As you all have probably noticed, I have taken a break from blogging, because I didn't have too much to write about, I was busy reading and getting ready to move. In this blog, I want to address what I have been reading. I belong to two book clubs and have read many books I would recommend... but I have also done some reading on the side. In this blog entry, I want to talk about two books I found fascinating and would recommend to anyone who is interested to know about food, its origins, its role in the ecology of the planet and its impact on our health.
Most of you know that with two children who can't tolerate milk or soy, for me to buy processed foods is virtually impossible. I never really thought I bought much that was processed to begin with! Being faced with making so much from scratch I started to wonder about food and its impact on our health. Of course, its obvious from previous posts that I am also concerned about our environment... so reading Barbara Kingsolver's
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and Michael Pollan's
The Omnivore's Dilemma, was a natural step.
First, I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. In her book, Barbara Kingslover chronicles her year eating locally and growing and raising as much of her own food as possible. Being an excellent writer (she has written several fiction books such as The Poisonwood Bible, Bean Trees, and Pigs in Heaven), she writes about her year with humor and adds quite a bit of information while keeping it easy to read and understand. Her chapter on raising turkeys so that they reproduce naturally (an act no longer left to turkeys on even most organic farms) had me laughing out loud. Mostly, she made me want to go to the farmer's market and cook. From her I learned how to make mozzarella cheese, a skill I regrettably don't get to practice much considering the milk allergies that my children have! One day, perhaps 15 years from now, when Eric has retired from the army and we have settled down somewhere, I hope to be able to do the same; grow and raise my own food.
From Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, I jumped to Alice Water's The Art of Simple Food, which is an excellent cookbook that teaches you not only how to cook, but how to do so while eating locally and respecting the seasonality of food. I highly recommend it. In it there are some simple and delicious recipes, but the book is more about the food and how to prepare it properly than it is a list of recipes. Alice Waters is the chef at Chez Panisse, a California restaurant that is often regarded as a pioneer in the slow food (local, sustainable, etc) movement. Here is a link to their website, if you are interested:
Most recently, I have read Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma. In the book, Michael Pollan examines the dilemma that we, as omnivores face. Unlike most animals such as the cow, the lion or the koala who have a highly specialized diet and can eat only one kind of food (grass, meat/prey, eucalyptus leaves, etc), we have to choose what to eat everyday from a huge selection of foods. In a time when most food is grown on an industrial scale and packaged and sold to us, do we know what we are eating? What we are eating (organic, local, fast food, low carb, etc) Is it all that healthy for us and the planet? In the book he goes about making 4 meals, one fast food, one he calls "industrial organic", one that is locally farmed and raised and one that he hunted and gathered. There is an amazing number of facts mixed with philosophical and political discussion. One huge shock to me was in his first chapter on the corn industry. (And yes, industry is the right word). After reading the book, you will never look at food in the supermarket in the same way, and yet I didn't think it came off soapbox-ish. Perhaps, it is because he may be preaching to the converted (I admit I am); you probably would not pick up this book if you are the CEO of McDonalds or General Mills... but I really found his book interesting without feeling that he was hitting me over the head with the phrase "Eat local, Eat Organic".
In The Omnivores Dilemma, M. Pollan is mostly concerned with the big picture, but he just published another book, In Defense of Food, An Eater's Manifesto (that is currently checked out at the library so I have not yet read it) in which he discusses what it is we should eat considering the world we currently live in. He asserts that as Americans we are have no national cuisine that helps us navigate our food choices and therefore we are prone to following many fad diets and eating in ways that are not healthy for us. We have moved away from food to food science... I am intrigued, having read The Omnivores Dilemma, and so I will probably check it out as soon as I am able to.
I really wanted Eric to read these books, but he had his share of reading for school to do and is admittedly not the bookworm that I am, so I heard about this PBS documentary, King Corn, which focuses on the corn industry and interviews Michael Pollan. I imagined that he might be more interested if he saw the documentary. I would recommend it to anyone, its 90 minutes long and available at Blockbusters in the new release section. I imagine Netflicks has it as well.
Here are some facts I gathered- hopefully I got them straight...
1. 70% of antibiotic use in the US is used on corn (grain) fed cows in CAFOs (Confined Animal Feeding Operations... AKA Feedlots). Basically, if we didn't slaughter the beef at 18 months or so, they wouldn't live another 6 with the type of diet that they are being fed. Cows were meant to eat grass and their stomachs and rumens don't handle corn or grain well. Without the antibiotics they would get something called Acidosis, which would eventually kill them. And you wonder why we have so much more drug-resistant bacteria....
2. Because the cows are being corn fed, their meat is higher in saturated fat than grass fed beef. Also it is considerably lower in Omega-3 fatty acids. The rise of corn/grain fed beef has led to an imbalance of Omega-3 vs Omega-6 fatty acids. Both are essential fatty acids, but the imbalance can lead to a host of health issues such as high cholesterol, weight gain and the myriad of issues surrounding that. The concept of the feedlot is to limit their movements and give them unlimited access to high carbohydrate corn to fatten them up fast for slaughter... but the meat that is produced in such a manner is inferior to pasture raised animals. And you know the phrase..."you are what you eat".
3. Additionally, eating corn and grain causes the acid in their rumens to rise. Cows usually have a neutral pH level in their rumens, so that when they are slaughtered, any of the intestinal bacteria that may end up on the meat is easily handled by our more acidic stomach acids. Now that most beef is grain fed, intestinal bacteria like E.Coli have flourished and can handle living in a higher pH and our stomach acids can't kill them... hence E.Coli outbreaks.
There are so many other issues with grain-fed Feedlot beef such as issues of animal welfare and environmental concerns regarding waste. I don't remember the specific number but it was something like one feedlot produces as much waste as a city of 1.7 million people in a year. It could be 1.7 billion people...
If this subject intrigues you, I would encourage you to read Michael Pollan and Barbara Kingsolver's books. I found them interesting and well written. Here are their websites and one for the documentary King Corn, if you would like to investigate further.
