By Jaime Lutz
Feb 8, 2012, 4:00 PM
Photo composite: Jane Bruce, courtesy of The Daily Meal

What did you eat for lunch today? Was it your work’s cafeteria fare, maybe? Was it organic? A frozen meal? Did you brown bag leftovers from that trendy Japanese place you visited last night? Did you make a Rachel Ray recipe (we won’t judge)?
I suppose what I’m getting at is this: maybe you chose what to eat for lunch today, but you were helped. Maybe you bought it at a store beginning to emphasize organic produce, or maybe you went with something processed because it was cheaper. Maybe you were inspired by a recipe you saw online, posted by an up-and-coming food blogger. Maybe your chef got into Nordic cuisine after the Noma cookbook came out. Simply put: on a larger scale, there are more powerful forces determining how America eats. Here, from The Daily Meal, are fifty of them.
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