When I first thumbed through Nourishing Traditions at my in-laws’ house, its basic messages really rang true for me: what we eat should be as un-processed as possible, natural, whole, slow, all that sort of thing. Meat from an animal that lived a healthy life eating what it was meant to eat. Plants that haven’t been modified or sprayed with poisons. Sugars from fruit, honey, maple syrup. The lack of evidence for the “fact” that saturated fat and heart attacks are linked. Stuff like that.
Nourishing Traditions is rather strident in its tone, though, and unforgiving and uncompromising. That kind of attitude can make it hard to take its suggestions (commands) seriously.
I just came across this book review, and I’d like to borrow or buy the two books mentioned (In Defense of Food and The Omnivore’s Dilemma, both by Michael Pollan) — they seem a bit more of a moderate approach, arriving at similar conclusions.
The author also has this interesting post on food and finance. I would love to someday be able to buy most of our food at farmers markets and that sort of thing. Mark doesn’t really care whether he eats a block of Kraft cheese or a piece of cheddar from the fancy (real) cheese section, a loaf of store brand bread or an artisan loaf from the bakery, but I drool over such choices. (Am I a snob? or have more taste buds? or does my brain just tell me I have these preferences because of what I believe about food?)
It drives me nuts that eating well can cost so much more than eating fairly or poorly.
