I have been writing a lot about food recently and this might be my last post on it for awhile but I couldn’t yield the field without mentioning this other great book by Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food. I actually listened to it twice in my car as a book on CD after I checked it out from the library. I talked it up so much The Southern Gent listened to it and also really enjoyed it.
Ever wonder why we as Americans are so obsessed with the parts of our food, the nutrients, instead of the food and our “diet” as a whole? Should we really be looking for guidance on our three squares a day from a government that brings a new star food and fear food out every year to alternately thrill and chill us? Does all that stuff at the supermarket really qualify as “food” and why can they make all of those health claims about that “food”? I can’t convince you to read a book about that which physically sustains us, but if you are at all interested in the state of our diet, then this is a good book to start with.
If you never read a book about food though, take these thoughts with you: you don’t have to eat meat to get protein (100 calories of broccoli has more protein than 100 calories of meat); you don’t have to eat dairy to get calcium (in fact cheese actually leaches more calcium from your system in digesting it than it gives you); and finally, other cultures have diets, not miracle foods – we as Americans cannot glean the one linch pin (olive oil, avocado, acacia berries, etc.) and expect it to cure all of our ailments.
Happy, cooking and reading!
Here are my other posts on the food books I have read recently:
Chocolate Mousse to Cut Your Tongue For
