This is food-related and at the same time, it's also a book-related discussion: has anyone here read "In Defense of Food" by Michael Pollan? It's the first book I've ever read that's only about food, but there were a lot of interesting points in there. Here are a few highlights:
1.) Eat food, not too much, mostly plants. - It's also the first line of the book, so these words will either be an interesting attention-getter or a turn-off for people who are thinking this book is trying to convert them to vegetarianism. Basically, argues Pollan, Americans are eating too much meat and the extra meat is taking the place that larger portions of vegetables used to occupy on the dinner table.
2.) When shopping at the supermarket, avoid the middle aisles if you want to evade processed, fatty foods... - stick to the side walls of the supermarket where they have things like produce and fruits. At a lot of grocery stores, the produce section is literally right there at the entrance (on purpose? I think so!), and so many people just pass it by for the Hamburger Helper and Rice-a-roni aisle!
3.) Don't buy anything at the grocery store that your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food! (This one made me laugh, but I really did think about that for a while.)
He mentioned going to Farmer's Markets to get the best organic or close to organic produce, as well as mentioning some type of box of in-season veggies that people can order, although I've forgotten what it was called at the moment.
Anybody read this book/have something to say?
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First time poster here...I haven't yet read In Defense of Food, but I loved Omnivore's Dilemma. Pollen pitches a similar message which can be boiled down to these two principles - know where your food comes from, and eat real food. Nina Plank wrote a best seller called Real Food, and Barbara Kingsolver (yes, the fiction writer) has a fantastic book that follows most of Pollen's tenets to a T called Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Read together, they can be an eye-opening, life changing experience - and that was the case for me. I realized we have options beyond Shaw's or Stop and Shop; Big Y or Whole Foods. CSAs (community supported agriculture) is the option you forgot, I think. CSAs, family farms, farmers' markets, and even ::gasp:: growing our own food in some cases are all viable options!... It's all about the exposure of these choices...most people don't know about them!
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