During my January visit to NYC I spent most of my time with my best friend and roommate from college. She had been voraciously consuming Michael Pollan's books on food and nutrition (In Defense of Food, The Omnivore's Dilemma, The Botany of Desire.) and was happy to find in me someone who shared her excitement and interest for such topics. We had both discovered a new way of thinking about our food independently yet at almost the same time. Through different sources we had come across similar information and come to nearly the same dietary conclusions. (She is attempting a near vegan lifestyle, while I enjoy local, grass-fed game.)
Her reasons for picking up these books was to "find out what kind of relationship I'm supposed to have with my food." This statement resonated with me. Here's a young woman whose grandmother still lives in Spain - where a rich, native food culture is alive and well - and even she is confused about what and how to eat. The other reason this struck me is that I'd never really thought about food as something I had a relationship with. It's not like I was going out and making friends with the pigs that would be my bacon. (Perhaps if I did I wouldn't eat it anymore.) Food was for eating, not relating with. But she was right. How we eat our food, what kind of food we buy, where we buy it - it's all part of our relationship with our food. It shapes our daily interactions, affects our health and well-being, and changes our economy by affecting our relationship with farmers and marketers.
When we decide to go in search of our food philosophy what we find is many different ideas, doctrines, approaches, rules, forbidden foods, gimmicks and get-skinny-quick schemes. Americans don't have one single historical food culture to govern our daily dietary principles. (Sorry, hot dogs and hamburgers don't count.) We also don't have any real seasonal or local-food restrictions that other regions do. You can get any food at any time, no matter what the season. So we are alone in the sea of cuisine grasping for a life-raft. You can choose to align yourself with vegetarian dogma - but that can mean you eat as much soda and potato chips as you want, as long as there's no meat passing your lips. You can try a "typical" American diet of white bread, meat and sugar - but likely little thinking goes into this diet, and you won't be around long either.
Experience and research has led me to lean toward a "real food" diet. This is a relatively new movement in American dietary history and goes along with the slow food movement and local food movement. My interpretation of real food is to buy foods in their original, irreducible form, limiting processing as much as possible. I prefer that I can understand all the ingredients in the foods I buy that are somewhat processed (whole wheat pasta, Triscuits) and be sure that they don't contain any artificial ingredients or hydrogenated oils. (Artificial sweeteners are evil. More on that topic later.) I try to eat as many fruits and vegetables as possible - I shoot for a minimum of five servings a day and generally average about 7-10. Winter is harder, as I tend to crave bread and cheese instead of fruits and veggies, but I make a lot of veggie-ful homemade soups.
So my number one rule in the kitchen is: it's not that hard to make it from scratch. Really, it's not. Buying mixes (pancakes, tuna helper, cookies, cakes, etc.) wastes money and packaging and adds a bazillion ingredients in the processing stage. Yuck.
My number two rule is: say no to cans. The only thing I buy in cans anymore is coconut milk, tuna and wild salmon. Cans are lined with dangerous and varying amounts of BPA that can leach into your food (especially acidic foods like tomatoes.) And canned fruits and veggies have little to no nutritional value left.
My number three rule is: buy fresh, buy local or buy frozen.
My number four rule is: eat lots of fruits and veggies - especially raw. There are many days that I go without eating any meat, and the meat I do eat is generally fish or local grass-fed game. Never underestimate the nutritional value of grass-fed beef and grass-fed cow's raw milk and butter. Or should I say, do doubt the nutritional value of corn-fed, antibiotic-ed, hormone-d beef. Yuck.
Winter is hard. There's only so much butternut squash soup and potatoes I can eat. I have yet to attempt preserving, except for a tragically terrible foray into homemade jam. Unless you've spent summer preparing for winter veggie shortages, a local-food winter can be tricky. It feels like forever until the farmer's markets open in May. Until then I will be buying the gorgeous pesticide-free, vine tomatoes from New Mexico. (Sorry.) My eating less meat will help environmentally off-set my non-local winter produce purchases.
I'm not into total organic-ness. As Nina Planck (Real Food: What to Eat and Why) suggests, if you eat meat and dairy it makes sense to buy organic things higher on the food chain and buy conventionally processed produce. I can't afford to shop at Whole Foods. Not everything sold there is necessarily healthy in my book either. Processed is processed, whether it's in a fancy food shop or a quickie mart. Planck also notes that most studies concluding how amazing fruits and veggies are for you were most likely done with conventionally produced produce. If you can afford all organic and purely local, good for you. It will help the environment and send a message to farmers.
So here's a sampling of what we eat at my house:
lots of fruits and veggies
organic yogurt
nitrate-free bacon and sliced turkey
tuna, tilapia, wild salmon
wild, acorn-fed, humanely killed, cleanly processed, local venison
cheese
lentils, kidney beans, chickpeas
free-roaming, nesting chicken eggs
brown rice, wheat pasta, sprouted or whole wheat bread
shredded wheat, steel-cut oatmeal
organic peanut butter
no-sugar added jam
butter, extra virgin olive oil, extra virgin organic coconut oil
real maple syrup, honey, sucanat
Triscuits, occasional corn chips
oats, wheat flour, popcorn kernels
dried cranberries
walnuts
homemade cookies, bread, pretzels, pies, crumble, pudding.
A typical day meal plan:
Breakfast- Weekdays: green smoothie; oatmeal; fried eggs and grapefruit. Weekends: whole wheat, homemade waffles with fruit and nitrate-free bacon
Lunch- Dinner leftovers; tuna melt sandwich with cucumber; salad; turkey and cheese sandwich with tons of veggies; organic tomato soup and grilled cheese; egg salad with sprouts.
Snacks: cranberries and walnuts; apple and peanut butter; grapefruit; carrots and dip; watermelon; pear; crackers and cheese; yogurt; applesauce; popcorn.
Dinner: I generally make one-dish casseroles or stir frys with tons of veggies, deer or fish or beans and rice, pasta or potatoes; homemade pizza; cheesy ratatouille and rice, baked potatoes with veggies, tuna and cheese; curry; salad; deer roast; deer meatloaf; soup and corn muffins or biscuits; quiche or frittata; eggplant Parmesan; salmon patties; kale patties; lasagna; sushi; shepherd's pie; bubble and squeak; deer chili.
