The Omnivore's Dilemma

Because I know you are all so interested in my mediocre book reviews, I'ma do another one, but much shorter than my previous post, because if anyone even bothered to read the whole thing, I'm sure they hated the book by the end of it just because blog posts are not supposed to be long, duh.

But anyways, shortly after finishing In Defense of Food, I dove into The Omnivore's Dilemma, which is actually a prequel, but because I'm nonconformist I does everything howz I wants to. I will say a few things - it's an easier, more engaging read than IDOF. It also makes you feel a lot better about eating anything.

I also appreciated this book because it's written by someone who loves meat. He loves meat even after assisting in the slaughter of said meat. The trend of late has been, if you care about the environment, you'll stop eating meat, and cheese, and eggs, and honey, and ice cream, and everything else that tastes good. Dry oats and grass-flavored hummus for everybody! Instead, Pollan encourages his readers to educate themselves about the meat that they eat - where it comes from, how the animals were raised, how they were slaughtered and butchered, etc, and then to make personal decisions based on that information. In fact, in the third section of the book he actually goes out and hunts for, kills, and assists in the butchering of a wild boar he prepares for a meal. He makes the implication that it may actually be most socially and environmentally responsible to eat wild game that you have hunted, although he is quick to admit that this is not realistic or even possible for everyone in the US to start doing.

Also interesting is his exploration of what he calls "Big Organic"; companies that, while remaining technically 'organic', have fallen into all of the same bad habits as the big corporate farms and packing plants over which they're claiming superiority. So while we may get warm fuzzies from shopping at Whole Foods, in reality the products may bear almost the same carbon footprint while costing twice or three times as much. So, y'know, business corrupts, big business corrupts absolutely. And all that jazz.

I hope this is shorter. Still, probably only two people will read this. And those two people may have already read the book. Or at least seen Food Inc. But I don't write for attention and comments!

Ok, maybe I do. :) Love you guys!

Time hurries on

So it's been a while, eh? I promise that's not because I killed all my plants. They are, generally, in fine health. :) Some are beginning to fruit, and some have already yielded food for me, so I'm feeling pretty good about that. Unfortunately, my camera is in the shop, so I have no pictures to share at the time of this post. I hope to remedy that soon! At that time, I will also share the stati (status, plural, right?) of my dear friends, my plants.

But, I want to talk about one of the books I brought up when I started this phase of my blog. The first one I read was In Defense of Food, by Michael Pollan. While parts of it were a big arduous and preachy, I appreciated his message a lot, and I'm trying harder to live by it. Here are a few of his points, which, honestly, are from the last chapter, so if you want to read the book but find yourself short on time and have little patience for the ethos of the whole thing, just read the last chapter. It's where the rubber hits the road.

- Don't eat anything your great, great grandmother wouldn't recognize
If a food has been invented in the last 75 years, it probably isn't food, it's a food product. And processed foods, while deLICious at times, just aren't all that good for us, even, and perhaps especially, if they claim that they are good for us. My recent favorite: those halloween pumpkin candies now have a special claim on them saying they're "made with REAL honey." Honey is ingredient number 6 on the ingredient list, right before "artificial flavor."

- Stay to the periphery of the supermarket, and when possible, get out of there entirely
Nearly all of the whole-est foods at a supermarket can be found around the outside, whether it be produce, dairy, meats, or fresh bread. While I do stop to get breakfast cereal and canned tomatoes at this point, I am definitely working hard to confine most of my purchases to 'periphery-fare'. ALSO, this past week I was able to visit my local farmers market in the park down the street, which is what Pollan means by getting out of the supermarket. I looooooove buying things from the farmers market, and I hope that, wherever I end up in life, I will be able to continue to support local farmers in their hard work.

- Add new species to your diet, especially plant species
This is a bit of a challenge for me, because I am a little picky. It's more of a challenge for Tim, because he's really pretty picky. Especially about vegetables. But I've had these turnips in my freezer for a while, and I just haven't been able to figure out quite what to do with them. I've also got a big bag of lentil stew frozen that I made and couldn't eat all that fast, but didn't want to throw away. So I'm waiting for some type of inspiration to take on those two species. I've never eaten rutabaga, or beet, or mustard greens or swiss chard. I have yet to try an heirloom tomato. I've never seasoned anything with summer savory or tarragon or marjoram. I'd say I have lots of frontier to explore yet.

- Eat wild food
Now this is something I can get behind. I've been a bit of a forager for quite a while, because, hey, it's free! Last weekend Tim and I were walking in a state park and passed huge stands of wild blackberry and raspberry, and we're thinking about going back when they're a little riper. When camping with my family, I would harvest wild mint and oregano and add them to our foods, whether it made sense or not. I've eaten game a few times and have rather romanticized visions of returning to the Little House on the Prairie way of life. Of course, this is crazy, but if it's wild, you know it hasn't been given pesticides or antibiotics or growth hormones.

- Pay more, eat less
Now this is something that I have a hard time with. I looooove to save money. When I am old, I will keep a little coupon wallet. BUT. Pollan's point is that, since Americans have come to put so much value on saving money on food, the food itself has lost its value. Other cultures around the world spend, at minimum, 12% of their income on food. Many of them spend much more than that. Many spend all day working in order to procure meals. Americans spend between 6 and 10%, and we're proud of it. But all this saving has meant that food has lost its nutritional and even emotional value for most Americans. So maybe we should pay more, because good food is worth it.

- Eat at a table
This is a challenge for me simply because my dining room table has become a receptacle for all sorts of junk that doesn't go anywhere else in my apartment. Clearing the table is a bit of a pain. But by sitting down at a table, and not on the couch or in a car, I give myself time to enjoy my food and those I eat with. It has helped to have Tim over here quite a bit for dinner, because then I have someone to talk to while I eat. But I still find myself, when I am alone, tending to migrate toward the couch or computer while I eat.

- Cook food, and grow your own
It was nice that he ended with this, because if there are two things I like, they are growing food, and then cooking it. I am pretty good at both, although I must say that living in Chicago instead of Arizona makes gardening a LOT easier. Things just grow here because they want to, whereas in Tucson every day I can hear the plants gasping to themselves, "hang on, just hang on..." until the end of June when they all just give up and surrender their dried out husks of bodies to the withering sun. And I loooooooove cooking, especially when I can use my own home-grown food. It nearly brings tears to my eyes every time I cook something that's mine, that I nurtured from start to finish. Maybe that's a bit over-the-top, but it's true. :)

So, in short (too late), In Defense of Food is a fascinating read. I haven't been able to NOT talk about it with everyone. It's true, just ask people I talk to. I talk about food all the time. And now I talk about REAL food all the time. So if you get the chance, go to your local library or borrow it from a friend or, if you have to, buy this one and get yourself thinking about these things, because they are really important, to us personally, to our society, and to the world we live in.