Ever since we've come back from Italy, we have had an obsession with food. Not in the sense that we are always eating food, but that we want to better understand food, its complexities, flavors, and how to cook the best tasting meals. Jeremy's brother Jeff (whose wedding we attended in Italy) has converted to the organic food diet and has been trying to convert us for awhile now. He gave us a book called "In Defense of Food" by Michael Pollan. I read it with the idea that it would provide me with insight as to why I should go organic. I mean, what's the big deal? Pesticides keep bugs out of my food. They're necessary, right? Well, that's not exactly what I learned from the book. The book basically describes the "Western diet" and explains why people in the US are so fat. Pollan explains that our food is calorie high and nutrient low and therefore our bodies go through a negative feedback loop and tell our brains that we're still hungry in order to get essential vitamins and nutrients into our bodies which in turn, many Americans will put more nutrient low foods into their bodies to quell the hunger thereby getting bigger and bigger. Ours is the first generation that is expected to have a shorter life span than our parents. Doctors are finding in obese children diseases that usually occur in malnourished kids. The book also explains that Americans eat tons of processed foods and explains what exactly goes into processed foods. I then realized that processed food doesn't really seem like food anymore. I could go on about things I learned in the book, but I don't want to rewrite the whole book here on the blog. We also watched "Food Inc." which you can watch for free on Netflix. This movie is a documentary about processed food too which we found very informative.
So, we aren't necessarily converts to organic foods, per se, but are more into eating naturally occurring foods. Basically the premise of "In Defense of Food" is, as the author says it first in the book, is to "eat food, not too much, mostly plants." As I read the book the thought came to me that this is really a defense of the Word of Wisdom. We should eat meat sparingly and eat fruits and vegetables in their seasons. That is how our bodies were made to eat. The author tells us that food scientists have broken down fruits and vegetables into essential vitamins and minerals, but what they can't do is explain how all of these work synergistically in the fruit/vegetable as a whole. You will benefit much more by eating the fresh salad than by taking a vitamin supplement.
In our search to eat more naturally, we have made a recent find that we are enjoying. It's called Bountiful Baskets and it is a food co-op found pretty much in every western state. What you do is go to http://www.bountifulbaskets.org/ on Tuesday or Wednesday and make a "contribution" to Bountiful Baskets and order a basket which will contain 6 vegetables and 6 fruits which you pick up on the following Saturday. It also gives you options to order other things such as bread, dessert packs, extra fruit (we've ordered a box of peaches and a box of blueberries) and also ethnic packs. It's never the same each week and you don't get to choose what produce goes into your basket. For us, that's part of the fun. We learn new recipes to accomodate the selections and we get to try new foods. We recently found Swiss chard and artichokes in our basket. The kids loved eating the artichokes. Eating it was part of the fun. A good recipe site is allrecipes.com. I love this site because it has a rating system and provides reviews from people who have made the recipe and offer suggestions on how to improve the recipes.
All that being said, I'm not trying to convert anyone to the organic trend because organic isn't necessarily the solution. I'm just trying to provide you with some awareness of what you're eating.
