Or, I eat because I like real food…
If you’re a house blogger you’re no doubt familiar with (or at least you should be familiar with) Michael Pollan and his 1997 tome A Place of My Own. In the book Pollan details how he went about designing and building a small writing cottageâ€â€with no prior building experience or expertiseâ€â€behind his house. (A tale not far removed from what takes place everyday at houseblogs.net.) But those familiar with Michael Pollan’s building book may not be aware that he also writes extensively on the subject of food, what we eat, and how we go about getting it.
Just a few weeks ago in the New York Times Magazine Pollan wrote an article called Unhappy Meals in which he detailed just how far removed we’ve gotten from eating food. That’s right… FOOD. Simple, basic, delicious food.
The lead graf of the article states simply that we should, “Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” Seems obvious right? And yet, as Pollan clearly details, since the late sixties and early seventies we’ve somehow gotten away from the idea of eating food and on to the idea of eating nutrients, much to the detriment of our health.
Pollan doesn’t say that nutrients are bad, which, again, seems obvious. Only that there’s a lot of garbage that’s chock-full of “nutrients” masquerading as real food‗Super Chocolate Choco-bombs Enriched with 12 essential vitamins!”, “breakfast bars,” “Lean Cuisine”â€â€that people use as a replacement for real, actual, delicious, and healthful food.
You can read Pollan’s article here. And after that, go and make yourself something good to eat…