Why I am starting this blog:
I want to learn a new way to eat.
I want to learn to eat more responsibly -- both for my own health and for the health of my community, state, nation, planet, etc. I was partly inspired by Michael Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dilemma (which I am reading now and will probably mention a lot in this blog), but I have been interested in "thoughtful eating" for several years.
I've always had a strange love-hate relationship with food. My weight has yo-yo'ed back and forth for as long as I can remember. I'm not a horrible eater now. I try to eat a lot of whole grains and fresh fruits and vegetables. My husband and I cook at home about 90% of the time, and we almost never eat fast food. I try to make sure the house is full of healthy food choices. The older I get though, the more I realize that there's more to eating than just fat and calories. Our culture has deconstructed food until all we really see are the chemical reactions, the microscopic angels and demons that make one food "bad" and another "good." In our effort to be healthy, we seem to be getting farther and farther away from the natural state of FOOD. Heck, if my great grandparents were transported to my kitchen right now, I doubt they would recognize half the things in my kitchen as food.
Is it really better for me to eat a meat substitute that's been shipped halfway across the country, rather than a steak from a cow that was raised in a pasture 20 miles away? Is this fruity, antioxidant-enriched, superfood beverage, created and bottled in a town I've never seen, really preferable to a glass of whole milk from the dairy farm down the road? How difficult would it be to erase highly processed foods from my diet? Can I afford to spend more money to buy local, sustainable foods? Can I afford not to? Wouldn't I prefer to give my money to food producers who are using responsible, ethical, humane processes, than to those responsible for pollution, poverty, disease, and animal cruelty?
These are just a few of the questions I hope to answer in my quest to rediscover food. I do know three things. 1) I want to replace as much of the food in my diet as possible with local products. 2) I want to eat foods that were produced by sustainable practices. 3) I want to eat food that has been processed as little as possible before it reaches me.
I probably won't post every day, but I will try to share my journey as fully as possible. Stay tuned for episode 1!
I want to learn a new way to eat.
I want to learn to eat more responsibly -- both for my own health and for the health of my community, state, nation, planet, etc. I was partly inspired by Michael Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dilemma (which I am reading now and will probably mention a lot in this blog), but I have been interested in "thoughtful eating" for several years.
I've always had a strange love-hate relationship with food. My weight has yo-yo'ed back and forth for as long as I can remember. I'm not a horrible eater now. I try to eat a lot of whole grains and fresh fruits and vegetables. My husband and I cook at home about 90% of the time, and we almost never eat fast food. I try to make sure the house is full of healthy food choices. The older I get though, the more I realize that there's more to eating than just fat and calories. Our culture has deconstructed food until all we really see are the chemical reactions, the microscopic angels and demons that make one food "bad" and another "good." In our effort to be healthy, we seem to be getting farther and farther away from the natural state of FOOD. Heck, if my great grandparents were transported to my kitchen right now, I doubt they would recognize half the things in my kitchen as food.
Is it really better for me to eat a meat substitute that's been shipped halfway across the country, rather than a steak from a cow that was raised in a pasture 20 miles away? Is this fruity, antioxidant-enriched, superfood beverage, created and bottled in a town I've never seen, really preferable to a glass of whole milk from the dairy farm down the road? How difficult would it be to erase highly processed foods from my diet? Can I afford to spend more money to buy local, sustainable foods? Can I afford not to? Wouldn't I prefer to give my money to food producers who are using responsible, ethical, humane processes, than to those responsible for pollution, poverty, disease, and animal cruelty?
These are just a few of the questions I hope to answer in my quest to rediscover food. I do know three things. 1) I want to replace as much of the food in my diet as possible with local products. 2) I want to eat foods that were produced by sustainable practices. 3) I want to eat food that has been processed as little as possible before it reaches me.
I probably won't post every day, but I will try to share my journey as fully as possible. Stay tuned for episode 1!
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