Eating Real Food

I just finished reading Michael Pollan's book "In Defense of Food" and I highly recommend it. It really changed how I think about what we eat and made me relax a little bit about weight and reconfirmed my commitment to being healthy generally. Like "Fast Food Nation", it describes in some detail how 'food' is processed and manufactured, highlighting how different grocery stores are now then they were when my great-grandmother did her shopping. Little in the store (except the perimeter) is real food. Even stuff you think is made of good stuff (like bread) is often highly engineered. But the most shocking part to me was how much of the nutrition info we are given has very little scientific basis. As a numbers person, I liked reading about the statistics and scientific process that goes into the underlying studies with the latest health claims. I walked away from the book trusting no one (not the FDA, not the American Heart Association, etc.) because endorsements are bought or negotiated. Much of the health claims on food aren't based in science. For example, the mini-wheats i've been feeding my family because they have a lot of fiber claim to increase attentiveness in kids by 20%. But Jason read that is compared with kids who have no breakfast! Eek. Makes me want to crawl in a hole. I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist but we are setup to fail in so many (often sublte) ways.

The tenets of how he thinks you should eat are summarized here. They are quick and punchy principles that can't hurt as far as I'm concerned. Common sense but not always easy to do.

Ultimatly, it made me take my role as mom even more seriously. No more processed foods at our house, as much as possible. No cereal, crackers, bars, etc. I'm planning on baking bread, crackers, cookies, etc myself. And we'll eat fruit as opposed to fruit-like stuff for kids. I'd already done some of this, but I'm more committed than ever.

I'm even planning on baking bread and making my own yogurt at this point. Somehow high fructoce corn syrup made its way into our house in these products...eek. Kari recommended a book on breaking artisan bread in 5 minutes a day. Really. It just came from amazon, I'll try it out tomorrow. I'll let you know how it goes. I'm really excited.