In Defense of Food
OK friends, I am putting out an all-call here, and to nothing less than communion! Come to dinner dtek.
It's time to learn about what we eat. I have many thoughts on this subject. I have always watched what I ate, but for my first three decades, I didn't really know what to look for. Enter Fast Food Nation, a prolonged trip to the far East--that taught me a lot about the subjectivity of taste and of our control over what we crave--it's a learned behavior to a large degree, and Suzy's pregnancy, which had me reading a ton about optimal nutritional conditioning. Anyway, I have much to learn and I am excited about this book. This is nothing less than one aspect of my stylization of character.
Who else is coming along? You are what you eat. What are you?
JAG Triplets
Ian's Koruna Muse
Slippery Joaquin's Photos
and sammyboo just pointed me
and sammyboo just pointed me to a site that relates to my latest comment with Sparkle below:
15 reasons to stop eating meat. i have no idea who Royce Carlson is or who runs zenzibar.com, so i wouldn't vouch for any of the statistics here, but the basic points in bold are pretty much why i eat a vegetarian diet. i would rank the "environmental" reasons first, and would also include issues like antibiotic resistance in diseases affecting humans due to overuse in feedlots.
In Defense of Food
Hi all,
Just finished the book will add more comments later...enjoying everyone's discussions so far.
Not Too Much: The Third and Final Part
Again, I got much more out of this part than I thought I would. Pollan starts off talking about how the French "seldom snack,...eat small protions and don't come back for seconds. And they spend considerably more time eating than we do." All four of these points have curbed my habits already. Why do we Americans--or, in any case, why do I feel obliged to eat everything on my plate, and sometimes take seconds, and all at break-neck pace, as though I were at a gas station, merely filling up--that is, unless I don't even sit down to eat? I soppose my way of life has something to do with it: I eat breakfast quickly before work (preferring sleep to digestion), and more often than not I am trying to get a lot done at work during lunch. Hmmm. And at dinner, my wife eats even quicker than I do. But excuses are for losers, as I say, especially if Pollan is right: that "how a culture eats may have just as much of a bearing on health as what a culture eats." Let's go into each subsection and see what we can get from it.
PAY MORE, EAT LESS
As I already said, I want to make eating right a high priority, generally spending what is necessary to do so. Eating less is a the important part of this subsection for me. Suzy and I already have small plates, but even now, I am sitting down to write 5:00 PM while four slices of French Toast (all healthy ingredients) at 9:30 AM still sit like a brick in my stomach. Why? Well, I didn't want to waste the batter, and I was very hungry this morning...bla, bla, bla. "Some researchers believe [overeating] is the single strongest link between a change in the diet and the prevention of cancer." I need to eat slower, like the people of Okinawa, and the French's "taboo against seconds"--or in my case this morning, fourths, can really help, I bet. Pollan also speaks of the "'time cost' of eating--cooking, cleaning up, and so on," all of which are much reduced in the consumption of processed food, and he cites a study suggesting that the "decline in 'time cost'" correlates with the rise in "the average weight of Americans." That's sad stuff.
EAT MEALS
On this point, I differ with Pollan a bit. He says that we snack more and eat fewer meals together. I agree that eating meals together is important for many reasons, health being almost the least of them. "It is at the dinner table that we socialize and civilize our children, teaching them manners and the art of conversation." I use to balk at the manners part when I was a kid, but now I see manners from Pollan's perspective--"a way to moderate eating and drinking behavior." Suzy and I are agreed: dinner will be a nightly ritual for our new family. That said, however, grazing, as the prego books call it, is and has always been important to us (Suzy and I still exercise regularly, and our metabolic engines are often firing away), and I think so long as it is done wisely--not eating convenient-store-like bullshit, I don't think I will make any hard and fast rules about it, at least for myself. So long as the meals are not being usurped, snacking is as fine as it is necessary. Though the bullshit qualifier will be hard to enforce for the kids. I mean, you should see the stuff kids eat at school--soda, Starbucks, candy, cookies, chips--and that's all in the classroom. I don't even want to talk about the lunch counter, and that's for the unofrtunate kids who don't get to jump in a car to race down to some fast food joint with their friends, to order and eat and get back before the sixth period bell. That's a real issue--especially for Suzy's lower-socio-economic populaton, but that's another point Pollan makes later. At least at home, and Pollan makes this point, I can control what kind of snacks are available. Kids need to eat, yes! But no one ever needs to eat bullshit, however doctored up its taste.
DO ALL YOUR EATING AT A TABLE
Amen, unless you're eating a LaraBar before soccer practice, or a Gatorade at half-time (Gatorade and its ilk, no one has bothered to make the point, is only appropriate while your exercising rigorously, not while you're walking through the hallway or going to the concert or whatever.
DON'T GET YOUR FUEL FROM THE SAME PLACE YOUR CAR DOES
Enough said. This harkens back to the rule that you shouldn't eat anything that does not go bad--ever, namely Twinkies.
TRY NOT TO EAT ALONE
"When we eat mindlessly and alone, we eat more." Sparkle, what do you think? Does your work allow for "a ritual of family and community"? Breakfast during the school year for me will likely never be "an act of culture," but I can and I plan to change my lunch habits, and to bolster my mine and Suzy's dinner habits.
CONSULT YOUR GUT
This subsection amounts to eating slower. "Supposedly it takes twenty minutes before the brain gets the word that the belly is full; unfortunately most of us take considerably less than twenty minutes to finish a meal, with the result that the sensation of feeling full exerts little if any influence on how much we eat." And it becomes habitual. Ol' arh1 and I use to wolf down Totino Party Pizzas quicker than it took the edible food-stuff to cook. I remember once downing an entire box of Cookie Crisp for dinner--and I know no one had the misfortune of watching me do it--though, for some reason, I would practically boast of it many times later. Oh boy, I rue the day I learned that "you can get it on points!" But that our eating patterns become habitual is precisely the point to seize upon here. We must teach ourselves better habits, and more importantly interpret ourselves as mutable in all our modes. That's what excites me more than anything else with this research--I am expanding the range of my responsibility (or freedom, if you rather--for freedom is responsibility).
EAT SLOWLY
Here, Pollan praises mi amici, the Italians. Their taboo is "the folly of fast life." Of course, many things need to happen in America before we can see the sense of this on any kind of a large scale--but here's hoping. (It's good to remember that the Italians once ruled the world too.) "To eat slowly, then, also means to eat deliberately, in the original sense of tha word: 'from freedom' instead of compulsion." Who does not recall a moment, even today, when you didn't linger around the frige or pantry, thinking to eat something, though you are not even sure you're hungry. When ever I catch myself doing that, I try to tell, "Don't feed your thirst." One prego book I read said that something like 80% of Americans are dehydrated all the time. I know I have often gobbled up boat loads of whatever, only to later realize it's water my body needed--not all those calories.
COOK AND, If YOU CAN, PLANT A GARDEN
Well, I have already told you about my garden plans. Gardens, as Pollan points out, are a good answer to the cost of "high-quality organic produce." That suits Suzy's parsimony, as much as her environmentalist bent, and so a garden is a green light for us, so long as we can build our home mode around it (ie. make a habit of it). Now, the cooking is not my forte, and it's not Suzy's either, but we are branching out. It is on this point that I would love to put together a list of recipes with all you dtekkers (--though, I obviously just admitted that Suzy and I won't have much to offer). Here's Pollan:
And that does it, my friends. Now, let's get talking, and sharing, and systematizing--let's start that whole communion thing I spoke of way at the beginning of this thread. Anyone?
Dear Jag, Apologies for
Dear Jag,
Apologies for letting my end of this conversation lag. I won't bore you with excuses (though they're good ones, I assure you!). I'll just say that I'm glad you're doing enough work here for the two of us. I'm a sad substitute for a partner indeed.
As luck would have it, I'm pressed for time once again. Even so, I wanted to dig into the pointed question you asked about eating alone. I'm lucky: Though I work many, many hours a week (80? 90?), I'm often able to get (or stay) home for meals. Save lunch, then, I can typically share breakfast with my son and dinner with my partner -- and, with luck, both with both. (Like you, I often eat lunch at my desk -- or "dine al desko" as one of my friends likes to say.) Has this had a civilizing / mannerizing effect on my son? No idea -- but that's hardly the reason that I do it. I do it because, like so many of us, I'm trying to do two things at once: feed my boy and spend some "quality time" with him too. So I'm selfish. Perhaps there are some benefits to that anyway.
But that brings me to a question I've hinted at a little bit before: Pollan's take on eating while driving. What do we make of the (astonishing) stats he cites about this? And how tone-deaf is he to the needs, wants, and demands faced by us workin' hoi polloi? ARH1 mentioned before that Pollan is often -- and quite easily -- criticized for his elitism. Perhaps that's what I'm focused on here too. But I think there's something else there as well, something about the kind of culture we inhabit. Given the choice, I'd spend more time eating, live in a saner part of the world, and exercise a whole lot more. Maybe others would just spend more time watching tv. I don't know. Either way, though, I wonder if Pollan is sufficiently attentive to the faces and features of our modern society. I'd like to live a life of relative leisure in the south of France too -- but if I did I'd be too poor to survive the week.
Any thoughts, JAG? Hope you're well.
Yours,
SM!
No apologies needed
Hey, SM!, nice to hear from you.
I don't know. What do you think? How much can one alter one's modes when he is working as much as you are? One thing I recognized while posting is that discussions about food or eating habits can get pretty personal pretty quickly. That is, I hesitated once or twice when I revealed this or that about what or how I eat. But I proceeded nevertheless because 1) part of what I think Pollan means to do (or what I mean to do, in any case) is to take questions of nutrition, central as they are to all things living, out of the realm of character judgment; and 2) like Pollan resolves to do, I only mean to explain how I answer the charge of health in my own way, hoping some part of it might pertain to others. In Pollan's case, and perhaps in my own, that might appear as elitism, but I think its necessity. Like Thoreau says, everyone writes in the first person (bad paraphrase, anyway.)
But I know where you're coming from, I think, though I do not work nearly as long as you do, especially during the summer. I watched Revolutionary Road last night (the same director also did American Beauty) and I realized that I feel like this guy is a malignant force. The movie is well made--art abounds--but it all amounts to making people in relatively normal compromised positions--parenthood, marriage, work, the burbs--making those people feel like shit about themselves. He preys on our soft spots, reruns our lives through his particular filter and, whatever else he says he's intending to do, essentially he calls us nimrods. Perhaps that is also your sense of Pollan? What do you think?
Hmm.
Dear Jag,
Thank you so much for the thoughtful (and prompt!) reply. You're far better at this bookclub / epistolary stuff than I. I hope you'll continue to instruct by example.
A confession: I've not seen Revolutionary Road. Don't know if I ever will -- both because your take is so powerfully critical and because, well, I don't see many movies. But I did see American Beauty, and I vaguely recall feeling something similar to what you describe: A sense that we're supposed to see people trying to carve out a quintessential suburban existence as hapless -- or at least deeply self-denying -- boobs. It's a movie, of course, so the characters are drawn to fit the theme, not to reflect any sort of individual's reality. But still: the writer / directer (Sam Mendes, right?) is trading in archetypes, and the archetypes he draws there are judgmental and unappealing.
I don't mean to accuse Pollan of doing the same thing. Like you, I really liked the book -- both in its felicity of prose and in its passion of argument. But if it's a call to arms (of sorts), it's one that may resonate with only some who hear it. Or, more to the point, it's one that leave even the converted feeling like there's not a lot we can do.
Oh, sure: I can buy a different brand of yogurt or count the ingredients in my cliff bars more carefully. But Pollan seems to be agitating for something more fundamental than that -- as you (and RED) captured well in your discussion of Pollan's lessons / rules. He seems to be agitating for a change in our daily rhythms and routines. I'm not sure many of us could change those things even if we wanted to. An example: You mentioned that, during the school year in particular, you tend to favor sleep to digestion, eating your breakfast on the fly. I do too -- all the time -- if I eat breakfast at all. If I had to bet, I'd wager that Pollan wouldn't say that yours is a bad choice. He'd say instead that it's a choice you shouldn't have to make. And I'm almost certain he's right. But try telling that to your principal after you miss your first-period American Lit class for a week on the trot. She may say that Pollan wins on principal but loses on the facts. She may not. But she'll surely tell you that, if you want to have a leisurely breakfast, you better start getting up at 5 a.m., sleep be damned. Or you can lose your job.
And that, I think, is what rankles me a bit about Pollan's book. I don't disagree with it. Nor do I mean to accuse him of being snooty or snobby. But he's written a book of life as we should live it without, I think, coming to grips with whether we can. It's not quite as bad as drafting a how-to manual that begins by telling us to grow wings or learn to breath underwater. But I wonder if it's unrealistic in large parts all the same.
Sorry for the rant, Jag. I'm eager to hear your thoughts.
Yours,
Sparkle Motion!
Lightning Responses
SM! Great stuff. What you call "rant" is my elucidation. No apologies needed.
Though I was hoping to go back and revise my last post--you jerk!
Anyway, I don't know how well the Mendes movie analogy works either. But let's leave it there.
I was trying to say that there is such disparity between our own life-styles, yours, mine and arh1's, that I wonder what more Pollan can do. I wonder if Pollan's audience can be effectively lumped into a general mode of living and addressed thus. My guess, but this is coming from my own corner of myopia, he did not allow his wish to be broadly applicable to keep him from offering his own personal choices. But if he does that in "large parts," well that would be a problem, indeed. I wonder what RED or arh1 thinks about it. As I try to remember, my own journey with diet recognition and revision has been a long process (a decade, at least), and Pollan is useful to me as further direction. Again and again, I realize that there are spaces around me and choices I can make more deliberately, and I am glad for Pollan's efforts and his example without imagining I can be Pollan myself. In other words, I mean only to carve out for myself, alone, and thus dismiss this or that and accept that or this. I don't know. Just tinkering--that's all I could hope to do, I think I realize now--but I am glad to see I still can.
exactly at the root of the problem
we're selfish creatures. but especially in this culture we demand so much of our surroundings -- the social, cultural, ecological, political environment around us. when we find ourselves spinning out helplessly -- over-committed in terms of time, energy, resources -- we start taking all sorts of shortcuts and imposing all sorts of costs on those environments... taking a friendship for granted here, eating a Big Mac in our car there.
when i'm talking with folks who are out partying, spending money on drinks and entertainment, all begadgeted, etc, then i get frustrated and frankly i think we lack backbone and more than a little ethical vision -- and i know i come across as self-righteous and judgmental.
but if you're working 80 or 90 hour weeks (and you've got a child!), you'd have to dig even deeper... should you?
Dear JAG & ARH1, Thank you
Dear JAG & ARH1,
Thank you both for the thoughtful responses.
JAG -- I think you've framed this project (both Pollan's and ours) perfectly. I've been insistent, perhaps too much so, that Pollan means to be taken literally in all ways -- that he wishes for each of us to adopt his system, regardless of the costs of the transition. But I like your take better, to the extent I'm understanding it. I like the idea that Pollan's call is not for us to trace his steps but to make our own. And to make them more thoughtfully, somehow better, more aware. If that's the call, then Pollan has no doubt succeeded. (And, again, I thought he succeeded wonderfully in other ways too.)
ARH1 -- I think I agree with you completely. But I'd like to understand your question a bit better. Like you, I'm not sure what to make of the begadgeted party set -- mostly, I'm sure, because it's a set to which I've never belonged. I'm also concerned that I work so much with a child at home -- though I do as much of that work as I can while he's sleeping. (I don't sleep much.) But I think I'm too daft to untangle the many strands of your question without some help. Can you help me?
In the meantime, a pertinent and sobering fact: Americans spend more time watching food tv than they do cooking. Pollan says so: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/magazine/02cooking-t.html?_r=1.
Be well, JAG & ARH1.
Yours,
SM!
Sparkle, it all made perfect
Sparkle, it all made perfect sense at 23:34 last night :)
no, mostly i'm just playing with the question of taking personal shortcuts, and imposing the resulting costs on our collective environment. we all do this quite often -- when should we feel justified? when should we feel guilty? when should principle intervene?
and this is all spoken as a fellow bechilded workaholic and aspiring less-shortcuts-taker, btw...
Aha! Got it, ARH1. Thanks
Aha! Got it, ARH1. Thanks for the clarification. (I'm sure it was unnecessary to almost everyone else. For me, though, it was very helpful.)
A quick story: When I was in college, I spent a night with some friends at a local comedy club. None of the acts were terrific -- at least as far as I can recall -- but I do remember one bit fairly well. The idea, in short, was that we'll do anything for an extra 10 minutes of sleep in the morning: We'll decide to forgo breakfast, opt to shave (or whatever) in the car, choose gum over toothbrushing. Nothing especially funny about it, though the setting and the booze made people laugh.
But what the jokes lacked in humor they may have made up for in sad truth. These are all shortcuts, right ARH1? They're choices -- silly or poor or environmentally damaging -- that we make when our lives seem to leave no room *not* to sacrifice. I won't bore you with a bit-by-bit account of my choices, though I thank you for encouraging all of us to pay more attention to the collective costs of our calls. And I won't even pretend to know when we should feel justified or guilty or conflicted. I'll just say that, in lots of places and in lots of ways, it's hard not to let the great be an enemy of the good. Gotta eat well, no doubt. But I'll sacrifice my diet 10 times out of 10 if I think it'll help my boy, even if indirectly. What do you, also a dad, think? And JAG -- soon to have 3!?!?!
Hope you're all well.
Yours,
SM!
Sparkle! been MIA for a few
Sparkle!
been MIA for a few weeks on vacation and what not (the boy's first day of school tomorrow!), but i did finally finish the book a few weeks back, and have been meaning to reply here.
in answer to your question (which provides a convenient opportunity for me to summarize my thoughts on many of these issues) -- my own diet/health is pretty low on the list as far as my motivations around "eating well". i'm much more concerned with the "environment" i alluded to above -- ecological, social/political, cultural -- and how to make ethical decisions based on what will nurture and sustain it.
that is, i want what's best for my boy! i want to leave a better world for him than we have now -- however naive and sisyphean a goal that may be -- and provide him the best model i'm able for how to act towards that end.
Mostly Plants: the Second Part
You'll remember that I was excited going into the final sectin of the book, but the advice for "Eat Food," which was what I was suspecting and hoping would be the whole reason I picked up the book, was not of much use to me. That dimmed my spirits. But "Mostly Plants," and "Not Too Much" were surprised me, and left me with a great taste in my mouth, so to speak. Let's get to it.
EAT MOSTLY PLANTS, ESPECIALLY LEAVES
"The only point of universal concensus," I did not think it would give me much guidance, but I have gobbled up the "especially leaves" part. I found, despite the purpose of the book, the discussion of Omega 3s and Omega 6s back in the second section especially important, and I am currently trying to eat salads much more regularly--have had one for lunch on each of four days last week. I also love Pollan's stress on variety of plants, which is another reason to go to a farmer's market rather than a supermarket (--the former can only produce what's in season, and limiting yourself to it forces you to get out of the rut of always eating apples, say). In this section it also occurred to me how much I eat of seeds rather than leaves. But I have a question: are fruits considered leaves or seeds or neither? arh1? Sparkle? RED? He says unrefined seeds are nutritious and I think of nuts, almonds mainly. Is that right? In any case, I need to eat more leaves, which suggests to me lettuce, but does it also mean broccoli and mushrooms and any of the variety of roots? I need clarfication here. And finally in this subsection, he also speaks of meat. I am a meat-eater--I love it. But I want to try to be a flexitarian--"less than one serving a day." I like Pollan' suggestion of relegating meat to a side dish. Yes, I'll eat a steak or chicken breast still, but I am only going to get the best quality stuff, and I am going to make it a spcial occasion dinner--a rare treat (befitting its expense). I had gotten into the habit of eating roast beef or turkey sandwiches for lunch every school day, but I am going to try to at least bring in a salad instead, two or three of those days.
YOU ARE WHAT WHAT YOU EAT EATS TOO
Well, try wrapping your tongue around that one, let alone your mind. But again, surprise, surprise, it really clarified the reasons I will go organic on certain products when the coice is mine. Which products? Well, apart from several fruits and vegetables, all animal products too: eggs, milk, yogurt, cheese, butter, any and all meat. It's worth it (especially since it's not supposed to be, and isn't, the core of my diet). "For," as Pollan explains, "though from the outside an industrial egg looks exactly like a pastured egg selling for several times as much, they are for all intents and purposes two completely different foods." Pollan offers some specific things to look for here: "pastured" in the case of eggs, and "grass finished" or "100% grass fed" in the case of meat. He also offers eatwild.com for more information.
IF YOU HAVE THE SPACE, BUY A FEEZER
Well, I may have the space, but I don't feel this is necessary for me and Suzy yet. One thing I did pick up from this subsection though is that frozen stuff is better than canned stuff. I had been eating canned corn, beans, and peas, not to mention soup, but no more. Oooo, quick question: what about home-made stew or soup--does keeping it for a few days in the frige deplete its nutritional value? I'm sureit does, which means I shouldn't plan on making a lot of it at once.
EAT LIKE AN OMNIVORE
Again, the emphasis here is on variety, and it's something I have taken note of. In fact, this one excites Suzy and I because we suspect it might make us better cooks--which is to say, we'll stop resorting to mac and cheese, organic though it may be.
EAT WELL-GROWN FOOD FROM HEALTHY SOURCES
Organic, yea!!! But "most consumers automatically assume that the word 'organic' is synonymous with health, [even though] it makes no difference to your insulin metabolism if the high-fructose corn syrup in your soda is organic." Well, I don't drink soda, but I do eat a cliff bar now and again, and a vitamin water, both of which have those corn-syrup substitutes of cane sugar and brown sugar extract. Again, I need more information on those substitutes. Are they as bad or worse than the corn bullshit. Local is another word which comes from this section. Enter: farmer's market. And yet, I am afraid that shaking the hand that feeds me does not necessarily get me in contact with savory characters (--I obviously can't resist these puns). I mean, Pollan says non-organic farmer's market stuff is generally better than organic supermarket stuff. Is that really so? Does "local" trump "organic"?
EAT WILD FOODS WHEN YOU CAN
Yes, back to a little nutritionism here: wild food is richer in omega 3s. Thanks to this subsetcion I will stay away from farmed fish or any endangered or endangerable species. I am glad he suggested salmon and mackerel or other "oily little fish."
BE THE KIND OF PERSON WHO TAKES SUPPLEMENTS
Well, apparently, supplements will do nothing for me right now--until I am fifty or so. Pollan says more deliberate eating and consistent exercising is the real key. Suzy has been taking supplements since the beginning of her pregnancy--folic acid, fish oil, iron and her prenatal, and I am glad to see that Pollan doesn't refute that specifically.
EAT MORE LIKE THE FRENCH OR THE ITALIANS OR THE JAPANESE OR THE INDIANS OR THE GREEKS.
"There are of course two dimensions to the traditional diet--the foods a culture eats and how they eat them--and both may be equally important to our health." He has an interesting theory here, that traditional food habits are the naturally selected ways that a people have learned how best to cope with their surroundings, etcetera, and we blasted, pot-melted Americans cannot fathom their importance. On top of that, Americans have Americanized all traditional foods, so that one wonders if one can eat like an Asian or Mediteranean or African or Latin American in any American restaurant anymore. This subsection and the two that follow it ("REGARD NONTRADITIONAL FOODS WITH SKEPTICISM," and "DON'T LOOK FOR THE MAGIC BULLET IN THE TRADITIONAL DIET"), which all basically harp on the same thing, had little of use in it for me. I took two things from all three subsections: buy authentic traditional cook books (as opposed to taking any one component of a traditional diet out of its context) and eat tofu. The next chapter speaks of traditional modes of eating, I think, and that was much more beneficial to me than these three subsections.
HAVE A GLASS OF WINE WITH DINNER
Now, that's peer pressure!!! I have refused to drink alcohol all my life--don't eve know what beer tastes like, but I have, after reading about similar findings in my wife's Runner's World magazine, started drinking a glass of wine three or four times a week. (I'll tell you, the first week or two were difficult for me--yuck!) After Pollan, I will try to increase the frequency, once a day even, and I will continue to drink only organic red wine with dinner. I have no interest in being drunk (and actually, I still don't like the taste much), so moderation comes naturally to me on this one (which is good for the check book): I drink it like medicine--or like a supplement, in fact.
OK, that does that second part of Pollan's advice. I hope this is of some use to the rest of you. I still want to get more specific, and I would love to discuss some of the questions I brought up, or any you might have.
Eat Food: the First Part
DON'T EAT ANYTHING YOUR GREAT GRANDMOTHER WOULDN'T RECOGNIZE AS FOOD
This means little to me, and yet I assume I do pretty well with it. Basically, I "don't eat anything incapable of rotting."
AVOID FOOD PRODUCTS CONTAINING INGREDIENTS THAT ARE
A) UNFAMILIAR, B) UNPRONOUNCEABLE, C) MORE THAN FIVE IN NUMBER, OR THAT INCLUDE D) HIGH-FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP.
Again, I feel I am good at the first two, "A" and "B"--wasn't always, but now I feel like this is for a more general audience than myself. "C" sent me into my pantry and frige to read labels, and I was surprised to see how many food products I eat with more than five ingredients listed. But I am not concerned about it, because all the ingredients listed are "healthy," familiar and pronounceable. This holds true for my cereal, my Kashi 7-grain crackers, Lara-Bars, my organic pasta sauce (--actually, Suzy just started making a pasta without sauce, just chopped tomatoes, and it was delicious), even Suzy's Vitamin Water, which has each electrolite listed. Now "D" brings up a question for me. I have little trouble avoiding the ubiquitous stuff anymore, but I am finding a number of food-products composed in part of what I assume are substitutes for it: "Evaporated Cane Juice Crystals," "Organic Sugar Cane Juice," "Ulsulphured Molasses," "Organic Brown Rice Syrup." What do you guys know about this stuff? Does it have any advantage over Corn Syrup, or is it just clever marketing? I suspect the latter, but what do you guys know? Also, it is in this section that Pollan brings up a point about dairy products. Sparkle, what do you know about the "low-fat" or "skim" options? Pollan doesn't speak definitively about it, but you have a made a clear choice about it. Pollan merely suggests that treated dairy "cutt'st my head off with a golden ax/ And smilest upon the stroke that murders me," to borrow from Romeo. Is that "rude unthankfulness," if I am eating organic dairy? I mean, is he talking about Gogurt again, or other such bullshit? If I eat it with fat from other sources, say granola, are the fat-soluble vitamins (that are only "one of the reasons to drink milk in the first place" absorbed)? If he can't speak more certainly, I think it is better left unsaid--or, in any case, disregarded, and that's what I am thinking of doing with it, unless you guys can give me better information than this?
AVOID FOOD PRODUCTS THAT MAKE HEALTH CLAIMS
Again, what products don't make such claims these days? This rule, therefore, gives almost no guidance at all. I will read claims with increased scepticism, and I'll watch for qualifiers, but I will be surprised if I actually pick up a product that doesn't advertise some health claim. I don't know, what do you guys think?
SHOP THE PERIPHERIES OF THE SUPERMARKET AND STAY OUT OF THE MIDDLE
I like this one, but it pretty much confirms what I do anyway, and pushes me further in that direction. Let's see, cereal, crackers, pasta, snack bars, tortilla chips with salsa, and frozen fruit are all generally from the middle of the Whole Foods we shop at, but I don't think a single one of those are especially bad for me. In fact, those are the only foods that have labels that I get regularly, and I apply all the rules above to them.
GET OUT OF THE SUPERMARKET WHENEVER POSSIBLE
This one, at last, does change things for me a bit. Since reading this book, I have shopped at the farmer's market, have inquired about CSA, and am going to start a garden. "Shake the hand that feeds you," is advice I mean to follow more than I ever have. Local, in season, diversity--these are all things I will pay much more attention to--things I am fortunate enough to have available to me here in Colorado--farmer's markets every Wednesday and Saturday. But saying this in summer (especially since I am a teacher) is much different than saying it in fall or winter. We'll see what happens.
OK, that's the first and least helpful part of section three. Only the last rule inspires me to change much. The next two parts were much more exciting and useful for me.
one more thing from Eat Food part
One thing Pollan states at the end of the first part about eating food sticks with me still: "food no longer seems like the smartest place to economize." I certainly am in no position to willynilly buy the most expensive food out there, but I still feel strongly that food should be a top priority over many other things I regularly spend money on. I am very fortunate, even with three new mouths on the way and Suzy about to take a year off, to, at least for a while, not have to make much economical concessions anywhere--have kept things simple enough. But if it gets tight, and it's likely it will, I want to remember that food should not be my first choice for cutting back.
Pollan's Specific Advice Considered
All right, in Section III, Pollan offers many specific pieces of advice as a way out of the snares of nutritionism--"figuring out how to escape the worst elements of the Western diet and lifestyle without going back to the bush." Recognizing that nutritionism benefits "the food industry" and "the health care industry" more than "the eater," Pollan suggests that "instead of worrying about nutrients," we should avoid over-processed foods. But, of course, this is not as simple as it sounds. Pollan counters with "eating algorithms--mental programs that, if you run them when you're shopping for food or deciding on a meal, will produce a great many different dinners, all of them 'healthy' in the broadest sense of that word." Right here I am going to offer my own reaction to each of them. Like Sparkle said, reviewing the book is less important than applying it specifically to our own lives, and so I shall, adapting what I can, dismissing what I can't or won't, and asking questions of you guys, my friends and fellow eaters. Let's get started.
Above I will run down each of the three parts of Pollan's advice: Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly Plants.
Done and Done
I finished the book last night, and am as excited at the end as I was at the beginning. I will refrain for the moment from commenting in detail on Section III, afraid to give too much too soon. arh1? RED? Sparkle? You guys still out there?...
I will say that the third section earned the two sections that came before it, in my own humble opinion. In the first three paragraphs of "Escape from the Western Diet," he answered the questions raised by the contradictions I highlighted in my review of Section II (--well, he at least recognized the contradictions, himself, and offered something of an explanation for why they exist). I am tempted to copy those paragraphs because they seem close to a direct answer to my own critique. That, again, is rhetorically superb on Pollan's part. And then, to add to that, his extrapolation and succinct application of the simple advice that starts his book, "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly Plants." was everything I should have hoped it could be. Swish--or is it a slam dunk? Either way, I found that the book won't revolutionize my eating habits, but it does help me tighten up my ship, while also opening giving me a reason to do so. That is, it opens the way forward, which is great, because, as I had said initially, I felt as though Suzy and I had plateaued and were wallowing a bit in regard to our shared diet. Suffice it to say, I love the book, and think it will make a big difference in my life (--though, I think I may be slower to assume a dietary determinism than Pollan).
Now, I want to spell out just how I think it will change my relationship with food in a week or two. But let me see where everyone else is. Presently, I would love to use this discussion thread to explore my own food choices, and to learn from you three or anyone else about things that are still hazy to me, or about other choices you guys make. A flexitarian with a garden, who doesn't turn his own kids into orthorexics--that's my aim. But even more specifically, I would love to go where Pollan does not: perhaps creating a list of go-to foods, products, and even recipes right here, before summer's end. What do you guys say? Sparkle Motion!, I am guessing that our choices will be duplicable, despite our different locales--or duplicable enough. Anyone?
Dear JAG (and others), Still
Dear JAG (and others),
Still here, and enjoying very much your updates, comments, and summaries. I'm glad to hear too that you found Pollan's effort so satisfying. I liked it too, perhaps for different reasons and perhaps not quite as much, but there's far more to admire than there is to condemn.
I'd like to follow your lead, though, and leave the book review largely to the side. What's more interesting to me -- and, I hope, to you -- is the path forward. So, yes: Let's talk about what will change and what will remain and, most of all, what we'll eat. Pollan makes great hay from the fact that Americans eat so much in their cars. Sad and true. But unavoidable for many of us workin' schlubs? And likely to defeat any real change that any of us would like to implement? I wonder.
I'll also start: I've stopped eating most yogurts. Used to eat at least a cup a day. Now, to my digestive system's quiet dismay, I'm trying to eat only the authentic stuff -- and it's a bit of a slog. You?
Yours,
SM!
Yes, Sparkle
The way forward. I'll be with you soon. The yogurt question is one I had too. Let's talk about that. What I plan to do is list each of Pollan's "rules of thumb" with my own personal reaction--whether I will follow it or not, and for what reason. But I won't get to it for a couple more days. Glad you're still with me.
Sections I & II briefly reviewed
OK, amici, if all goes well I will be done with the book by tomorrow (if not today). I just finished reading Section II, about the Western diet, and I am going to lop my review of it and of Section I together. So here goes:
First off, let me say, it's an excellent book and very much what I was hoping it would be: a strong answer to the "Now what?" that naturally follows The Omnivore's Dilemma and its ilk. I am saying that in anticipation of a stupendous Section III, hopefully as concise as it is essential--and really in anticipation of some good tinkering, if not total revision, of my own diet. Yes, that's a lot to assume, but Pollan's the one who's leading me to assume it; which is to say, I find his first two sections "necessary," Sparkle, though subordinate to what I hope to feast on next.
Now, that is to say, part of Pollan's excellence as a writer is also his rhetorical excellence: he sets them up and he knocks them down. For instance, in the Section II, he gives us room to ask whether we can simply trust evolution (--as he conceives it, anyway) to pull us through the dark woods, or dark ages, of our food dilemma; and then he explains why we should not. Section II, in fact, is somewhat of an answer to the strong implication in Section I that all nutrition science is bogus.
Now setting them up to knock them down is how one can make Tom Cruise seem like a genius: you control the context, give the perfect cue, and the next thing you know, it's "Did you order the code red?!" But you can't fault Pollan for this. That's what argument does, and it is now the industry's charge to prove Cruise an idiot, if you're following me. My sense is that the industry, even if it could muster a counter-punch would refuse to do so, thinking better to slip the fight than to call attention to it; and in lack of their own argument, I'll go with Pollan's (my time being urgent, as I have said).
Now, there is much to talk about in Pollan's writing, his view of evolution, his biases (--the undercurrent of anti-establishment sensitivity, and his rescue of the savage, both of which I have mentioned before), or the irony of his resorting to the language of nutritionism (of which he is clearly aware), or his untenable distinction between reductionism in science and in practice (of which, I am not so sure he is aware). But I see little, nevertheless, with which I would quibble. I mean, I will always be on the side of truth first, but Pollan is clearly closer to it than the "Enemy-of-the-People" system of industrialized capitalism can be, don't you think? And in any case, I do not wish to tarry inside Sections I & II, so close as I am to the reason I picked up the book in the first place. Suffice it to say, if one were crunched for time (arh1?) or only moderately interested, I would read "From Foods to Nutrients," "Nutritionism Defined" and "Bad Science" from Section I, and "The Elephant in the Room" and the longish "The Industrialization of Eating: What We Do Know" from Section II. To have read all of the first two sections and written this much about them is tarrying enough.
That said, I still say those sections are "necessary" and good. Necessary and good, one, for people who have not yet given much time to this issue; and, two, to establish both his own credibility and the basis and bulk of his argument. Yes, in one sense, I am guessing that Pollan might think of Section III as the least substantive, perhaps even as a compromise it is not his first instinct to make--a meeting of us instant-gratification addicts half way. Hmmm.
Anyway, on to what I would call, for whatever that's worth, the beef...
Intro Review (part two)
OK, before we tackle the first section, which currently is cast by us into the suspicion of being unnecessary, let's recall Pollan's stated purposes in his introduction. In The Omnivore's Dilemma, "questions of personal health did not take center stage," Pollan admits. It "was more concerned with the ecological and ethical dimensions of our eating choices, [which] also happen to be the best choices for our health--very good news indeed." I did not read the book. My wife tried to read it, but lost interest about half way through. arh1 read it, of course (you can check out his posts on it, as he has said), but, in truth, everything he posted struck me the same way the book struck my wife. In the words of the old 80's commercial, I kept thinking, "Where's the beef?" In Defense of Food seems to be Pollan's answer to such a question. His stated "aim in this book is to help us reclaim our health and happiness as eaters."
But before he gets to that, he says, "it's important to understand how we arrived at our present state of nutritional confusion and anxiety," which he says is "the subject" of section one. Why is it important? This recalls to my mind how Pollan in Food Inc attempts to rally us to an effort to change the system that created the "Nutritional Industrial Complex." As he makes plain in the first section, consumers are almost always faulted for either ignorance or indulgence, while no attention is given to the big bad wolf who dupes them. I agree that this is important to recognize, even on the most selfish level, for who wants to suffer puritanical self-torture with each bite of your own birthday cake? But it's also, and mainly, important on a more general level, and I have no doubt the "institutional imperatives of the food industry" needs to be redressed, and that books like this have already helped us begin to do this. In fact, it was the mistreatment of workers, from the heartlessly exploited immigrants in the meat-packing factories to the heartlessly exploited fast food employees conveying pieces of shit from the grease-pit windows into our car windows--it was more that issue than my own health that made me want to effect institutional change after reading Fast Food Nation. That said, I was hungering for a book that could help me navigate the deep, dark woods of our food "choices" both for myself and for my fellows, in the best ways. That's what I think we are all getting at: not that the first part of this book is not important--and not that some other person may be moved to redress the system by it; but that we who are already bought and sold in this way want and need more direction. Let's get to it already.
Bring on the second section of the book: "The Western Diet and the Diseases of Civilization" (again, you can mark his defense of the "noble savage" here).
His second section, in other words, seems to redress the sense he creates in the first section that all this nutritionism is bogus--and that if you have come picked up this book, you're a fool twice over. Regardless, the question I pose here is whether or not this block-quote (huh, arh1? naa baa) would suffice for the second section. The second section isn't that long, admittedly, but what more does it need to achieve than this? I think its fair that we remind ourselves how counter-cultural Pollan is being. That is, there's whole sections at Barnes & Noble filled with books Pollan is basically rebuking with his first and second sections. That I am sold and bought does not mean his target audience is, and I am as glad as I am sure that he has the right target audience. So, again, no, it is not yet the reason I picked up the book, but perhaps some patience is due--though, it leads me to wonder if this gift is all bow and no present. Does he not hamstring his own conclusions by dwarfing them with so much lead-up?
"The burden of the third and last section [is] to propose a couple dozen personal rules of eating that are conducive not only to better health but also to greater pleasure in eating, two goals that turn out to be mutually reinforcing." Well, there it is, finally: direction--or so I hope. My greatest fear, though I am willing to grant that "there is no single answer to the question of what to eat," is that the section will be so inspecific that it has no force of guidance in it. We'll have to see.
Anyway, Sparkle, RED, arh1, I wanted to give Pollan his own words, at least, in light of my own suspicions. I am not sure whether the last section needs the last, even by his own design. He does come close to pedantry, it seems to me.
nutritionism vs science, advice from experts vs context
sorry i've been MIA -- we're down here in FLA for another few days -- i'm still tuned in but moving slowly.
a couple of quick points:
1) yeah, regarding being a "fool twice over", i've noticed that too -- he goes to great pains to debunk nutritionism, while taking for granted certain bits of food-related science as fact, and as a layman it's not always clear to me where one ends and the other begins. there seem to be some very fine lines there.
2) just a general point to rehash a comment i made here earlier (and deliberately not having read the later comments above yet), where, JAG, your and my main discussion may be: i don't really understand why we would look to an expert for guidance on how to eat. to me, the context, from the general history of human food all the way up to the mandates of the modern American food industry, are the entire point. the more i can understand that context, the more i can make my own informed choices as a consumer/eater (which, in the end, i feel are really very commonsensical).
i'm still just at the
i'm still just at the beginning of section III, but i was glad to see him explicitly address point 1 above head on:
and roughly in regards to point 2, i'm interested in this type of holistic thinking, much more than my food choices are dictated by concerns over my own health:
Introduction Notes
Yes, friends, fun to have this correspondence. No offense taken, arh1: just a guy is just a guy, or an average joe. And Sparkle, three! Yea, I intentionally left that out because it is show-stopping piece of information--really gets the imagination going--I was afraid to obliterate the discussion of Pollan. But three are in there, I don't know how, and far from feeling that it is no business of yours, I appreciate your "most important" congratulations. Thank you, Sparkle. Perhaps I will start a triplet blog here at dtek, if arh1 can help me: yes, I have been taking pictures--like the one I took yesterday where Suzy was eating from a plate set upon her built-in belly table; and there are many more pictures and stories to come, of course, though I am not sure I will ever have much time to post it. But all that for another day. Let's focus upon what was on that plate, so to speak... Thanks again, though, Sparkle.
"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Sounds simple enough, especially the latter two: proper proportions, and chill out on the meats. But the first one is the real trick. What is food--real food, rather than "edible foodlike substances"? I am pretty sure that I have lived off food-like substances most of my life, and, again, I was almost always trying to eat properly--I tried to stay away from fat, and had no idea enriched flour sucks royally. "If you're concerned about your health, you should avoid products that make health claims." And that's one thing I noted in Pollan's introduction: our parents, or rather our parents' parents had no reason to second guess nutitionism or any of the dietary short-cuts or opportunities it was making available. "...it used to be that food was all you could eat." In other words, we are beset with one bad choice after another, and all the pretty labels of the "thirty-two-billion-dollar food-marketing machine that thrives on change for its own sake" were taken at face value. That means our generation (and our parents'), specifically, is taking the full brunt of the bad science and governmental backing of "nutritionism." "...The most important thing to know about the campaign to professionalize dietary advice is that it has not made us any healthier." That sucks--royally, as I said, but cest la vie, the good news is that we guinea pigs of industrialized food are not just subjects; we also can make better decisions for our own heirs.
"We are entering a postindustrial era of food; for the first time in a generation it is possible to leave behind the Western diet without having also to leave behind civilization. And the more eaters who vote with their forks for a different kind of food, the more commonplace and accessible such food will become."
But my fear is that Pollan will fail to get specific. I understand that we need to be careful not to become orthorexics--which speaks of changing the ideology--the culture which is almost all we know--all our parents know anyway (--is it just me, or are all of our parents slow to heed warning on hydrogenated oils, etc?), and that's no easy feat. I don't know, myself, how best to proceed, but I am afraid that only general perscriptions mingled with a rebutting of the poor science of nutritionism will lead to "Let them eat twinkies!", despite his admission that "there are in fact some very good reasons to worry." The heirs on their way, and I would love to provide for them a world of health beyond my own errors.
ahhh
I wish I could edit this one a bit--it's a little rough--rushed...
Strangely enough, I am surprised at how slowly I am coming through the book--Hieb, it looks like I am joining the club. I certainly am enthralled, and have more than a few times referred to it in conversations out here, and yet, I still have to start the second section--and post about the first. That's all right, I guess: all in good time.
I am sorry for the delay. I hope none of you have been holding your breath for me. More's coming--I hope soon...
Joe
simplicity
I like that my choices are much simplified (if I follow this man's rules). I think the end of the book goes through a list of rules of thumb that are pretty easy to keep in mind. i.e. don't eat anything with more than ~7 ingredients, and those should not include anything you've never heard of or can't pronounce...
the tough part of all of this, which can also be the fun part, is that you have no choice but to spend more time preparing your own food. the upside is that (if you have a good produce outlet) you have fewer isles to browse.
I'm unclear on what makes "whole grain" bread whole grain... Can anyone help me define that further?
smugness? Omnivore's Dilemma, Murray Jay Siskind
i got sucked into a few work deadlines so i've been moving slow...
one initial observation from the first ~50 pages: he's more smug and self-righteous here than i remember him in Omnivore's Dilemma. ("fighting anti-establishment impulses" as JAG puts it). e.g. the "How convenient" at the very end of I.2. or, on the next page (p. 33 in my copy):
i'm deeply sympathetic to his point of view (coming from a Murray Jay Siskind-infatuated background as i am), but i wonder if some of these jabs here are more offsetting to the average Joe (no offense, JAG), where i've always thought he's done such a great job of writing for that guy. there are fine lines, i suppose...
well it's clear to me i won't be able to give as thorough a reading/note-taking as i did in our discussion of OD, but nonetheless i'm just glad to be here with my fellow book clubbers.
PS: tech tip...
if you want to add a long quote that stands out from the rest of your post, try using the "blockquote" tag, like this:
<blockquote>
Here's my long quote...
</blockquote>
for more info about formatting, check out the "Input format" info under the Comment field.
Let the Posting Begin
To tell truth, I keep bouncing back and forth between excitement and cynicism--excitement about the prospect of changing my views on this essential subject, and cynicism about his offering any concrete advice or direction. Why that cynicism exists, I'm not sure, but I am not interested in finding out how things got to be how they are. That's, for me, a waste of time. I want to know how best to navigate the dilemma with which I am faced presently. I suppose that is an error already--that I am bringing the mentality wrought by nutritionism and technological immediacy. Food, as he suggests, is not just about dos and don'ts, and the will for quick and easy gratification is part of what produces so much bullshit food in the first place. Surely, I can recognize that learning about health is a long process, one which I have even been invested in for some time now; and I can certainly recognize that my personal decisions about health have ramifications beyond my own well being. But, here's the thing, my wife is expecting, and that amplifies, for me, both the importance and urgency of having some direction. Suzy takes four supplements, and we have focused somewhat on her diet, trying to make sure she gets enough of certain nutrients. And the world of baby food and formula, etc. looms large. I know, I know, take it in stride--things are niether as important nor as urgent as they seem--and look at yourself, Mr. Jag, born and raised during the same time period in which nutritionism earned its name--and you're ok, aren't you? Yes, but that doesn't change the fact that there's some buns are in the oven, and they won't be there long, and Suzy, for some reason, just loves Blizzards from Dairy Queen... --Well, anyway, that's a taste of the bouncing back and forth I have been doing.
Here's what I aim to do. I will offer my notes about each reading assignment I gave myself below: Intro, I, II, and III. All of it is meant to stir discussion, so please comment on it.
Here are a few quick notes before I get started:
1.) he's an excellent, accessible writer--and a serious journalist, fair and honest--though, I do feel like he fights anti-establishment impulses (or am I the one fighting those?);
2.) there is no mention yet of the subjectivity of taste (unless that's what he is getting at with the cultural context of food);
and 3.) am I orthorexic?
Hmmm.
i'm actually really into the
i'm actually really into the story of how we got to this particular moment in the history of what we eat. to me, that's the whole point (and for that matter i don't expect too literal of a recipe from Pollan or anyone else about what i should be eating day to day...): if we can inform and educate ourselves a bit, we're able to make better choices moving forward.
Hey Team Dtek, Thank you for
Hey Team Dtek,
Thank you for letting me join you for the ride. If Jag's initial post is any indication, this should be a delightful run. I'm hopeful, if not entirely optimistic, that I'll be able to add something to it.
I'll start, then, with just a few questions / comments:
(1) You're right, Jag: Pollan is a terrific writer, prickly impulses notwithstanding. The first 7 words of the book are a model of pithiness, catchiness, and precision, and though I find my eyes glazing from time to time, I admire the facility of Pollan's prose enough to forge ahead. Wish I were half as good.
(2) Does Pollan have a geographic blindspot? That is, has he lived in -- and internalized -- Bay Area sensibilities for so long that he forgets what it's like to "eat" in places less blessed with botanical and gastronomical wonder? This same question plagued me when I read Omnivore's Dilemma, and it seems similarly unaddressed here. It's never easy to fit Pollan's mold, but it's certainly easier if you're a well-heeled denizen of coastal California. It's much harder, isn't it, to meet the mandate in, say, Brooklyn or Des Moines?
(3) Most important, congrats on the kid(s)-on-the-way, Jag!! From your post, I couldn't tell if you've got one or more headed your way, and it's surely none of my business anyway. But congrats all the same! Nothing like an impending and dramatic change to sharpen the senses and focus the mind. So I can appreciate -- and no doubt agree with -- your concerns about Pollan's deep, rich, but so-far-unsatisfying historical forays. I'm as curious about causes and origins as the next guy. But I like my digging to be worth more than the time spent in the hole (if you know what I mean). Take me on long riffs into the beginnings of baby formula and the etymology of vitamins. Fine and good. But, like you (I think), I want the work to offer more than a clever "how we got here" narrative. I want to know why "how we got here" matters -- and that's a charge Pollan's remaining parts will need to keep.
Thanks again, folks. Hope you had great, festive, and Obama-friendly holiday weekends.
Yours,
SM!
snobbery and elitism?
if i can take some liberties with your #2 above and extrapolate a bit.... this is at the root of what i understand to be one of the main criticisms of Pollan and many of the movements we're having him represent: it's snobbery and elitism.
i take issue with it, though. on the $$$ front, i think it's a symptom of how far out some of our priorities have drifted that we'll pay through the nose for any number of what can only be described as luxury goods, but we won't stand to pay more for something like food. (or more precisely, we seek to box it into an ever-tightening budget like other commodities in our lives...) i think that questioning that mentality is good, clean sanity.
as JAG, RED, and i have discussed recently, imho it's not a matter of "pay any price for food" or "buy the most expensive food", but rather "make good food a priority" and "pay a fair price for food".
yeah, the geographical part is trickier, but i think we're well served by just making an effort to eat food produced close to us. and speaking of, Brooklyn is blessed with plenty of gastronomical wonder! :)
Hey Team, Three quick notes
Hey Team,
Three quick notes before the avalanche of work buries me:
(1) Three!?!?!? Wow, Jag. That's terrific -- and sort of daunting, I'm sure. But great things come in threes. Your imminent bundles of joy will be no exception. Congrats to you and yours.
(2) Point well taken about B'lyn's gastronomical wonder, ARH1. And thank you for setting me straight on that. I do wonder, though, if part of my point still holds (leaving aside the elitism stuff). Brooklyn's doing great stuff with what it's got, but it's surely much harder to get fresh, locally-grown lemons in February at your local store than it is at, say, Pollan's Berkeley Bowl. That matters, I think, though he never admits it.
(3) A marker for later conversation: How much does the last chunk of the book need the first? Like RED, I like the rubber-meets-the-road "lessons" at the end. They're smart and concise and memorable, which is what I need. But they also seem like a bit of a non sequitur -- or, if not quite that, at least a batch of valuable ideas that don't need us to know anything about some old fart's predilection for chewing. Wonder if you agree . . . .
Be well, all.
Yours,
Sparkle!
YES! SM is here
Awesome, the Sparkly one is coming along. That's great.
Well, I am just finishing Section I, and will post about it and the introduction later tonight (7/6).
I also saw Food Inc. a few days ago, but will only say this about it now: I recommend it to everyone, even though it falls way short of what I was hoping it would be--I think it's a bit boring, actually. Important and boring is the shame of delivery, it seems to me. I know this might ruffle some feathers, but I wish M. Moore had directed it. But perhaps part of the problem is that I am no longer the target audience. I mean Fast Food Nation enthralled me (--the book, not that almost completely misguided "fictionalized" movie parody of itself, starring E. Hawk and G. Kinear), but that was new stuff to me then. I wonder if Food Inc. would have enthralled me also back then--wonder if it also would have seemed to open a new and essential doorway of personal interest to me. I was happy to see Schlosser and Pollan pulled together, but again, shouldn't the pulling together of those two guys amount to something enthralling for me, especially, and for anyone else? Arghh! I don't know. Let's talk more about it later.
Anyway, stay tuned: I'll be back.
Mind If I Join?
I've been absent from this house for quite a spell, but I'd love to add a sentence or two to the Pollan conversation -- if you'll have me. I read "In Defense" just a few weeks back, and though my recollections may already be dimming, I should recall enough to play along. Let me know.
In the meantime, hope all's well with Team Dtek. Happy belated birthday, RED. Happy anniversary in B'klyn, ARH1. And happy summer, JAG. I hope your school year ended well.
Be well.
SM!
glad to hear from you as
glad to hear from you as always, Sparkle.
thanks for the greetings, and please do join us!
Pollan is everywhere
heard him on several radio interviews over the past few weeks.
one thing he said I've been thinking about is how adverts focus on quantity, rarely quality.
think, "BIGGIE"
Yes
Have you heard of Food Inc. You apparently can watch the whole movie for free on line.
Here's the trailer on hulu.com:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/70823/movie-trailers-food-inc
I am enjoying the book immensely, and am gearing up to post about it soon. Right now, Ibsen's Enemy of the People keeps going through my head...
thanks for the link, JAG.
thanks for the link, JAG. and, dude, there are already a few references and links to Food, Inc below :)
i enjoyed the introduction.
i enjoyed the introduction. this type of thing is right up my alley -- taking something we look right past in our day to day life and take for granted to a huge extent, putting it into relief and asking questions of it -- for reasons of good, healthy skepticism and political/socio-economic awareness, but also, crucially, for pleasure, joy, and yes, communion!
will he offer much that wasn't already covered in Omnivore's Dilemma? he says early on that this book looks more squarely at personal health, and tries to give specific thoughts about "what to eat". let's see...
Suggested Reading Schudule
Hello people. Sometimes a schedule helps me push through my reads. Here is the schedule I will try to keep, posting as I go. As you will see, I am in no grand hurry, as I have a couple of other projects that will divide my attention. Basically, I'll try to get the book read over the next three weekends. If it helps us stick together a little, great.
Friday (6/26): Introduction "An Eater's Manifesto"
Monday (6/29)- Sunday (7/5): Section I "The Age of Nutritionism"
Monday (7/6)- Thursday (7/9) Section II "The Western Diet..."
Friday (7/10)- Monday (7/13): Section III "Getting Over Nutritionism"
ah, "next three weekends" is
ah, "next three weekends" is most definitely a grand hurry for me these days, JAG!
i know his books are easy to read, though, so maybe it'll happen.
thanks for trying to give us a little structure, regardless :)
Great
Drum up all you can. We'll get started by week's end. What say you? I'll put up a reading schedule as a suggestion. Friday. Stoy listo.
I'm in. Mostly
Nicole and I read it aloud to each other on our tour of the west. Enjoyed it a lot. Inspired us to eat food, mostly vegetables, not too much, and from local people (sic)...
My personal journey: Dominoes and BK in high school, bear's den pizzas and egg rolls in college, following the ultimate nutritionism formulas of the likes of Dr. Barry Sears' Zone Diet from time to time, sharing tables with foodies, farmies, vegans, and vegetarians throughout the late 90s and 00s, fast food nation got me off fast food, super size me was nice to see out there...
Confusing and too complicated. Pollen's formula simplifies it for the individual eater, which I loved last summer. A simple mantra like his is needed in the face of so many eating options.
I'll follow along with your notes to keep the issues fresh, and trying to expand my understanding of the industry-government structures when possible. There are my goals.
I'm ready for Food Inc. Not expecting much new, but I want to some visuals, and cinematic magic to the ideas.
Food, Inc.
RED suggested that we might watch Food, Inc. after reading Pollan's book.
i've just read a few things about it, like a post on the mediacology blog today, and a recent write-up by our friends over at Reverse Shot. might be a nice cap to our reading, though.
i am in, JAG. just finished
i am in, JAG. just finished eating some chocolate ice cream.
i'm trying to drum up another reader/commenter around here, too.
and here's our old discussion of Omnivore's Dilemma.