Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Real World Wednesday

Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants.

Michael Pollan's book, The Omnivore's Dilemma was the inspiration for an earlier RWW post, and now another of his healthy reads, In Defense of Food has inspired me.

Eat food. Pollan talks about the ingredients of yogurt, and I almost ignored that passage, thinking I know all there is to know about yogurt. Then, yesterday morning, I sat down to a healthy breakfast of yogurt and an orange.

On a whim, albeit an educated whim, I took a look at the ingredients list, and this is what I saw:

Cultured pasteurized grade a reduced fat milk
Sugar
Nonfat Milk
High Fructose Corn Syrup
Modified Corn Starch
Kosher Gelatin
Tricalcium Phosphate
Natural Flavor
Vitamin A
Acetate
Vitamin D2

Whoa. That's a lot of ingredients for what should probably be sugar and milk. Apparently, my yogurt is actually candy. Who knew?

Not Too Much. Americans eat some of the largest portions in the world. We eat based on plate size. We eat based on when the TV show ends. What we don't do is eat until we're full and then stop. And we wonder why our pants don't fit.

Mostly Plants. I have a hundred and fifty reasons why I don't eat the fruits and vegetables I love. None of them matter. I need to go to the store and buy more and eat them. No excuses.

Pollan makes a good point, though. He says that not everyone can afford to eat healthily. That's true. Organic food. Fruits. Vegetables. Grass-fed beef. It all costs more.

But there are those of us who can afford it, and we have to be the ones who start the trend. If we buy more, perhaps the costs will go down. If we buy more, perhaps we'll encourage more growers to diversify their crops. If we buy more, perhaps we'll help the little farmers and put the ones who insist on turning yogurt into candy on their toes.

In the end, our bodies, and, indeed, our planet, will be healthier for our efforts.

So.

Eat food.
Not too much.
Mostly plants.

Think about it!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is fantastic and such a good idea. I wish I could just DO IT and stop thinking about it, writing about it, considering excuses not to....

If you come up with some good ways to incorporate this stuff, please share!

Anonymous said...

I also enjoyed In Defense of Food, but agree, buying organic, etc. is expensive! I work for an online specialty food company in Seattle and we are going to start selling 1/2 and 1/4 grass-fed beef from a ranch in Eastern Washington. I haven't tried yet, but I'm looking forward to replacing the traditional beef we eat with this. It's only ideal for people who have an extra freezer, but because you're buying in bulk works out to being under $6 a lb. www.marxfoods.com