the infamous mr. pollan singing wisdom into the imaginarium:
(just a snippet from In Defense of Food; An Eater's Manifesto).
the rules of eating:
1. pay more, eat less.
"the american fod system has for more than a century devoted its energies to quantity rather than to quality. turning out vast quantities of so-so food sold in tremendous packages at a terrific price is what we do well....there is no escaping the fact that better food - whether measured by taste or nutritional quality (which often correspond) - costs more, usually because it has been grown with more care and less intensively. not everyone can afford to eat high-quality food, and that is shameful. but those of us who can, should. another important benefit for paying more for better quality food is that you apt to eat less of it.
"eat less" is the most unwelcome advice of all, but in fact, the scientic case for eating a lot less than we presently do is compelling, whether or not you are overweight....put simply: overeating rpmotes cell division, and promotes it most dramatically in cancer cells, cutting back on calories slows cell division. The people of Okinawa, one of the longest-lived and healthiest populations in the world, practice a principle they call hara hachi bu (*sounds like hariboo to mee): eat until you are 80% full. "
2. eat meals.
"this recommendation sounds almost as ridiculous as "eat food," but in america at least, it no longer goes without saying. indeed, sociologists who study american eating habits no longer organize their results around the increasingly quaint concept of the meal: they now measure "eating occasions" and report that americans have added to the traditional big three - breakfast, lunch, and dinner - an as-yet untitled fourth daily eating occasion that lasts all day long: that constant sipping and snacking we do while watching TV, driving and so on.
i may be showing my age, but didn't there used to be at least a mild social taboo against the between meal snack? well, it is gone. americans today mark time all day long with nibbles of food and sips of soft drinks, which must be constantly at their sides, lest they expire during the haul between breakfast and lunch. we have reengineered our cars to accommodate our snacks, adding bigger cup holders and even refrigerated glove compartments.
3. do all your eating at a table.
no, a desk is not a table.
4. don't get your fuel from the same place your car does.
american gas stations now make more money selling food (and cigarettes) than gasoline, but consider what kind of food this is: except perhaps for milk and water, it is all highly processed nonperishable snack foods and extravagantly sweetened soft drinks in hefty twenty-one ounce bottles. gas stations have become processed-corn stations: ethanol outside for your car and high-fructose corn syrup inside for you.
5. try not to eat alone.
when we eat mindlessly and alone, we eat more. the shared meal elevates eating from a mechanical process of fueling the body to a ritual of family and community, from mere animal biology to an act of culture.
6. consult your gut.
as in so many areas of modern life, the culture of food has become a culture of the eye. but when it comes to eaying, it pays to cultivate the other seneses, which often provide more useful and accurate information. does this peach smell as good as it looks? does the third bite of that dessert taste anywhere near as good as they first?i could certainly eat more of this, but am i really hungry?
the french are better at this than we are, when asked "when do you know when to stop eating" they french group replied, "when i feel full." (what a novel idea! the americans said things like "when my plate is clean," or "when i run out."
7. eat slowly.
not just so you'll be more likely to know when to stop. i mean "slow" in the sense of deliberate and knowledgeable eating promoted by Slow Food, the Italian born movement dedicated to the principle that "a firm defense of quiet material pleasure is the only way to oppose the universal folly of Fast Life." Slow Food offers a coherent protest against, and alternative to, the Western diet of and way of eating, indeed to the whole ever-more-desperate Watern way of life. Slow Food aims to elevate quality over quantity and believes that doing so depends on cultivating our sense of taste as well as rebuilding the relationships between producers and consumers that the industrialization of our food as destroyed.
