I won’t disagree with your final sentence…times change and we must change with them.

However, if your only exposure to Pollan is Goodman’s post, you’ll be left misunderstanding his point…though it sounds as though your grandfather would understand him perfectly.

He speaks to eating real food, rather than industrial, food-science products.  Washington, regardless of his vegetable intake, would have had no other choice than to eat real food.

As an aside, Mt. Vernon doesn’t give a wholly accurate picture of the man.  His diaries clearly state that he was culling male hemp plants from his fields…the only reason for doing so would be to stop pollination of the females, and the only reason for doing that is to use cannabis as a drug.

Goodman should have read the book before reviewing it.  Pollan was interviewed on democracynow!: http://www.democracynow.org/2008/2/13/in_defense_of_food_author_journalist

I think therefore . . . I realize as doth Ellen that we are being, and willingly so, Dr. Philed to death.  How did it come to this?  I look to the voracious appetite for something to occupy our mindless days.  The wasteland across which the recent writer’s strike called out the real in realty programming. Everything must be commodified.  Even this comment section was adsensed.

As jcw points out below…i don’t think that Ms. Goodman gets it.

Generally, when Pollan talks about eating, he doesn’t talk about eating healthy…he talks about eating well.

Eating well is something that most of us don’t even know because we’ve either never done it or its been so long that we forgot.

If you’ve ever eaten a nice, rare, grass-fed steak then you know what i’m talking about.  If you’ve ever eaten a real egg, you’ll know them by the dark orange of their yolk and the fact that you can separate it by picking it up with your fingers, then you know what i’m talking about.  If you know what a tomato that has ripened on the vine (with the vine attached to the roots) tastes like, or a cucumber that’s never been inside a refrigerator tastes like then you know what i’m talking about.

Eat well people, its not about counting nutrients…if you eat well they’re all there, you don’t even have to think about it.

For those who don’t garden, here are a few simple tips.

1. visit your local food co-op and find a CSA (community supported agriculture) program; its generally reasonable in price, though you get what’s in season…life is full of trade offs.  Basically, you pay a regular fee, and for that you get a big box of food straight from the farmer once a week.

2. visit http://www.eatwild.org and you can find farmers near you; real farmers to buy produce, dairy, eggs, and meat from.  If you’re really with it, find some friends and split a cow and/or a pig…the price comes down and the farmer can often do the slaughter/process himself (because it isn’t retail).

3. Plant a garden!  Three tomato plants is enough to over feed two people all summer, with enough left over for making spaghetti sauce.  Don’t buy an ornamental tree for your yard, plant a fruit tree…a semi-dwarf apple tree (only 15’ tall) will produce around a bushel/year…that’s a lot of apples.

4. Buy a breadmaker.  It will pay for itself in no time, your house will smell wonderful, and bread will no longer be just empty carbs.

This article will get buried soon, but if you’re really interested in what you can do and how you can do it, let me know and i’ll give you an email.  Or Truthdig can commission me to write a little piece about freeing yourself by getting off one grid at a time.

Cheers

Yep.

While i’ve read everything else that Pollan’s written, i haven’t read this yet.  I did read another review that called him a “food snob”, and i couldn’t believe it.

I cannot believe that this post does justice to the point of the book.

Everyone’s grandmother said to eat you fruits and veggies.  The cycle of BS always eventually comes back to that wisdom. 

So eat your fruits and veggies, stay out of supermarkets and avoid the media.  Then your body will be the perfect target for some bombing zealot or a drunk driver or a deranged gunslinger thrown out of work by the Bush administration’s idiotic economic bungling.

I say, with all crap in the world, when you get home from a day out, open your pie hole and shove in the most decadent, best tasting crap you can find and do that every day.  Not much else about life tastes that good and it’s ORAL!!!

I doth protest!!!

Some things, like high fructose corn syrup, actually aren’t as tasty as their equivalent (sugar, maple syrup, molasses, honey). Also, tryptophan is an essential amino acid, so it’s actually good. Also, cholesterol is important to body functions as well. People on the no-cholesterol and no-fat diets are severely malnourished.

Heck with all that!  Give me my eggs clucking and my steak moo-ing, both with enough salt to get rid of the ice on my sidewalk.  Give me peanut butter and jam sandwiches on Wonder bread.  Give me lobster until I throw up.  I want MSG in my Chinese food, sulfites in my wine, tryptophan in my turkey, and extra cholesterol in my lard.  Give me fruit juices and ice teas with lots of high fructose corn syrup, the greasiest potato chips on the market, and just enough coffee to dissolve the ten packets of sugar in my cup.

I find this article is very helpful for us. I am an overweight girl, dated a big handsome guy on pluscupid.com. We will learn from the great information to live a healthy life.

Lovely article. Ellen has contributed another piece for thought.

Actually, I am something of a nutrition freak. A lot of my time is spent analyzing the mineral content of foods I eat (or might want to eat). Additionally, I do a lot of research regarding specific polyphenols, oils and other chemical properties present in my beverages and foods which may improve my overall health, memory and try to counter-act all the smoking I’ve done. (recently quit *crosses fingers*)

All this said, I’m still a nut for culture as well. I like trying exotic foods and using unknown spices and foodstuffs in my kitchen. Being both German and Italian, I spend a lot of time making my own breads, pasta and sauces/sausage. It’s important to keep cuisine alive along culture.

Am I a health-nut… not per se. I am very interested in nutritional properties of foods, but I believe in butter, speck and bacon fat. You tell me a better way to make mashed potatoes than with copious amounts of heavy cream and butter, and I’ll worship at your altar.

^ we lack common sense in all things.  The evidence is in what we read and the books on the best seller list.  Now a primer on how to eat well?  LOL, eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may die.  Enjoy life and don’t be stupid.