Our Commitment, Again

Instead of re-inventing the wheel, it seems wise to continue collecting my recipes here.

Once again we have renewed our commitment to healthy eating. That overly broad concept seems best summed up by Michael Pollan's catch phrase: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." In other words,

1. Eat only real food, not overly-processed, laboratory formulated food-like stuff that your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food. Monosodium Glutimate, High Fructose Corn Syrup and Partially Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil are prime examples of that category.

2. Not too much. That's both obvious and elusive. Here in the U.S.A. and increasingly in other developed nations, we have no realistic concept of what "too much" means. It might help to incorporate more qualifiers such as "not too often," and "not all the time," or "only at real meals." Commercial phrases such as "the 4th meal," or "all you can eat" should be recognized as the harmful deceptions they are.

3. If we make the effort to eat mostly plants, we will have to eat less meat. There are a lot of environmental and sustainability issues here, because our American meat-centered meals waste enormous amounts of energy along with all the issues concerning the way meat animals are raised, transported, slaughtered and processed. That's before we even consider health issues.

Then there are individual issues. In our family we have to consider lactose intolerance and nightshade sensitivity. Other families have to deal with serious allergies, sodium levels, cholesterol ... the list is endless.

So what do we do? We do the best we can. I also think it's important to share what we learn. We're stronger, healthier and wiser together than each on our own.