2018 EatingWell American Food Heroes

Welcome to our second annual American Food Heroes list, honoring 12 people doing extraordinary things to make food better in our country. They're the icons informing us where our food comes from, how it's produced and its impact on our health, communities and the environment. To compile the list, we called for nominations from readers as well as top experts to find out who has been making a real impact in the food space, particularly in the past year. Then our editorial team reviewed the submissions and winnowed them down to the winners you'll read about here. Prepare to be inspired!

Meet this year's American Food Heroes:

Executive Director of the Monterey Bay Aquarium

Packard's new Slavery Risk Tool helps seafood buyers avoid fish from areas where forced labor, human trafficking or child labor may be occurring.

Congresswoman, 1st District of Maine

Pingree is pushing to up organic standards and get more funding for organic programs in the farm bill.

Director of North America's Agricultural Program at The Nature Conservancy

Working with farmers and ranchers to improve the health of their soil. As Clemens says, "The better the quality of your soil, the better the quality of of your vegetables."

Chef and Owner of Crafted Hospitality restaurant group

Colicchio is putting D.C. politicians "on notice" about hunger in the U.S., advocating for food safety, nutrition and hunger issues-particularly school lunch programs and hunger among veterans.

Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer of AeroFarms

Leafy greens are the biggest contributors to food waste in America. Oshima aims to change that.

Co-Directors of the Food Chain Workers Alliance

Their nonprofit advocates for workers all across the food chain by banding together 31 different organizations into one 340,000-member-strong group that, in the past year, has advocated for everything from supporting immigrant food workers to fair wages for restaurant staff.

Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition at Harvard University

His two-decade fight to get trans fats out of our food is now a reality.

Chef and Founder of Wholesome Wave

Providing healthy fruits and vegetables to underserved families through the creation of a produce prescription program called FVRx (Fruit and Vegetable Rx). The program is simple: health care providers hand their patients prescriptions for fresh produce that they can redeem for $1 a day per household member.

Co-Founders, Epic Provisions

Their nose-to-tail meat snack company is committed to sustainable sourcing.

CEO of Unilever

A vocal champion of sustainability, he's working to reduce wasteful packaging, pledging that 100 percent of Unilever's plastic packaging will be reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025.