Includes bibliographical references and index.

Organic destiny -- A noisy spring: "genius?" or "fraud?" -- An alternative way to live -- Leaders, land lovers, locavores, labels, laws, and a little lunacy -- Individual organic optimization: health hopes and fears -- Organic consumers: voting with dollars and forging identities. In American Organic we see how organic growing and consumption has been everything from a practical decision, lifestyle choice, and status marker to a political deed, subversive effort, and social philosophy - and how organic production and consumption are entrenched in the lives of all Americans, whether they eat organic food or not.