Enjoying Food More, Despite Restricting What You Eat

Monday, November 10, 2008

Back in the beginning of August, I decided I would no longer shop the middle of the supermarket. Instead, I buy almost all of my food at the local farmers market, along with a few extra things at Whole Foods, buying locally and organically whenever possible.

On the surface, it might seem like restricting food purchases would be some sort of deprivation - the self imposed compromises taking center stage, while enjoyment takes a back seat. In fact: I enjoy food more now than ever before.

It's crazy, right? How could primarily fruits and vegetables be more enjoyable than chips and ice cream? 

5 reasons why real food is better than just "any food"

1. Fruits & Vegetables that travel thousands of miles to the grocery store are absolutely inferior. You need to eat fruits and vegetables anyway, so why not buy only the tastiest? It should be no surprise why kids don't want to eat supermarket vegetables.
   
2. Too much processed food addicts you to sugar. I wrote about this recently.
   
3. Making food from scratch is more rewarding.
   
4. You develop a healthier relationship with and respect for food. This is important, especially when your actions influence children.
   
5. Processed food relies heavily on additives and preservatives. Don't let the taste of everything you eat be dominated by sugars and salts, it will hurt your enjoyment of real food.

When I began this journey, I thought that I would be making sacrifices solely in the name of long term health and reducing my impact on the environment. As it turns out, my food is tastier, healthier, and more enjoyable than ever before.

The drawback? Now that I have become accustomed to real food, I'm stuck with it forever! My old life of adding water to a package and turning on the microwave just won't cut it.

Quinoa: Going Local During the Winter?

Thursday, November 6, 2008

My farmers market has ended, sadly. For weeks, I have been looking ahead, wondering how I will get local food throughout the winter. If I normally bike to the grocery store, does driving 15 minutes to a local farm negate the environmental benefits of buying locally?

Today, I was told that quinoa (a native peruvian "grain", supposedly one of the healthiest) is actually grown by White Mountain Farm right here in Colorado! I had eaten it back in May, in preparation for my trip to Peru this summer, and loved it! Of course, in Peru, it seemed to end up in just about every other meal. My previous two purchases of quinoa back here in the states: a box from Whole Foods, and the bulk bin from Whole Foods. It's EXTREMELY likely that both of these came from either Peru, Bolivia, or Ecuador, the primary worldwide suppliers.

(photo courtesy of FranUlloa)

Then it struck me. During the summer, roughly 80% of the food I ate came from the farmers market. I would only go to the store for a few additional items, mostly grains, spices, flours, and dairy (or psuedo dairy, like soymilk). Why not use the winter as a time to focus on finding local sources for those types of items? White Mountain Farm here I come!

Sadly, my bubble burst a little this evening, when I was reminded that supporting quinoa in Peru and Bolivia decreases their need to rely on the export of coca leaves, which are made into cocaine. Why must every decision be so complicated? I just want to do what is best for the planet!

Help me decide. Which would you do: buy local quinoa, or support responsible, non-drug crops in Peru?

How to Give up Dessert: Feeling Satisfied Without Sweets after Meals

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Prepare for the shortest how-to advice ever. How can you stop that feeling of needing sweets after a meal to feel fully satisfied? Follow these simple steps:

1. Eat Real Food
   

There isn't any other secret. No joke.

Before I started eating local, organic, real food, I never felt satisfied after a meal without dessert. In fact, the guy behind the counter at Dunkin Donuts began to recognize me as "that guy who comes in around 7 and orders a Glazed Stick (or Cruller as it's called in some regions) with no bag". I'd eat it on the way home, and feel satisfied.

Since changing what I eat (no more processed, boxed foods), I've slowly (and unintentionally) weaned myself from this need. I say unintentionally because frankly, dessert is awesome. Who wants to give that up? Unless you have serious weight issues, you shouldn't have to.

But imagine not needing it anymore? I now eat dessert as a special treat, not as a necessary end to every meal.

How did this happen? Well, processed foods are filled with sugar, and sugar is essentially empty calories. Not only that, but sugar is addictive. It isn't surprising that many meals are not satisfying, and leave you craving more sugar. Have you seen Super Size Me? Several days into a McDonalds only diet, Morgan Spurlock finds himself obsessively craving the food. Even though it appears that he is eating normal food, by the end of the month, he averaged over a pound of sugar per day!

Conclusion? Eat dessert once in a while because it's a tasty, decadent treat - not because you need it.

It's liberating - trust me.

Why Eating Well Sucks

Monday, October 6, 2008

It's been two months now since I switched over to real, local, and organic foods. Yesterday, I attended an awesome gathering that included 4 TVs running simultaneously, each showing different NFL games. Oh yeah, and tons of free food.

I was thankful! I was gracious! I left feeling disgustingly full.

Honestly, I didn't think I had eaten all that much, but throughout the afternoon I snacked constantly on:

• honey roasted peanuts
  
• kettle chips
  
• the make-your-own-nachos bar
  
• baby carrots (I had to throw in something healthy)
  
• pumpkin pie (just one small piece, after all, fall is in the air!)
  

(photo courtesy of jumbledpile)

I can assure you, it wasn't the quantity of the food, it was the quality. The saddest part is that on the overall scale of unhealthy food, this stuff wasn't even close to the low end. As far as "junk" food goes, it was relatively healthy. However, I've ruined the tolerance of my stomach over the last 2 months by feeding it only the very best.

So in the interest of wanting to pig out once every few weeks and not feel like crap afterwards, I have decided to give up my new food lifestyle. Just kidding! Change worth making takes commitment and the occasional sacrifice. If my stomach notices the moment I feed it "regular" food, that speaks to the quality of what I regularly put in my body these days. Right?

Maybe next time I'll bring healthy food and eat it sneakily in the corner while watching the Green Bay Packers.

Griddled Sesame and Garlic Tofu with Wilted Bok Choy

Thursday, October 2, 2008

We're almost at the two month mark since I've switched over to eating local, organic, and whole foods, so I thought I'd share the most successful meal to date. Honestly, almost everything I've prepared in the last two months has tasted better than anything I have cooked in the past, and so far this is the only meal I've made more than once.

Behold: Griddled Sesame and Garlic Tofu with Wilted Bok Choy, from The Whole Foods Market Cookbook

Its resume?

• Forced Janet to admit that tofu can be more than just a wet slippery block of mush
  
• Wooed non-vegetarian dinner guests
  
• After bringing this to a potluck, I received "thank you" emails from two strangers (now friends!). One even asked if he could buy some from me in the future!

Seriously, give this recipe a try, it's easier than it's name suggests. Depending on where you live, you still might be able to buy bok choy at your local farmers market. Two tips:

1. Don't forget to marinate the tofu beforehand
   
2. Using pineapple juice isn't any tastier than plain old water (which is far more local!)
   

If you decide to cook this, please share your results with everyone in the comments below (I'd love to get some pics and will take some myself next time I make it).

The Omnivore's 100: What Have You Eaten?

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

This list has been circulating around, so I thought I'd take a stab at it. Foods I've eaten are bolded, and the parentheses are my own comments. (Technically, I'm supposed to cross out foods I wouldn't eat, but I don't want to limit myself if I happen to be stuck on a desert island with nothing but head cheese and insects).

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding (can't remember where)
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush (hummus' fraternal twin)
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich (I OD'd on these as a kid, and rediscovered them 15 years later)
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart (not in a loooong time)
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes (last week for the first time, fanTAStic)
22. Fresh wild berries (notably blackberries in northern CA)
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche (just recently in Peru, basically caramel for your breakfast bread)
28. Oysters (amazingly not)
29. Baklava (not to be confused with Balaklava)
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl (never ordered it, but sampled friends)
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut (hated it)
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk (never had it often enough to develop a taste for the stuff, but better for you than cow's milk)
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala (how could anyone not like this?)
48. Eel (mmmm, sushi)
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut (so good and melty, you don't even have to chew em, have they all shut down now?)
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal (on a technicality...I've had the burger but not the meal)
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake (the reasons deep friers were invented)
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill (for real?)
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum (in Thailand, aMAZing)
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox (95% sure, but probably last when I was still in single digits)
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta (hasn't been worth the effort...yet)
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

(Here is the original source for The Omnivores 100)

So there you have it...only 36 by my count. I just wanted to prove that I'm not some sort of gourmet food snob. :-)

The interesting (or sad?) thing is that since I've begin to prepare over 95% of my food at home, I'm not sure I'll be adding many new ones to the list in the near future. Maybe if I run over a snake on the highway I can kill two birds with one stone?

If you've tried something on the list that I haven't, try to sell me on the experience in the comments below...

At Least PETA is Good for Something: Wild-Mushroom Stroganoff

Monday, September 1, 2008

Somehow (don't ask), I stumbled across PETA's Vegetarian Starter Kit. I really don't pay any attention to their organization, it's a bit too extreme for my tastes. So aside from a bizarre collage of celebrities and some disturbing images of mistreated animals, you get to some tasty looking recipes. That is, if you didn't just lose your appetite. [Aside: Pamela Anderson spends her life as a piece of meat, but doesn't eat any? Is that irony?]

So, aside from a good chuckle, the starter kit was good for this awesome recipe for Wild Mushroom Stroganoff:



My local farmers market has some pretty rockin' mushrooms this time of year, and basically we went to the store for just a few items: mushroom gravy (which interestingly is interchanged with 4 cups sauce (espagnole) and vegetable stock on the website recipe), sour cream, and pasta (although many farmers markets sell pasta, Boulder's does not for some reason [9/11/08 Edit: They do now, on Saturdays only] ). Everything else is stuff you should be able to get at a farmer's market or spices that you may already have on hand.

Diagnosis? Awesome! Having tasted it before the sour cream went in, I'm not convinced it's a necessary addition. Once again: using real ingredients makes you a better chef overnight!

I wasn't sure if anyone cared about the specific meals I've been eating, so you can thank loyal reader Jess for this post!

Real Strawberries

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

So, those real strawberries that I talked about in this post? I finally got a picture of them:

It's just so crazy that what we've come to expect at the grocery store looks so different from a real strawberry. Without genetics. Without pesticides.

Another scary thing about supermarket fruit? It keeps forever. I just ate a farmer's market peach that had been in the refridgerator for a week. What was a tasty peach one week ago (I ate several the day I bought them), had become pretty worthless. Shouldn't it worry us that you can buy supermarket fruit and leave it sitting around for a week and it still tastes the same?

How not to tempt yourself

Thursday, August 21, 2008

For a week and a half, there was almost no snacking in our household. There are two reasons we tried to avoid it:

1. Snack food is almost inherently not "real food"
2. Snacking between meals detracts from the experience of full meals. You won't be as hungry, and will be less likely to focus on preparing something natural and healthy.

Enter angel food cake. After deciding we could go out on a limb once in a while and buy a "real" dessert, I bought boxed angel food cake at the local Wild Oats. Of course, that usage of "real" actually implies fake, since deserts are often laden with unnatural ingredients, and a lot of sugar. The ingredients seemed safe and real, so I tossed it in the cart.

(image courtsey of ^-^liz)

The cake was good, quite good, but that's not the point. Since there are only two of us, we had leftovers. A ton of leftovers. For the next 3 days, I was hungrier between meals. I wanted to head downstairs and have a bite of cake. Why? Because it was there. Taunting me. I could taste it from several rooms away.

Before we had this tupperware of cake slices sitting on the counter, I had no problem abstaining from snacks or sweets. When the only food in your house is a refrigerator full of fruits and vegetables, you will find there really isn't any pull to eat between meals.

So please, if you are going to make a cake, be sure you invite enough people over so you don't end up with leftovers.

The "vegetarian" debate

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

On several occasions lately, I've had to struggle with whether or not to define myself as a vegetarian when given the choice. Confused? Let me explain.

At a recent BBQ, I reached towards the veggie burgers but there was a sign atop:

"These are for our vegetarian guests only"

Now I do eat meat, but usually when given the choice I would rather have the vegetarian option. However, what if I take one, robbing a real vegetarian (someone who won't eat meat) of their meal?

If I am going to a dinner party, and meat is the main course, I eat it. No big deal.

But what if they ask ahead of time? Will they make a special dish just for me? Will no meat be served, annoying all the carnivores?

When choosing a restaurant, do I want to be the one person who says: "How about instead of that great steakhouse, we go to this tasty new vegetarian place?"

I try to make it such that my "eat less meat" ideals are as inconspicuous as possible. Often it seems like a better strategy for converting/intriguing others than being a guilt inducing vegetarian.

I could (and probably should) take things a little further with avoiding meat myself (and thus "forcing" others to do the same), but I just cannot bring myself to do it very often. Is it because it will seem dishonest when they see me eating meat somewhere down the road?

I try not to over-think it, because one of the goals of all this is to enjoy your food without feeling guilty. But it does come up every once in a while...

Real Pasta: Edible without Sauce?!?

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

A friend recently (and graciously, I might add) gave me a package of Pappardelle's Spicy Thai pasta, purchased from her local farmer's market (it was Estes Park...or may have been Longmont?). Dried and in a package, I knew it would be better than what you get at the supermarket, but probably not quite like eating fresh pasta. I'm fairly certain I've never had fresh pasta, but the whole concept was brought to my attention in the book Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany (Vintage). (I didn't love the book BTW, but if the story of someone moving through the ranks of a kitchen and then setting out to Italy to learn from the masters sounds captivating, then you'll probably like it).

I had no sauce. The pacakge (ie. clear ziplock bag) had no instructions. But I was hungry.

Surprisingly, it was ready in what seemed like 5 or 6 minutes, about half the time it takes to cook supermarket pasta. My sauce would be a mushroom concoction (not a sauce) from a recent failed attempt at dinner involving Fillo dough we forgot to thaw first.

Result: excellent!

Of course, I couldn't resist. The Thai-ness of the noodles lead me to the fridge for some Simply Boulder Coconut Peanut Dressing & Culinary Sauce. Even better.

What's more, there was pasta leftover in the strainer. Well after finishing my meal, I went over to what remained, dreading the inevitable crusting that normally occurs. To my surprise, it was almost as soft as the moment it had come out of the water. Real pasta!

I never would have guessed that all these years the problem with my cooking was the ingredients. But at this point, it seems like I can pretty much throw anything together and end up with a fantastic meal. Pretty cool, huh?

Has anyone read The China Study?

Sunday, August 17, 2008

A reader of mine suggested that I would love this book. Apparently it goes into a lot of the actual science behind what is suggested in The Omnivore's Dilemma. As soon as I have given it a read, you can be sure that I'll be throwing around statistics, figures, and new ideas.

Interestingly, after recommending The Omnivore's Dilemma to a few people who are already serious foodies, I realized that it makes far more sense to recommend it to someone who doesn't think about what they eat.

Are there any other related books or magazines you guys would recommend? Think about who would benefit more, the foodies, or the non-foodies.

Food with consistency, or How I learned to stop worrying and enjoy dicing tomatoes

Friday, August 15, 2008

Eating all this real, locally grown food has brought me yet another new experience: my food doesn’t deflate anymore when I slice into it!

You know the routine. Bring home a tomato from the supermarket and slice off a piece. If the entire inside hasn’t fallen out yet, it will only take another slice or two. By the end, your cutting board looks like it should be cordoned off by police tape.

Not the case with the tomatoes we picked up on Saturday from 2 R’s farm. Slice ‘em, dice ‘em. No mess. No problem. Try doing that with supermarket tomatoes (this is why recipes always call for canned diced tomatoes).

And it isn’t just tomatoes. Earlier this week, I sat down to enjoy a PB&J made from 365 Organic Creamy Peanut Butter (you don't need the sweetened kind, the unsweetened is awesome) and Peach Pear Butter (my new “jelly”) from Ela Family Farms between two slices of Udi’s Multigrain. Sadly, I had sliced my bread a bit too thick, lamenting that because the bread is fairly dense (and the peach pear butter thin) I was doomed to an improper bread-to-filling ratio.

As I relayed my tale of woe, Janet, as though this were not highly unusual, casually grabbed the piece of bread, took it over to the counter, and sliced it in half. Call me a rookie. Call me a layman. But I’ve never seen a piece of bread that could be sliced vertically down the middle without collapsing into an unusable mess!

It's been years since I had real fruit, apparently

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Two quick stories about the farmers market fruit.

We bought a small box of strawberries that frankly didn't look that great. They were small, and non-uniform shapes. Sadly, we have been conditioned to believe that a good strawberry looks like this:

(image courtesy of Anushruti R)

Uniformly red. All roughly the same shape. And most importantly, enormous. That is what we have come to expect at the supermarket.

However, these real strawberries (from Pachamama Organic Farm) we bought were nothing short of astounding. They were dessert. They were candy. They were delicious. Eat just a few of these, and you feel like you just treated yourself to something special.

A few days later, as I was removing the stems, Janet asked: "Why don't you just eat them with the tops on?". I had never thought about it, but for years I have been cutting off the stems of the grocery store strawberries because they are so gigantic, and the area around the stem is usually white or green, not ripe enough to eat.

These real strawberries were a different story. Small stems and ripe throughout. You didn't even notice the little leaves in your mouth. Plus, the added bonus is that you are getting a little bit extra with each one, and not throwing little food scraps into your garbage.

(image courtesy of thedayhascome)

Not the exact strawberries we had (ours were tinier), but much closer to what real ones look like (next time I'll take a picture before I eat them all!).

We also bought a cantaloupe from 2 R's Farm (no website, sadly), one "worse" looking than the last loner at the supermarket that no one wants. Most of us assume that a perfect exterior likely means a tasty interior. In fact, this cantaloupe had even begun to split open on one side! (I later heard the grower explain to someone that he prefers his this way).

The important part is that as I was walking downstairs for lunch I could smell it being sliced up in the kitchen. Yes, that sweet smell had traveled through the kitchen, around the corner, through the living room, around another corner, and halfway up the stairs. Now that is amazing fruit! Of course, it was delicious. Even right up to the edge of the rind.

PS - The Rancho Durazno peaches were also the best I've had...ever.

Red meat: a rare occasion

Monday, August 11, 2008

I don't eat much red meat at all, due largely to the enormous strain our industrialized beef places upon the environment. (For for information, check out the New York Times article 'Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler'). Many estimates of the way we raise cattle here in the US put the figure at 10 to 1. That is, we could feed 10 people with grain, or we could feed that grain to a cow, whose meat would feed 1 person. Just 1.

(photo courtesy of Farm Sanctuary)

However, as detailed in The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (referral link), there are many small farms out there producing beef in ways that do not impact the environment (and almost seem to enhance it?), notably Polyface Farm (150 miles outside of D.C.).

One of the key distinctions is diet. Grass vs. Corn. For a variety of reasons, all industrial beef in the US is fed with corn even though this is not a natural food for the cows. They get fatter faster, but literally cannot properly digest it, which leads to antibiotics, etc. Cows were designed to eat grass, which turns out not only to be far healthier, but also far more environmentally sustainable.

(photo courtesy of eekim)

So we bought some ground beef for $3.99/lb from Natural Homestead Beef. As you can see on their website, the beef was not entirely grass fed, but rather dined on a combination of grass and grain feed. Not ideal in our minds, but certainly better than what we had been eating.

Using a Weight Watchers recipe which included adding carrots and scallions to the patties, as well as lettuce, onions, tomatoes, and chopped cucumbers on top, and some buns from the local Wild Oats (which has been acquired by Whole Foods), I could hardly wait to start eating. The result?

Frankly, I think there was too much going on in this recipe. Much like my french toast, the burgers needed no fancifying (which we proved the next night by having them again without all the dressings. And they were fantastic!). The greatest benefit was that even after eating two burgers (and salad), I felt ready to leap from my chair and take on the world! (Sadly, I cannot remember what I actually did, but likely carried my chair upstairs and typed out another blog post!). Afterwards, we agreed that seeing a little bit of pink in the middle was far less troubling than it might otherwise have been.

But seriously, I've felt light as air after both meals so far. Is it just me, or did you also think that food coma was natural?

Amazing french toast

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Yeah, so the title of this post is a spoiler.

After putting everything away at home, it was time (already!) to eat. I opened the fridge and, for the first time in my entire life, it smelled wonderful. Stocked almost completely with fresh fruit and vegetables, my god, it was like...it was...well, I don't have an accurate metaphor and that is making me think that I haven't really eaten real food before. It was like living your entire life having walked past solitary roses, and never stopping to take a whiff. Then one day, you are at the florist and walk into that tiny little refrigerated cooler at the filled with them. That is how different it was.

(photo courtesy of a shadow of my future self)

In my old life, french toast was:

• Arnold Oat Nut Bread (which, although surely quite processed, is quite amazing)
• Supermarket Eggs
• A little bit of Rice Milk (I have minor lactose issues which I steer away from)
• Cinnamon
• Log Cabin sugar free syrup (it's the best sugar free I've found, and in large quantities it doesn't make me want to lay down and take a nap afterwards like the "real" stuff does)
• Supermarket Butter

(A good approximation of my old french toast, assuming I was ambitious
enough to include strawberries. Photo courtesy of chocolate monster mel)

On this particular morning, by new french toast was:

• Udi's Challah Bread
• Farm Eggs from Wisdom Poultry (interestingly with several different colors in the same carton)
• Cinnamon
• Organic Butter (which did come from the supermarket)

I seriously almost fell out of my chair. Without syrup! Possibly the best french toast I've ever had.

We had bought applesauce and peach-pear butter at the farmer's market from Ela Family Farms. One of the things mentioned a lot in 'In Defense of Food' is that when shopping, you should focus more on the ingredients than on calorie/fat/protein/etc counts. While reaching for a bottle of their Organic Peach-Pear Butter (which I had just sampled on a wheat thin), Janet asked: "Now, is there any added sugar?"

The reply was swift. "Nope. In fact, I urge you to read the list of ingredients."

She laughed as I gazed over her shoulder to see for myself:

Ingredients: Organic Pears, Organic Peaches

I was looking for creative uses for this butter, which is actually more like a thick applesauce, so of course I couldn't resist adding it to my already tasty breakfast. The french toast was still amazing, but interestingly not better. You know how normally adding syrup to french toast, pancakes and the like is the difference between night & day? Well not here. It was already so good that it could barely be improved (if at all) despite a hearty slathering of sweet goodness on top.

Mind you, this was no fault of the butter, which was delicious (I've since used it as a J substitute in my PB&J, and as a dip for unimproved challah bread).

Just a few hours into my new eating lifestyle, I was already seeing huge payoffs.

The Boulder Farmers Market

Starting over with my eating habits was easy. I have been out of the country for the last 5 weeks traveling in Peru & Bolivia, countries who, while not completely unaffected by the spread of the Western Diet, seem to still be eating mostly local and unprocessed food. I ate exclusively at restaurants and at homes in poorer areas, where people were still farming their own food (a LOT of potatoes, and to a lesser extent quinoa).

Then upon return I had moved to a new city, Boulder CO. Time to get rid of all the bad habits and start fresh.

Our very first morning back, my wife Janet and I went straight to the Boulder Farmer's Market, the largest in all of Colorado.

Visions of in-depth conversations with sellers, grilling them about their farming practices and discovering the truly dedicated danced in our heads. Of course, as soon as we got there, I froze up. I was overwhelmed. What questions were we supposed to be asking? What does ultra-pasteurized mean? Grass finished?

Thankfully Janet took charge (it helped that she was the one carrying the wad of cash) and I wandered around in a daze, amazed at not only how many different booths there were, but also how many people were there. Wasn't it barely 8 am on a Saturday morning? Yes, it was. And the market had just opened.

Anyway, we walked down to one end of the market, and by the time we had retraced our steps our backpack was full, arms bulging, and wallets $120 lighter. Certainly not the trunk-full of groceries you end up with from a normal supermarket...but different somehow...more...exciting.

The biggest challenge for many people to switch to this type of grocery shopping is the increased cost. Michael Pollan argues in In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto (and/or in his other book The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (referral links), forgive me, I just read both) that the industrialized food found in the supermarket is artificially cheap, reflecting government subsidies and ignoring the environment costs associated with big agriculture. Thankfully, most small and local farms have little negative environmental impact.

I wasn't going to worry about price, my long term health depends on this after all, right? My strategy of letting Janet carry the money, and asking questions about price last (if at all) had paid off. That is except when I ended up reluctantly paying $10 for an 8 oz. bag of Granola from Two Moms in the Raw. It was really tasty though, which of course I already knew because I had sampled some before buying. This stuff really sticks to itself, so rather than pouring yourself a bowl, it seems to be put to better use by grabbing an occasional clump as a mini-snack.

I am excited for my next trip. It will be less overwhelming, and I'd be surprised if not a little...exciting?

The Reluctant Eater

Saturday, August 9, 2008

There isn't a problem with food in America, unless you look into it. I just finished reading In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto (referral link), an eye opening account by Michael Pollan of the current state of food in this country and let me tell you: it may forever change the way I eat.

To be honest, for a few years I've felt a bit of superiority (limited solely to inner monologue and the like) in regards to my eating habits. I don't eat out much. I don't eat a ton of "bad" food. And especially no fast food. Buying the "healthy" stuff at the grocery store gave me a guilt free pass to eat whatever I wanted, silently snickering at the people who filled their carts amongst the rows of frozen foods, the meat department (I am not a vegetarian, but have cut back on meat dramatically in the last few years), and the chips & snacks isle.

(photo courtesy of dce)

Anyway, as it turns out, most of the food in the supermarket is so processed that we should hardly consider it food at all.

Basically, up until now, food has served a more utilitarian role in my life. I am not reluctant to eat by any stretch of the imagination (I don't have the unhealthy love/hate relationship that many do), but basically I eat for no other reason than because I know I need nourishment.

But it stops now. I am going to clean up my act which means:

• Eating locally grown food whenever possible (which sadly means some adherence to the seasonality and whims of mother nature)
• Eating responsibly grown food (grass fed meats, organic is good, but doesn't trump local)
• Eating real food (no boxed foods that were created in a General Mills lab somewhere)
• Enjoying food!

(photo courtesy of .michael.newman.)

This blog will be an account of my journey into the world of natural, local food. Don't worry, it won't be preachy. Stick around...you might even be inspired to adopt some new eating habits you didn't know you needed...