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Ingredients of a healthy life?
This weekend I read (or sort of read and skipped to the good part in the back where it tells you what to do) Michael Pollan’s “In Defense of Food.” It starts: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
It’s an interesting look at how food came to be broken down into nutrients, which ends up with things like Diet Coke with vitamins and how that’s healthy. It argues that we should look to our great- or great-great-grandparents as to what we SHOULD be eating. He gives good tips on how to know what foods to avoid: like those that have an ingredient list more than five items long or having ingredients that are long and impossible to pronounce.
I love this concept. I have many reasons to eat a more healthy diet. But I know I’ll have a very difficult time achieving eating more whole foods. Why do I know this? Because as I write this, I’m eating for breakfast a “break off a piece of dough and bake it” cookie.
I started by trying to get my son into the habit of eating fruit. That is, fruit that’s not already cut up and skinned. He actually eats a lot of fruit, just not in its whole form. We’re doing pears this week, learning the art of not biting TOO far in so you don’t get that yukky part in the middle.
BUT, I do plan to sign up for the Hunger Relief Farm’s produce program - where for a monthly fee you get some of their bounty. Now, I’m not sure I even KNOW anyone who’s eaten Swiss chard, but I’m game to try it. I’ll probably have to buy several cookbooks to figure out how. (Are you like me? Love looking at cooking mags and books but really only make about seven dishes for your family to eat?)
AND, I went out yesterday and bought a bread maker. And actually made some whole wheat bread. Smelled great as it baked, and of course, was practically effortless. And the loaf is pretty much rectangular, as opposed to the one my husband used years ago that made round loaves. I could not get used to that.
Anyway, the bread is good, although my son spent the morning dissing it. Too bland (as if he’ll even eat anything as spicy as, oh, mustard), not soft enough (we eat whole wheat normally, but that store stuff IS much smushier), weirdly shaped (hey, who isn’t?)…
I have a sister who makes bread the real way - you know, like our great-great-grandmother would have made it, I guess. But, one can only do what one can.
Next, I just have to figure out how to cook that bok choy I bought this weekend. I guess I’d better head off to the bookstore…
Comments
By Sally
April 28, 2008 9:08 AM | Link to this
Swiss Chard is really good. It’s a dark, leafy green (like spinach) but with a texture in between soft spinach and heavier mustard greens.
They’re an excellent side dish steamed and then drizzled with a small amount of olive oil. I love to “garnish” with 1/2 a small chopped, raw red onion and two or three chopped roma tomatoes.
The add ins are endless—toasted pine nuts, roasted garlic cloves or shallots… it all depends on your tastes.
By Paula
April 28, 2008 9:00 PM | Link to this
Hey, thanks, Sally. That sounds easy enough to do. I’ll give it a try. I wonder if I can just do the same thing to bok choy. Both green and leafy, right?
Oh, and my sister sent in a correction. She says she cheats and uses the Kitchenaid to knead the dough for her otherwise great-grandmotherly bread. Me, disillusioned? Nah.