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August 02, 2006
food philosophy
The Omnivore's Dilemma - The first 400+ page book that I've read in its entirety (or very close to it) in a long time!
It isn't much of a secret that I love food. I love growing it, preparing it, serving it, consuming it and sitting back and reveling in the finished meal. I enjoy long lingering meals with a number of courses, flowing wine and conversation with old and new friends.
I've written about my thoughts on food before. What I just realized tonight is that the article I referenced in the blogpost is also the author of this book.
I've never been zealous about food needing to be organic, free-range or grass-fed, but now I'm wondering if I shouldn't be. I've always liked going to the farmer's market, but normally would buy a potato or tomato, more for the experience than the actual need. My general thinking was that limiting pesticides and the better treatment of animals was a good thing, but still looked for the least expensive price and the best deal.
But this book has me rethinking my food philosophy. The book follows four meals that each represent industrial agriculture, big organic industry, small organic industry and hunting and gathering.
One of the biggest reasons for rethinking my food philosophy comes from the book's challenge to the assumption that a chicken is a chicken or a tomato is a tomato no matter how it's grown. In recent months I've definitely tasted the difference between an industrially grown tomato and an organic tomato in a basil and tomato recipe where the organic is head and shoulders better than the industrial. But the book goes beyond taste and looks at nutrition. Depending on how food is grown, the nutritional content is different, especially in reference to polyphenals - "a group of secondary metablites manufactured by plants ... Many are potent antioxidants; some play a role in preventing or fighting cancer." According to new research:
The reason plants produce [polyphenals] in the first place is to defend themselves against pests and diseases; the more pressure from pathogens, the more polyphenals a plant will produce ... The [University of California-Davis] authors hypothesize that plants being defended by man-made pesticides don't need to work as hard to make their own polyphenal pesticides. Coddled by us and our chemicals, the plants see no reason to invest their resources in mounting a strong defense.
The nutrition question is also addressed in animals. Did you know that cattle cannot digest corn (which is a major portion of their diet in industrial agriculture) on their own? For a variety of reasons, not the least of those being the overproduction of corn in the U.S., industrial cattle farms use cheap corn for feed. I won't go into the details here, but in general the cattle's high corn diets lead to diarrhea, ulcers, bloat, rumenitis, liver disease and general weakening of the immune system. In addition, "corn-fed meat is demonstrably less healthy for us, since it contains more saturated fat and less omega-3 fatty acids than the meat of animals fed grass. A growing body of research suggests that many of the health problems associated with eating beef are really problems with corn-fed beef."
There are tons of other interesting things in the book such as the predominance of high fructose corn syrup in American food products, butane in Chicken McNuggets, the perils of the "big organic" industry, and the question of cost for alternative food systems.
I finished the book feeling like Michael Pollen was a friend. I wanted to have him over for dinner when it was finished. The book takes a relatively unbiased look at where our food comes from and the tradeoffs we've made to have cheap food when and where we want it. It's a must read that will only take a couple of days.
art , in the world , processing | By charity | 09:04 PM
Comments
I'm sold on reading it. I liked the parts I read over your shoulder on the plane and your description has me thinking I'll enjoy the rest of it.
Posted by: andy at August 2, 2006 11:00 PM
Wow. Sounds like a great book.
For the past few years, I've been sure that there's SOMETHING different. (but too lazy to figure out what) When a Whole Foods opened in uptown New Orleans, providing an infinitely better food alternative to what we had by way of grocery stores (not nearly the plethora of produce stands/farmers markets like up here. It's a city in the Delta, after all), I was sold on it, WF that is. They provided affordable, quality food. After eating exclusively fresh, natural, and mostly organic ingredients for months, one time we had out of a can spaghetti sauce (like Ragu or something) at a friend's house, and both of us felt yucky and bloaty afterwards. I'm not saying the sauce was solely responsible, but it did make me wonder. Sorry, this paragraph isn't really helpful, just largely anecdotal.
I've also been concerned about the high amount of hormones in our food. I think it must be part of the cause for the age of puberty getting younger and younger.
I've been pleased to see organic options becoming more prevalent.
Can you define more the difference between the big organic and the small organic industries? Are the big organic like Whole Foods or Stonyfield Farms? and small like local farms?
Posted by: Jeannette at August 3, 2006 08:28 AM
Yes, big organic are the Whole Foods and small organic are more loca community supported ag (CSA) type things. An interesting thing about the section on big organic is that even though they don't use pesticides they weed their fields by tilling, which degrades the soil and makes it susceptable to erosion. Or how organic chickens aren't necessarily "free-range" - they live in a closed barn for five weeks and then when the doors are opened they are conditioned to stay inside and don't venture outdoors, which is good for the producer in lowering the risk of catching disease, which they can't treat with antibiotics. So there are trade offs when talking about the organic industry too. It seems to me that organics are still overall better, but they're not perfect.
Posted by: charity at August 3, 2006 09:22 AM
I think I may pick that book up as well. I share your love of food and have been making the move more and more toward organics in the last couple of years. Thanks for the recommendation!
Posted by: Abi at August 3, 2006 10:27 AM
Sounds interesting...I've been reading about similar stuff over the last few days. I was kind of surprised by the affects of grain feeding cattle on the Omega 3/6 ratios. I'd always just been amused by what we feed livestock and never really cared about it. Of course, farmers will tell you it doesn't affect us. Most of the cattle and dairy farmers I know feed their animals things like ice cream and twinkies too. Once I get moved, I am looking forward to pursuing a more natural diet.
Posted by: Jen at August 4, 2006 04:01 PM