By KIM SEVERSON


From the moment it was clear that Barack Obama was going to be president, people who have dedicated their lives to changing how America eats thought they had found their savior.

It wasn’t long before the pleas to the new chief were piling up.

Ruth Reichl, the editor of Gourmet magazine, wants a new high-profile White House chef who cooks delicious local food. Wayne Pacelle, head of the Humane Society of the United States, wants policies requiring better treatment for farm animals.

Parents want better public-school lunches. Consumer groups are dreaming of a new, stronger food safety system. And a farmer in Maine is asking the presidentelect to plow under an acre of White House lawn for an organic vegetable garden.

Although Mr.Obama has proposed changes in farm and rural policies and emphasizes the connection between diet and health, there is nothing to indicate he has a special interest in a radical makeover of the way food is grown and sold.

Still, the dream endures. To advocates who have watched scattered calls for changes in food policy gather political and popular momentum, Mr.Obama looks like their kind of president. Not only does he seem to possess a more sophisticated palate than some of his recent predecessors, but he will also take office in an age when organic food is mainstream and books calling for an overhaul in the American food system are best sellers.

As for Michelle Obama, she has said in interviews that she tries to buy organic food and watches the amount of high-fructose corn syrup in her family’s diet.

The Obamas are a different kind of first family, said David Kamp, who traced the history of the modern gourmet-food movement in his book,“The United States of Arugula”(Broadway, 2006).“This time we have a Democrat in office that seems to live the dream and speak the language of both food progressivism and personal fitness,”Mr.Kamp said.

For many food activists, a new secretary of agriculture with a different agenda was high on their wish list.

Last month Mr.Obama appointed Tom Vilsack, the former governor of Iowa, which grows much of the nation’s corn and soybeans. Mr.Vilsack has talked about reducing subsidies to some megafarms, supports better treatment of farm animals and wants healthier food in schools. But his selection drew criticism because he is a big fan of alternative fuels like corn-based ethanol and is a supporter of biotechnology, both anathema to people who want to shift government support from large-scale agricultural interests to smaller farms.

It becomes clear that just because changing the food system is the first priority for some, it isn’t so for everyone. The pragmatists understand.

“This president is taking over when the economy is the worst it has been in our lifetime and we are in the middle of wars,”said Ann Cooper, the chef who transformed the school food program for the Berkeley Unified School District in California.“I think it’s somewhere between naive and fairy tale to think his No.1 focus is going to be on food.”

Some food-system reformers may have a better chance of getting what they want than others do. A coalition of communitybased groups called the U.S. Working Group on the Food Crisis wrote to Mr.Obama asking him to make hunger and the global food crisis a top priority. Their optimism is based on Mr.Obama’s promise to abolish childhood hunger by 2015.

They are also counting on his desire to tackle climate change and overhaul energy and health care policies.

“If he’s serious about doing this, then he’ll have to address the current problems of our food system, which are inextricably linked to these other problems,”said Christina Schiavoni of World Hunger Year, which is part of the coalition.

In her view and others’,diets filled with healthier food produced by less intrusive farming practices can reduce medical problems like obesity and be easier on the environment.

Many are holding out hope for a new White House chef. A chef who cooks local and organic food could change things faster than any cabinet appointment, Ms.Reichl said.

“It’s like the hat manufacturers being furious because J.F.K. didn’t wear a hat, and suddenly everyone in America stopped wearing hats,”she said.“It’s that simple.”