"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly Plants"

This is one of those perfect nights. Poompy is cooking dinner, I'm perched on a stool in the kitchen, we're chatting about our day and interesting things we've read and upcoming plans we have while we sip a delicious red wine. Even the pups are happy - trotting around in circles, following Poompy's feet as he cooks and, inevitably, drops tasty bits on the floor for their doggy delight.

I'm particularly excited about the meal Poompy is making because he is using ingredients that I chose from several local farms. The kale, portabello mushrooms, tomatoes and artichoke are all organic and locally grown. And the duck! oh the duck! The duck came from a local duck farm that promises that all of its ducks live happy, full lives, swimming in ponds and flying around and eating delicious ducky food like tadpoles and larvae and plants... we're going to eat a duck that had a long, happy, beautiful life. A duck that lived the way a duck should live. Until it became our dinner. But I digress.

I have always carried the sneaking suspicion that people would be happier and healthier if their food was happy and healthy. I've always believed that we should eat more plants than anything else, that if and when we choose to eat meat we should eat meat that comes from an animal who lived the life it was meant to live and ate what it was meant to eat instead of spending a sad life locked in a pen, surrounded by miserable sick animals and being forced to eat things it was never meant to eat (like fish meal - hi! Gross!) and getting so sick from eating so badly that it must be pumped full of antibiotics and hormones and all kinds of other unnatural things and then murdered in such a way that it's muscles are soaked with anxiety and adrenaline. I mean, that can't be good for anyone. It's not just awful and unnatural for the animal, but it's got to be bad for us, too. And I'm not just talking about karma. But there is that. Or so I've always thought.

Anyway, I've always tried to express these thoughts to Poompy, but have been met with much resistance. Because, you know, buying organic locally grown produce is expensive. And going to the trouble to only eat pastured animals is too time consuming and expensive. And bread is healthy! Pasta is a staple!

Remember when I wrote that I was gonna write about this most awesome and fantastic book I'd finished reading by Michael Pollan? Well, today is THE day.

My hour has finally come. Poompy has finally stopped arguing with me about how we eat. Apparently, anything Michael Pollan says carries more weight than anything I say. And as long as I get what I want, I'm totally cool with that.

I don't really know where I'm going with this post, except that I feel really validated by Pollan's newest book. I'm always floored when someone sees me eating an apple and says, "You better be careful. Do you know how much sugar is in that?" I feel like you won't even believe that I've just typed that, because, hello! It's a freaking apple. There is not so much sugar in an apple that it's going to make me fat. That's just ridiculous. But maybe you're one of those people who says, "I don't eat fruit. Too many carbs," though I hope you're not. Because if you are, you're going to have some serious health problems as you get older. And I'd really like you to live a long and healthy life.

Anyway, since I don't know how to force the power of this book onto you, (other than by begging you to pleasegooutandbuythisbooktoday!) I'm just going to quote some Michael Pollan right here. But before I do, I want you to know that he's a really smart guy and he did a lot of research and, unlike me, he doesn't just spout stuff he thinks sounds good. He actually only writes it if he has real scientific evidence to back it up. I mean, the guy's got creds. Yes, he's a writer and not a scientist. But he quotes scientists, so that's gotta count for something, right?

Let us start with this little doozy. In this section, Pollan is arguing against the arguments that we are "adjusting" to the Western Diet (refined white flour, refined sugar, processed foods, the entire "low-fat" culture).

"But our 'adjustment' [to the Western diet] looks much less plausible when
you consider that, as mentioned, fully a quarter of all Americans suffer from
metabolic syndrome, two thirds of us are overweight or obese, and diet-related
diseases are already killing the majority of us."

Do you know how to starve a rich person? Feed 'em. I'm not kidding. Americans are eating more and more empty calories and getting fatter and fatter. We're eating WAY less fat than we were fifty years ago, but because we aren't eating natural fats, we're hungrier all the time and thus, we eat waaaaay more calories and get really fat. If we stuck to fruits and veggies, we'd be more satisfied and all-around-healthier.

"An American born in 2000 has a 1 in 3 chance of developing diabetes in his
lifetime; the risk is even greater for a Hispanic American or African American.
A diagnosis of diabetes subtracts roughly twelve years from one's life ad living
with the condition incurs medical costs of $13,000 a year (compared with $2,500
for someone without diabetes.)"

How messed up is that? Seriously. Thank you, Processed Food. But wait - it gets better.

"Although an estimated 80 percent of type cases of type 2 diabetes could be
prevented by a change of diet and exercise, it looks like the smart money is
instead on the creation of a vast new diabetes industry. The mainstream media is
full of advertisements for new gadgets and drugs for diabetics, and the health
care industry is gearing up to meet the surging demand for heart bypass
operations (80 percent of diabetics will suffer from heart disease), dialysis,
and kidney transplantation. At the supermarket checkout you can thumb copies of
a new lifestyle magazine, Diabetic Living. Diabetes is well on its way
to becoming normalized in the West -- recognized as a whole new demographic and
so a major marketing opportunity. Apparently it is easier, or at least a lot
more profitable, to change a disease of civilization into a lifestyle than it is
to change the way that civilization eats."

And this is one of my favorites. Because I've secretly always loathed "low-fat" crap and "lite" shit and "skim" milk and blah blah blah. I drink half n' half. And I love it. Gimme more fat, please.

"Very often food science's efforts to make traditional foods more nutritious
make them much more complicated, but not necessarily any better for you. To make
dairy products low fat, it's not enough to remove the fat. You then have to go
to great lengths to preserve the body or creamy texture by working in all kinds
of food additives. In the case of low-fat or skim milk, that usually means
adding powdered milk. But powdered milk contains oxidized cholesterol, which
scientists believe is much worse for your arteries than ordinary cholesterol, so
food makers sometimes compensate by adding antioxidants, further complicating
what had been a simple one-ingredient whole food. Also, removing the fat makes
it that much harder for your body to absorb the fat-soluble vitamins that are
one of the reasons to drink milk in the first place."

Pollan also goes on to uncover all these studies that show that taking vitamin and anti-oxidant supplements are more likely to do harm than good. And he talks about how the way we farm our produce and our animals has so depleted the soil of nutrients that our produce is waaaay less nutritious than it was a hundred years ago and because our animals eat such bad food, they are waaaaaay less better than us than they were and on and on and on. It's really incredible. And eye-opening.

And if you think you don't want to read this book because you don't want to know all this bad stuff and you can't do anything about it anyway, GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR YEASTY ASS. Because, YOU HAVE THE POWER TO CHANGE EVERYTHING. FOR THE BETTER. For reals. It really actually does not cost that much extra to buy locally grown organic produce. And, FYI, the "locally grown" part is actually incredibly important. It is stupid to buy organic produce if it was grown in China and shipped to the states before it was ripe, which is how a lot of organic produce works. And it doesn't cost that much more to buy pastured organic animal products. It really doesn't. And again, the "pastured" part makes a HUGE difference in the quality of the food you are consuming. And it is much more likely that the animal was a healthy animal if it spent it's life eating grass in a pasture, as it was intended to do. So there. Anyway, buying food like this isn't much more expensive, seriously. I'm shit-ass-broke and I can do it. So you can too. You just have to want a better life for yourself.


Americans are entering into a terrible, terrible state of ... I don't even know what to call it. We're losing our jobs and our homes, most of us are without health care, food and fuel costs are shooting through the roof, we are fat and unhealthy and unhappy. This cannot go on. I don't mean to get all preachy, but I totally do. LISTEN TO ME. We have got to start taking responsibility for ourselves and we have got to start holding ourselves accountable and we have got to make a difference! WHAT KIND OF WORLD DO YOU WANT YOUR CHILDREN TO GROW UP IN? You don't want children, you say? WELL, WHAT KIND OF WORLD DO YOU WANT MY CHILDREN TO GROW UP IN?

So just do me a favor, read this book, follow Pollan's wonderful suggestions for eating in a way that will make you healthier and all-around-happier and that will also be good for our Earth, our country, our children and our animals. Please. I'm begging. I'm actually on my knees begging. You just can't see me. But you have a good imagination, so use it.*

OH! And one last thing. Go here to get tons more info on how you, too, can eat healthier while taking care of Mother Earth. This is also a great website. DO IT NOW! Shazam.

*I just want you to know that I do not work for Michael Pollan, nor am I getting a kick-back on the sale of his book. I just think he's a smart guy with some REALLY important stuff to say. But I should start getting kick-backs. Because that would be cool.