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By Stewart Truelsen

Is this a fast-food, trans-fatty nation or a gourmet food nation? While fast food gets more media attention and criticism for supposedly making us fatter, the trend is in the direction of gourmet foods. We include specialty foods, specially prepared foods and natural, less-processed foods in this category.

At the very least there are parallel tracks as David Kamp suggested in his book, "The United States of Arugula." Arugula is a Mediterranean green that helped displace the iceberg lettuce wedge in salads.

Kamp described two food camps, one consisting of diet-food and fast-food eaters and the other camp populated by those interested in what he termed "foodie connoisseurship" and natural foods.

"The junk-food and diet-food people need to learn that natural and gourmet foods need not be flavorless, expensive or ‘elitist’; the foodie sophisticates need to lose their smugness and patronizing tone and embrace capitalist enterprise and engagement with big companies as a good thing, the most effective means of proselytizing on behalf of real, healthful foods," Kamp said.

The search for healthy foods is certainly nothing new and neither is the problem of Americans overeating. Kamp recounted that the novelist James Fenimore Cooper, who spent some time in France in the 1800s, remarked that American food was heavy, coarse and indigestible.

Today, the criticism of the American diet remains even though we are living longer. At least some of that longevity must be due to better nutritional habits.

The TV dinners of years ago have made way for the Food Network on television. More people are interested in gourmet cooking and healthy eating than ever before, even if they don’t always find time to practice what they learn.

Gourmet restaurants are spreading to the suburbs in a trend dubbed "cul-de-sac cuisine." Aramark, a leading food service company, is unveiling gourmet cafes on college campuses around the nation, offering an option to traditional dorm food. The cafes will serve artisan breads, premium meats and cheeses, gourmet soups and salads and natural beverages like freshly squeezed orange juice.

America has always been a country of choices and freedoms, and food is no exception. If we are becoming a gourmet nation, that’s good news for farmers. Farmers’ markets, particularly those in large cities, are more popular than ever. Many farmers are finding niche markets or are working directly with restaurants to provide the quality products they want.

Don’t worry that the truly expensive and exceptional gourmet restaurants will no longer serve food that sets them apart. Business Week magazine said gourmet food has been taken up a notch by a movement known as "molecular gastronomy," which blends cutting-edge scientific techniques and equipment with more traditional culinary practices. Enzymes, lasers and liquid nitrogen are used to give a high-tech flare to food.

A signature item at one of these restaurants, "wd 50" in New York, was pickled beef tongue served with fried mayonnaise and onion streusel. Chicago’s "Moto" restaurant went a step further; the menu itself was edible – a panini with tomato and Parmesan.