town and choose food that has not been doctored with hormones or antibiotics, sprayed with herbicides and pesticides, irradiated, or genetically engineered." - The Best Natural Foods on the Market Today: A Yuppie’s Guide to Hippie Food

What’s Our Relationship to the Companies in Our Book?

We’ve been asked if we receive payment from the companies mentioned in our book. While we believe that each of them produces a quality product that deserves much more attention, we have not accepted any money or other compensation for our efforts to promote them. We have covered ALL of the printing and production expenses (including the printing of the coupons in the back of the book). Our unbiased position allows us to freely share information that we believe is 100% truthful. Take a look around - most websites today with health information cannot make this statement.