New York Times Critics

         The Sam Sifton articles were informative, and they will serve as a good example to look back to when it comes time to write my own restaurant review, but I didn’t find his restaurant reviews terribly interesting.  I feel it is similar reason as to why I didn’t like the French cuisine articles from last week.  I’m not the target audience.  If I were a New Yorker looking into finding a new place to eat, or maybe reading the review of a favorite restaurant, the article would have been useful, but because I’m not, it didn’t really hold my interest. 

         Sifton’s personal stories about the life a food critic on the other hand, were far more entertaining.  The first one, The Cheat: Salad Days, caught my attention early on, but then lost me at the end.  The inevitable problems that come with eating too much good food (admittedly a problem I wish I had) was something I’d never really considered before.  It seemed like a fascinating topic, and I wanted to hear all about it, until he trailed off and started talking about salads.  The most obvious issue I saw with this section was that the salads, he admits, are not very good for him because of what he puts on them.  So it didn’t really seem like a cheat, since it was still causing the same dilemma, and he actually tricks himself into thinking he’s being healthy.  It seems to just make matters worse. 

         I was pleased then, to see that the last set of articles we read were about the life of Sam Sifton and how a food critic stays healthy.  The numbers My Life In Food gave really were surprising.  It was a little tedious to read through a list of a week’s worth of food, but the totals at the bottom of the calories eaten verses calories burned by exercise really were amazing.  This left me with questions, like, how is he not gigantic?  Is he healthy?  What do doctors say about his diet?  Apparently many people shared my questions and pondered several more I hadn’t thought of which made the Q&A articles fun to read.  I liked learning about his exercise plans and his family life.  My favorite question though, was the one asking about the childhood foods he grew up with.  He answered with a wonderful response of all the foods he ate growing up in New York.  It painted a great picture of the character of the city through the food he enjoyed.    

The reading I found most enjoyable though was the Mark Bittman piece about McDonald’s oatmeal.  He has a very strong, cynical voice throughout the article, and is obviously disgusted by the food chain’s blatant disregard towards their consumer’s health.  “Why create a hideous concoction of 21 ingredients, many of them chemical and/or unnecessary? Why not try, for once, to keep it honest?”  It made me laugh at times to think that they would do something so unnecessary, that they would go through all this trouble “improving” it and yet make it so much worse for us.  It just seems so ridiculous.  But then I started to feel the same way I did after reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma.  Even knowing what I do now, so many more don’t, or don’t care, and will continue to buy their 300-calorie oatmeal.  And there’s really not much I can do about it.  Bittman ends on a funny, though cynical note, saying, “But they know that, once inside, you’ll probably opt for a sausage biscuit anyway.  And you won’t be much worse off.”

Secret Ingredients Reading Response

The Dining Out section of our reading did not initially impress me.  The two pieces by Liebling, The Afterglow and A Good Appetite were both confusing and hard to read.  For one thing, Liebling has a tendency to stray off topic frequently, to the point where I would forget what the main idea of his pieces was about.  His use of French throughout his writing, in descriptions of food, place, and occasionally dialogue made it extremely difficult to stay focused and understand the situation.  I attempted looking up the names of dishes when I didn’t understand the French parts, but that soon became more disruptive than the struggle with the indecipherable language.  This was also an issue for me when reading Gopnik’s  Is There A Crisis In French Cooking?  I did understand this story a little better though. 

I was excited to get to Bourdain’s Don’t Eat Before Reading This; already knowing I like Bourdain’s voice and writing style.  He did not disappoint.  He was his usual cynical self, reminiscing about how cooking used to be and adding snide comments about vegetarians, “enemies of everything that’s good and decent in the human spirit” (p. 86).  Like always, I enjoyed his sense of humor, but what made me want to keep reading his piece was its relevance to me as a consumer of food.  I don’t often get to eat French cuisine, which made the other stories difficult to connect with.  I have never been to a French restaurant, and therefore when Gopnik compares the old French style of cooking with the new, I don’t have experience to base it off of.  Bourdain reveals many secrets of his trade in his writing.  As someone who frequently eats in restaurants, it is very interesting to know when to eat fish, or how poor quality meat is used (not ordering my burger well done again), or that the bread on my table is often reused.  These facts are useful to me. 

I liked the Eating In section much more though.  M.F.K Fisher’s three stories were interesting, and I enjoyed the personal essay aspect of them.  Her use of recipes in The Secret Ingredient and The Trouble With Tripe added an informative element to the two stories, which I enjoyed.  I learned a fair deal about tripe and casserole, two dishes I actually know very little about (my mother isn’t much of a casserole maker).

The story about Julia Child, though a bit long, was also really interesting.  I knew nothing about Julia Child when I started reading, except for what I picked up on in the trailer for the movie Julie and Julia.   When I finished the story I was smiling and kept telling my roommate that Julia Child sounded like a lovely lady and I wished I had watched her shows.  Her desire to create a cookbook that explained every step in careful detail so that even beginner cooks could make complex meals resonated with me, an extremely inexperienced cook myself, and prone to food related mishaps.  She is such a great character, and Tomkins captured her eccentric nature very well.

The last story in this section, Look Back In Hunger, was probably my favorite.  The first paragraph captured very clearly the situation I have been in before when trying to follow a cookbook (though my meal wasn’t nearly as complicated).  Like Bourdain, Lane has a cynical sense of humor that I connected with right away, such as his view of Martha Stewart and her “intolerance of ordinary mortals.”  Lane portrayed the anxiety and fear associated with cooking very well, but tried to explain it doesn’t have to be this way, which I appreciated.  

Less Than Perfect

             I wanted to go all out.  While thinking up ideas for my “perfect meal,” I wanted to go big or go home.  But before I could even think about the menu, I had to decide who I would invite.  My best friend Dan would definitely be coming; it wouldn’t be a perfect meal without him.  I couldn’t invite him without his roommate Ricky, not after all our late night adventures together to the Crow’s Nest.  Nick and Alaina have been two of my closest friends since the beginning of our freshman year of college and I wanted them there.  I’m in love with Ian, so obviously he was invited.  And it wouldn’t be a real dinner with my group of friends without Conrad.  This meant inviting Aaron as well, because it would be rude to treat his three roommates to dinner and not feed him too.  And of course my roommate Julia needed to be there.  Including myself, that was nine mouths to feed.  This was starting to sound expensive, but the most important aspect of a meal is the company it’s shared with, and I wanted all of them to know that it wouldn’t be perfect without them.

            The next question then was what to serve all these people.  My first bright idea was to get some type of fish.  I absolutely love fish, but I’ve never trusted the cafeteria seafood.  And since it’s rarely served anyway, I thought it would be a welcome surprise for my friends.  But I had to be realistic, nine servings of fresh fish on a college budget was not going to happen.  Plan B was some kind of meat, as I will pretty much eat anything if it was alive once.  I’m quite the carnivore.  But I had never bought meat before, and I didn’t really know how.  The thought of going into a grocery store and trying to buy meat terrified me.  What if the butcher asked me a question I couldn’t answer?  What if they didn’t have what I wanted, and I’d need to make a new decision on the spot?  What if I somehow said the name of the meat wrong and the butcher judged me? So, due to my fear of talking to people, I opted to make pasta. 

            On a Sunday afternoon I walked from my college campus to the People’s Food Co Op in downtown Kalamazoo.  There I purchased two packages of Bionaturae Organic Rigatoni, four giant freshly grown, pesticide free broccoli, a box of Cabot Butter (owned by dairy farmers since 1919), and two tomatoes.  They were out of the cheese I needed, so on my way home I stopped at Munchie Mart, a sketchy looking convenience store located across the street from campus where college kids buy their alcohol, cigarettes, and occasionally Kraft Parmesan Cheese.  In a tiny borrowed refrigerator back in my dorm room was a carton of Organic Valley Farmer-Owned Milk and some Pastured Brown Eggs from the Old Home Place that my roommate had left over from her meal.  So, feeling accomplished and grown up and terribly liberal I gathered my organic foods and my borrowed pots and bowls and headed down to the small kitchen in the basement of my dorm and set to work. 

            The plan was to make noodles with Alfredo sauce with a side of broccoli.  The Alfredo sauce seemed easy enough to make, melt a stick of butter and mix in two cups of milk, then add an egg yolk and pour the mixture onto boiled noodles.  Sprinkle some Parmesan cheese in at the end and some sliced tomatoes and I’d have my main course.  I’d planned on steaming the broccoli and finally show the cafeteria that it was possible to make vegetables that weren’t soggy. 

            I do not know why I thought I had any authority in teaching anyone any lessons in preparing food.  I do not cook.  Ever.  I once tried to heat up soup for myself and burned it.  Last year I called my roommate so she could walk me through how to make popcorn because I was scared I’d mess it up.  And yet here I was, about to attempt making a “perfect meal.” 

            I began by leisurely chopping the broccoli.  I had finished with the first stalk when I looked up at the clock and realized I only had twenty minutes before my guests would arrive.  Kicking it into high gear, I filled my big pot with water and put it on a wobbly burner.  The burner started making weird noises so I set it on a smaller one and moved onto my Alfredo sauce.  Smoke began rising from this burner, so I had to move to the last remaining one.  A little agitated by the state of my appliances I tried to regain my composure and got back to work.   

            While the butter melted in my smaller pan I flipped my computer open to the Youtube video titled, “How To Make Alfredo Sauce.”  Being sure not to let the butter burn, just as it told me, I paced around the kitchen, nervous about the time, knowing my friends are all busy with intense science classes.  I dreaded the idea of serving my meal late and wasting any of their time.  I wanted to get back to cutting the broccoli, but didn’t want to take my eye off the butter even for a second.  I also realized I would need another pan to steam the broccoli in, which I didn’t have.  Nor, I realized, a cover for it.  Not wanting to deal with that problem because I saw no obvious solution, I ignored it and continued to focus on my butter.

            When it was entirely melted I excitedly poured the milk in and waited to see my anticipated sauce become reality.  But something wasn’t right.  The two weren’t mixing.  The warm butter was hardening in the cold milk, congealing into disgusting lumps that resembled the texture of caviar.  I didn’t know what to do.  This didn’t look anything like the smooth, elegant looking sauce in the video playing behind me.  Why was this happening?  With ten minutes to go before my meal was supposed to be served I took out my cell phone and prepared to send all my friends a message saying dinner was cancelled. 

            I stopped myself, did a quick pep talk, and then put the mess back on the burner.  As the milk heated, the butter began to soften and turn back to liquid.  My relief was short lived.  The water in the big pot was boiling and it was time to add the pasta, which, of course, did not all fit into the pot.  I stirred it as best I could, but noodles were falling onto the stovetop left and right.  I still couldn’t deal with the broccoli because I was constantly stirring my sauce, terrified something else might happen to it if I left it alone for even a second.  I decided not to add the egg, not wanting to do anything else that might mess it up.

            And then people began showing up.  First Julia came down and took many pictures of me hunched over my pots and the many noodle casualties splattered around me.  I described to Conrad and Dan the harrowing tale of my sauce, who politely laughed and then told me dinner was looking great, and the delay was no problem.  I called my mother and received a quick tutorial on how to make broccoli in the microwave. 

            Already behind schedule, I was shaking and sweating and my voice was about three octaves higher than it normally is when it was finally time to pour the  slightly undercooked noodles into the colander.   With both arms I tried to move the pot full of boiling water six inches over to the sink.  After two failed attempts Nick came by and lifted it with one hand.  He kindly smiled at me while I spooned the remaining noodles into the colander, which proceeded to tip over and spill into the sink. 

            Once the noodles were back in the pot I added the cheese and called to everyone that dinner was ready.  My friends entered the small kitchen and took their helpings while I cut up the last of the broccoli.  I was sad to see that Alaina had not returned from her weekend home yet, and Dan told me that Ricky was feeling too sick to come, but I still had six guests and most of a dinner.  While we ate around a table in the lounge of our dorm under a florescent light I put the broccoli in the microwave.  By the time it was done everyone had finished their pasta.  I scarfed it down without really noticing the taste.  I was physically exhausted and emotionally drained and was just happy the thing was edible.  Once the broccoli was done I went back into the kitchen and sliced up the tomatoes that were supposed to have been chopped and sprinkled on the pasta.  Lacking a plate, I tore some paper towels from the wall dispenser and plopped them down in the center of the table. 

            Everyone told me the food was good, which was a lie.  It was mediocre, maybe even decent.  But they knew I needed the confidence boost, and I was grateful for it.  Dan and I often argue like an old married couple, but from the moment he walked into the kitchen and asked how it was going he used his “nice tone,” his, “Katie is upset so I better be extra charming” voice.  Aaron had already eaten dinner and only tried one fork-full from Nick’s bowl, but he still shouted compliments that echoed down the entire hall. 

            After everyone had cleared their plates Nick, Dan, and Aaron took off.  I had served my meal half an hour late and I knew they all had homework they needed to get back to.  I thanked them for coming and began mentally preparing myself for the mountain of dishes I had to do.  And then Ian, wonderful individual that he is, said the kindest words of the night.

“Is there anymore?”  He wanted more.  Then Julia and Conrad got up and got seconds too.  I hadn't even noticed that Julia had brought her pepper and fancy sea salt to the table (much nicer than the salt shaker I “borrowed” from the cafeteria).  I waited for my friends to serve themselves and then took the last of the pasta, or at least whatever wasn’t completely stuck to the bottom of the pot or flung onto the counter top.

I paid much more attention to the flavor this time.  It needed more cheese and it definitely needed salt, but once they were added it really wasn’t so bad.  The microwave steamed broccoli was finished off, the pasta was gone, and I got to eat the last slice of fresh tomato.  No left over’s.

Once they were done, Conrad and Ian left.  Julia stayed behind to help with the dishes.  She ended up doing most of them while I hacked at the noodles stuck to the bottom of the big pot.  Later that night, the two of us took advantage of the kindness of one of our friends and sent him out, alone, into the cold night to fetch us ice cream.  A pint of Ben and Jerry’s Pish Food  eaten straight from the container was a welcome treat after my exhausting night. 

Looking back at the meal, I wouldn’t say it was “perfect,” but I didn’t hate it necessarily.  It was an interesting experience.  I’d like to say I learned something from it.  My friends proved to be reliable and accepting and their kindness got me through the process.  At least the company was perfect.  

(Hey guys- So I'm really not a fan of the ending.  I kind of ran out of steam, so suggestions on how to improve that would be appreciated.  Also, sorry about the length.  The story is basically in two parts.  Part One is me figuring out what to make and buying supplies.  Part Two is the actual making and eating of the meal.  I like both parts and I think they flow well together, but it makes it pretty long.  What do you guys think?
Also, I wanted this to be a funny piece, but I'm worried I came off more whiney than humorous.  Your thoughts?)

Food In The Forest (Revised)

            On a sunny morning in late August two busses pulled into the parking lot of a McDonald’s and 80 hungry and exhausted college freshmen descended upon the empty restaurant like a swarm of locusts.  We had traveled through the night, beginning on the campus of Kalamazoo College, and after breakfast, would soon be arriving at our destination, Killarney Provincial Park in Ontario Canada.  We were all signed on for LandSea, a sixteen-day hiking trip set up as an optional pre-freshman orientation program.

            I ordered a Bacon, Egg & Cheese Bagel and sat down with the people I’d met on the bus in one of the last remaining booths, while the unfortunate folks from bus two walked up to a line that went well past the door.  Discovering my meal had mayonnaise on it, I promptly lost most of my appetite for the thing.  I was disappointed that my last experience with “real food” was so dissatisfying.  I figured it would be two weeks before I got to eat anything really good. 

A few hours later, the two busses pulled into our main camp.  After everyone had gathered up their stuff, we were divided into our patrols, the groups of people we would be living with for the next two weeks.  I was put into patrol C-5 along with Ian, Katrina, Craig, Emilie, Evan, and Faith.  With our two leaders, Jessica and Joanne, there were nine of us total, which made us the smallest group that year.  After sorting through equipment, we were given a large blue tub stuffed with food.  Our first task as a patrol was to sort out rations for the first five days of hiking, leaving the rest behind at the main camp for when we returned for the canoeing part of our trip. We decided to start our trip with three blocks of cheese, two large and three small sausages, two large bags of dry oatmeal, three jars of peanut butter (two creamy and one crunchy), one small bag of lentils, one bag of assorted spices, two packages of tuna, five carrots, seven potatoes, several apples, one large bag of brown sugar, one bag of chocolate chips, one bag of powdered milk, two bottles of Parkay (a liquid butter substitute), one bag of macaroni noodles, three packages of powdered soup, two packages of tortillas, one bag of beans, one package of bisquick, and our own personal bags of gorp, a mixture of  peanuts, chocolate chips, dried papaya, prunes, and pretzel sticks.  Looking at it all, I wondered how this was going to turn into satisfying meals each day. 

             I did not sleep well that first night, lying on the hard ground, scrunched between Craig and Ian.  We woke up at five in the morning to rain and I regretted to find the bottom of my sleeping bag sopping wet.  The rain stopped that morning just long enough for us to spread out our rations and decide who would carry which items.  Along with food, we also had to carry the group gear, two tarps, two first aid kits, two bottles of fuel, one stove set, two bear bags, two ropes, and the patrol science project, which contained a device neatly packed in duct tape that we would use to test the levels of something-or-another in the water.  Along with all of our own personal gear, this added up to about forty pounds per person.  Sleep deprived, cold, and exhausted after just five minutes of placing my heavy pack on my shoulders, I began day one and contemplated whether I had made a mistake in signing up. 

Climbing The Crack.

            It rained on and off all day.  It seemed that every time we sat down the rain would start again.  We joked that nature was telling us when we’d been sitting down for too long.  We climbed The Crack, a steep hike up crumbled boulders between two towering rock formations.  The rain made everything slippery, and the going was slow, but the view from the top was breathtaking.  We sat for a moment and enjoyed the sight, the sea of trees disappearing into the haze of the rainy sky, interrupted by lakes and rivers that we would probably be canoeing on in just a few days.  I could have stared at it all day, but the rain picked up again, so we kept walking.

The view from the top of The Crack.

By the time we reached our campsite after hours of walking, climbing, and occasionally sliding down steep drop offs, my feet were screaming and my shoulders were about ready to give out. Setting up camp was a long and tedious process and when we were done all I wanted to do was crawl into my sleeping bag and never wake up.  The point of LandSea is to help make its participants more self-reliant.  Our leaders are there for guidance, but from making food to figuring out our route, it was supposed to be up to us.  Huddled together under a drooping tarp it began to rain again.  We were all hungry, but the thought of leaving the comfort and warmth of our sleeping bags didn’t seem worth the effort involved in feeding ourselves.

Joanne making dinner.

Joanne mercifully made dinner for us that night.  It was a bland and flavorless vegetable soup, but I gratefully took it, as it was warm and bore some resemblance to food.  Ian was less accepting, and produced his own personal bottle of extra hot Tabasco hot sauce.  He must have emptied half the bottle into his small helping of broth and it soon became apparent that his dinner was inedible.  Jessica feared he was suffering from hypothermia when she heard him complain about his lips being numb, but it was just his soup.  He ate about half a bowl before he started passing it around to others, who used portions of his dinner to spice up their own.   I took a small helping.  My soup went from tasteless broth to a painful attack on my mouth, and mine was a filtered version of the original.  It took me a few moments to recover from the initial shock of that first spoonful, and I seriously contemplated whether or not Ian’s lips would ever regain feeling.

            The next morning we woke up to blue skies.  The sun came out, our clothes dried, our spirits lifted.  I got used to the weight of my pack and I began to bond with my patrol-mates.  We passed the long hours of walking with stories from home, riddles, and the occasional group sing-along to a Disney classic.  One day we spent an entire afternoon retelling all our favorite Family Guy jokes, until I’m pretty sure we had retold the entire series. 

Faith and Katrina make dinner.

It never rained again after day one, and never again did I suffer a tasteless meal either.  Evan and Ian turned out to be talented cooks.  They knew how to add spices to bring out the flavors in their dishes.  Katrina and Faith managed to make a half decent apple strudel for us twice.  One morning our leaders even surprised us and made pancakes for breakfast.  Even our simple lunch of cheese and sausage was phenomenal after hours of hiking or canoeing.  I loved the spicy meat and the creamy cheese and embraced the two flavors that elegantly mixed together so well when I popped them both in my mouth at once.  By the end of the trip most of my patrol mates hated them, but Ian and I never got sick of it. 

Ian passes out our usual lunch of sausage and cheese.

But the most loved and prized snack was peanut butter.  Sweet and smooth and absolutely delicious, it was exactly what I needed to satisfy my sugar fix.  I was never completely devoid of sweets.  I had chocolate chips and brown sugar to add to things, but I longed for candy bars, ice cream, just one wholesome Oreo, I was desperate for the kinds of desserts that contained more calories than some meals did.  We horded our peanut butter, conserved it, we made sure we never took too much, careful to leave enough for each day of our trip.  We ate it straight out of the jar; my spork leaving grated trails behind in its delectable, delicate surface.  Slathered on papaya, it neutralized the less than desirable flavor of the dried fruit, leaving only the taste of pure joy in my mouth.  One day Faith suggested I add chocolate chips from my gorp bag into my spoonful of peanut butter and it became godly.

Loon.

            During the canoeing part of the trip our days went much faster.  We covered more ground and reached our destinations with more time to go swimming, play cards, and nap.  With campsites next to the water we sometimes fell asleep to the lonely calls of loons at night and often woke up before the sun rose in the morning.   We paddled out onto misty lakes and gazed at stars that reflected in the water below us.  Once we even got to share the waterway with a family of moose.   

On our last day together, my patrol prepared to do our science experiment, the one we'd been carrying with us since day one.  Our leaders gathered us around the waters edge.  Jessica handed Ian the package and told him to open it fast, that the device was “light sensitive” and needed to go in the water immediately or the results would be botched.  Everyone waited in anticipation, Ian feeling the pressure as he slit his knife across the tape and pulled it apart.  Before we could see what the device looked like, he looked up at us confused and asked, “Starbursts?” 

            Everyone simultaneously leaned in, and then jumped back in surprise.  Jessica and Joanna began laughing hysterically, Evan’s booming voice echoed across the lake, and Faith ran away and I’m pretty sure started crying.  Our “science experiment” was a package of Starbursts, a Crunch Bar, a Butterfinger, and a Snickers.  The thing I had missed most, the one food item I had been craving: candy.  Delicious sugary chocolate, and I had been carrying it with me the entire time.

            Every bar was cut into even sized portions.  Those doing the cutting passed each precious piece of chocolate to the rest of the patrol before taking their own.  There were twelve Starbursts in the package.  We each got a whole one, and then cut the last three pieces into thirds.  No one thought this was ridiculous.  We each took our thin sliver of gummy chewy candy with gratitude, and enjoyed every delicious second.

We were given this treat because the next morning marked the start of solo, a two-day ordeal in which we were left alone in the woods with no food or human companionship.  My stomach was already growling by the time my leaders pulled away in their canoe, leaving me to my lonely little plot of land where I would spend two days and nights in solitude. 

When the sun set, I was surprised by my sense of calm.  I was sure the darkness and strange little noises the woods like to make at night would be sending shivers up my spine the entire night.  But I was perfectly comfortable by myself, sleeping under the stars on what I considered to be a very comfortable rock.  All day I had been thinking about what I was going to eat when solo ended.  I made a list of the candy I’d buy at the first pit stop we made on our way back to Michigan.  I dreamed about a McDonalds cheeseburger with a chocolate milk shake.  When I woke up the next morning though, I didn’t even notice I was hungry anymore.  My stomach stopped growling, like it was tired of trying.  I was notably exhausted though, and had never realized just how long one day is until I sat through day two of solo.  

After one more night alone, I woke up to the sound of paddles hitting water as my leaders came to pick me up the following morning.  I smiled at Faith and crawled into the canoe, happy to be reunited.  And then, from behind her back, Jessica pulled forth the most beautiful, perfect looking green apple I had ever seen in my life.  I cradled the fruit in my hands for a moment, taking in its elegance.  Just as I was about to take a glorious bite, Jessica asked if I wouldn’t mind paddling in the front of the canoe while we picked up the rest of my patrol.  Around the lake we went, gathering my patrol-mates who gratefully devoured their apples while mine remained sitting in my lap, its smooth inviting surface taunting me while I desperately paddled as fast as I could towards shore. 

And then my moment finally came. An apple has never tasted so good since.  Back home, where I am surrounded by all the food I could want, I often forget about that moment when I made contact with the apple’s smooth skin, its crisp crunch, its sour juice.  I sometimes forget there was a time when an apple could be something extraordinary.  I devoured all of it, even ate the cyanide infused seeds.  The stem was all that remained.      

Choose Your Own Adventure: Michael Pollan on The Daily Show

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-january-4-2010/michael-pollan

(http://mindtomouth.org/)

            During his interview on The Daily Show, Michael Pollan discussed his new book, Food Rules, which lists his rules for healthy living.  One of the early points brought up in the interview, one that both scared and disgusted me, was the comparison made between eating food and smoking.  Thanks to nutrition facts and calorie counters, most of us are aware that much of the food we eat is unhealthy.  But what if those delicious snacks are more than just comfort food, but are specially designed to keep you craving them and coming back for more?  What if we are actually addicted to our food?  Pollan even says this sounds conspiratorial, however, if food companies are manipulating us, we should be both scared and insulted.  Scared because the distributors of our food seem to have no concern about our health, and insulted that we have let ourselves be used for this long.

            Jon Stewart later asks, “How do you change?  How do you legislate deliciousness?”  Pollan answers that we should encourage the production of real food.  This seems like an easy solution, as obvious as his earlier statement that we should “eat food.”  And yet Americans are often unwilling to make drastic lifestyle changes. 

In order to avoid the food Pollan says is bad for me, I’d have to give up my favorite breakfast cereals like Trix, Captain Crunch, and Lucky Charms.  It would mean staying away from Nestle hot chocolate with marshmallows, Keebler cracker snacks, Chips Ahoy cookies, and Cheez-Its.  It would mean missing out on the Super Bowl snacks I’ll be eating in a few hours, fried chicken wings and chips and dip.  Stewart says in the interview that telling Americans “what they can and cannot eat, may be the large infringement the government would ever attempt.”   In order for our food industry to change, we must also change.  I was so proud of myself for finally giving up soda, and yet this is just one small step in a long process of changing how I eat.  

Are we willing to give up the food we love for our health?  

The Omnivore's Dilemma Part II

Here is an actual conversation I had with my friend today.

Sam:  “So what’s the Omnivore’s Dilemma about?”

Me:  “Basically it’s how everything in the food industry is bad and we eat food grown from nitrate and all the farmers are going out of work but they can’t do anything about it and even if you know it’s bad you can’t do anything because that’s all that’s offered and even the organic stuff is not really organic and you can’t do anything because it’s food and it’s not like you can just stop eating, but everything we eat is bad for us and will probably kill you.”

            The opening to part two of the Omnivore’s Dilemma was a welcome surprise.  After over one hundred pages of Pollan describing how corn went from being “the greatest blessing God ever gave to man,” to a synthetically overgrown soon-to-be chemical that is in such excess that it is put into literally everything and made in such large quantities that Americans continue to eat it long after they’re full, the image of a pristine, natural farm, was a nice break.  The first few pages of this section give a small gleam of hope that perhaps we can change our ways before it’s too late. 

            Yet even the Polyface Farm caused me agitation.  As Pollan points out, nature has a system, and it works.  Joel Salatin does not need to spray his crops with harmful pesticides or fertilize his soil with chemicals made from companies that designed napalm and Agent Orange because his crop diversification and rotation does that for him.  And yet on the large scale, this system does not work.  Salatin wouldn’t even send Pollan a chicken from his farm because energy needed to ship it would go against his ideals of what it means to be organic.  And as Pollan writes later, between these small natural farms, and the large scale industrial organic ones, it is easier for stores like Whole Foods to do their business with the bigger farms that can produce more.  We have a solution, and yet it does not fit in with how our society runs.  

            So what am I as a consumer supposed to do?  The organic revolution has come a long way.  But the guidelines for what can be labeled “organic” are fuzzy.  Food can be called organic even when synthetic additives are permitted.  Animals, thought to be raised in open fields are still confined to tight quarters and unsanitary conditions.  The word "Organic" does not mean what we eat is coming from places like Polyface Farm.  

            And yet I for one am not ready to give up convenient and cheap food.  The way Americans eat now, farms like Polyface just can’t provide for all of us.  How can we eat healthy when everything around us is genetically altered and mad from chemicals?  How can we trust our supermarkets when organic does not mean what we think it does?  What can we do when the small farms who are doing it right are so stuck in their ways that they won’t even ship their items outside of their local market because it goes against their ideals?  Or when these former idealists like Kahn choose the side of industry because that’s where the money is?  What can I eat and more importantly, where do I get it?  Because Whole Foods doesn't seem too trustworthy anymore.  

            This book is important and informative, but after putting it down I’m just left with more questions.  I feel guilty about how much of a glutton I am every time I eat, and foolish for falling for the food industries tricks, and I feel hopeless because I have no idea how we can fix it.  I’m paying thousands of dollars to go to a private liberal arts school, and yet all I want to do now is start a farm with cows that can eat grass.