August 27th, 2008 admin
What’s better for you — whole milk, 2% milk or skim?
Is a chicken labeled “free range” good enough to reassure you of its purity? How about “grass fed” beef?
What form of soy is best for you — soy milk or tofu?
About milk: I’ll bet most of you voted for reduced or non-fat. But if you’ll turn to page 153 of “In Defense of Food,” you’ll read that processors don’t make low-fat dairy products just by removing the fat. To restore the texture — to make the drink “milky” — they must add stuff, usually powdered milk. Did you know powdered milk contains oxidized cholesterol, said to be worse for your arteries than plain old cholesterol? And that removing the fat makes it harder for your body to absorb the fat-soluble vitamins that make milk a valuable food in the first place?
About chicken and beef: Readers of Pollan’s previous book, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma
“, know that “free range” refers to the chicken’s access to grass, not whether it actually ventures out of its coop. And all cattle are “grass fed” until they get to the feedlot. The magic words for delightful beef are “grass finished” or “100% grass fed”.
And about soy…but I dare to hope I have your attention by now. And that you don’t want to be among the two-thirds of Americans who are overweight and the third of our citizens who are likely to develop type 2 diabetes before 2050. And maybe, while I have your eyes, you might be mightily agitated to learn that America spends $250 billion — that’s a quarter of the costs of the Iraq war — each year in diet-related health care costs. And that our health care professionals seem far more interested in building an industry to treat diet-related diseases than they do in preventing them. And that the punch line of this story is as sick as it is simple: preventing diet-related disease is easy.
In just 200 pages (and 22 pages of notes and sources), “In Defense of Food” gives you a guided tour of 20th century food science, a history of “nutritionism” in America and a snapshot of the marriage of government and the food industry. And then it steps up to the reason most readers will buy it — and if you care for your health and the health of your loved ones, this is a no-brainer one-click — and presents a commonsense shopping-and-eating guide.
If you are up on your Pollan and your Nina Planck and your Barbara Kingsolver, you know the major points of the “real food” movement. But if you’re new to this information or are disinclined to buy or read this book, let me lay Pollan’s argument out for you:
– High-fructose corn syrup is the devil’s brew. Do yourself a favor and remove it from your diet. (If you have kids, here’s a place to start: Heinz smartly offers an “organic” ketchup, made with sugar.)
– Avoid any food product that makes health claims — they mean it’s probably not really food.
– In a supermarket, don’t shop in the center aisles. Avoid anything that can’t rot, anything with an ingredient you can’t pronounce.
– “Don’t get your fuel from the same place your car does.”
– “You are what you eat eats too.” Most cows end their days on a diet of corn, unsold candy, their pulverized brothers and sisters — yeah, you read that right — and a pharmacy’s worth of antibiotics. And they bestow that to you. Consider that the next time there’s a sale on sirloin.
– “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” By which Pollan means: Eat natural food, the kind your grandmother served (and not because she was so wise, but because the food industry had not yet learned that the big money was in processing, not harvesting). Use meat sparingly. Eat your greens, the leafier and more varied the better.
In short: Kiss the Western diet as we know it goodbye. Look to the cultures where people eat well and live long. Ignore the faddists and experts. Trust your gut. Literally.
In all this, Pollan insists that you have to save yourself. And he makes a good case why. Our government, he says, is so overwhelmed by the lobbying and marketing power of our processed food industry that the American diet is now 50% sugar in one form or another — calories that provide “virtually nothing but energy.” Our representatives are almost uniformly terrified to take on the food industry. And as for the medical profession, the key moment, Pollan writes, is when “doctors kick the fast-food franchises out of the hospital” — don’t hold your breath.
“You want to live, follow me.” I loved it when Schwarzenegger said that in “Terminator.” It matters much more when, in so many words, Michael Pollan delivers that same message in “In Defense of Food.” [review by J.Kornbluth]
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August 17th, 2008 admin
Coleman’s personable work draws together the experience and wisdom of his 25 years as a vegetable gardener in Maine. It includes nearly all the material in the previous edition (LJ 11/1/89), communicating a respect and feeling for “the land” and its processes. Every page is imbued with the wisdom and careful observations he and his associates have gathered; from soil structure to “mobile greenhouses” that expand the growing season, each method is thought through to its ultimate impact on the earth and on economic survival. Well-presented graphics illustrate methods and techniques. This new edition includes sidebar references and notes, new chapters on creating fertile soil (without importing items such as manure from sources that may not use organic methods), and use of existing information channels to learn of new information. Of interest for even the smallest veggie patch grower. The Dirt Doctor’s Guide to Organic Gardening presents many of the same sustainable concepts with the vehemence of its radio talk show host and news columnist author. Garrett gives tips on a broader range of home gardening, including landscaping and wildlife, and spends much effort on the abuses of past and current practice. Basics are presented briefly, with many eco-asides that help break up the dense, information-rich text. Lack of visuals makes the material harder to absorb, yet one is constantly copying out directions as they appear. These tidbits and the coverage of issues concerning Southern gardens make the title of value, though gathering the tips in an appendix or special section would have provided better access. For general collections.
There are 22 chapters, each one dealing with an important element of success such as green manures, tillage, direct seeding, transplanting, weeds, pests, harvest, marketing, season extension. In addition there are three appendices on tools, the major vegetable crops and a one-page schematic outline of biological agriculture. If you plan to buy just one book on organic growing, you will find it difficult to beat this book.
[source: amazon]
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August 4th, 2008 admin
With all of the contaminated foods coming to you from the supermarket… you know, the tomatoes, spinach jalapeño peppers that were (and are) making everyone ill? What is one to do? Firstly I must ask, what is going on with that? Why on earth is there e-coli and salmonella in vegetables? Secondly, forget wondering, and just avoid that altogether and grow your own veggies. It’s the most healthy way to go and the veggies taste better. You will never go back to store bought tomatoes again unless they are real organic tomatoes and other vegetables.
It’s never too late to start a garden even though we are getting ready for fall. What am I talking about, you ask? Grow food indoors. Why not? If you have a spare room, or better yet a basement, you can grow many things indoors. How?
Get a Turbo Grow Room or a 36 Plant Dual Chamber Hydroponic Grow Cabinet!
These allow you to easily grow vegetables and herbs indoors. The latter looks like a regular cabinet so you can even put it in your living room. No one would even know there are living plants inside the cabinet. Closed, that is!
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