THE OMNIVORE'S DIALOG

The Devil Cooks McCormick

My favorite scene in the film The Devil Wears Prada is when the character played by Meryl Streep does her first “dressing down” of her newly hired assistant. I don’t recall the words verbatim, though I wish I did, but in short she demonstrates to the young woman that her disinterest in fashion is both ignorant and arrogant. Honing in on the girl’s turquoise sweater, Streep unravels how the chain of opinion, money, advertising (and more money) – attitude, angst, industry forces and the GNP are all apart of what this young woman chooses to exchange her well-earned hard currency for to clothe herself. The fashion industry is predator, we are its prey, our tastes are manipulated so we dance to the Industry’s whimsical, finely orchestrated tunes.

Sound familiar?

That old “manipulation of taste”- thing.

One of the largest spice purveyors is on the move, cooking up new spice pairings. Some of the pairings seem to resonate with an authentic sense of culture and gastronomic history, and some don’t.  The fashion of foods makes me nervous. Not sure why. But, I recall a few years ago when suddenly everything seemed to have lavender; cheese and chocolate and somewhere crackers and cakes. To me it was creepy, but, then again, I’ve got a real stubborn streak.

Does Only the Nose Know?

Aside from the inevitability of death and taxes, there is much to speculate about our fate, both individual and collective. Over the past few decades to satisfy that speculation, funds have been devoted to brain science to see how we are “hardwired,” and for what purposes. Books have been written to answer if we are hardwired for success or failure; for compassion or hate; for war or peace or belief in God; – and one of my favorites - Are we hardwired for geometry?!

Our “wired-ness” regarding taste has long been speculated, and studied. Many findings, including the blending of our primitive lobes for smell with the mysterious power of memory have been applied to industries to create some of our most dear, and dreaded, habits, trends and fashions.

But all of that may be on the verge of becoming simplified, and objectified. See today’s article in the Washington Post.

From the Trenches

Brain numbing and riddled with lingo, the Farm Bill can too easily seem theoretical and remote.  But this recent OpEd piece from the New York Times states clearly how the bill impacts the choices we have in our local supermarkets.

A Tale in Every Bite

OK; here we go: What do Jerry Garcia, lead guitarist of the Grateful Dead and Vittore Carpaccio, the 16th century Venetian painter have in common? Does it help to know that Carpaccio is best known for his painting cycle, The Legend of Saint Ursula? Didn’t think so. Well; here’s another hint: What does Marie Ana Smith, the 1868 Australian gardener share with Rudolph Hass, a 1920’s California Postal worker? Still stumped? Think Sylvester Graham, the entrepreneurial 19-century Presbyterian minister and….. here’s the big clue: Dame Nellie Melba, the famous soprano singer.

YES ! All have foods that bare their name.

Horticulturists and artists, heads of state and entrepreneurs, restaurateurs and chefs have long embraced the old maxim: You Name It, You Claim It. To name a soup or a sauce, a beverage or a candy, a fruit or a dessert in someone’s name, or claim it in your own, has been an honor when bestowed upon others, and at times, just plain good marketing!

Downsizing Health Food

I came across this article (Nine Health Foods That Aren’t, from the Health section of MSNBC) while browsing the web Sunday. I wasn’t expecting much, and it isn’t much, except solid common sense and what we’ve been blogging about. These guys did a nutritional analysis of various prepared foods from the store, not junk food, but what Pollan would call processed health foods, and the results are amusing. It seems McDonalds isn’t the only place where subliminal super sizing and the judicious use of high fructose corn syrup are used to enhance sales. I wish I had the space to run through the whole list.

 

Bran muffins – 420 calories, 20 grams fat. This sounds a little thin compared to an English muffin topped with poached egg, ham and cheese, which weighs in at 300 calories and 12 grams of fat. Whew, leave the cheese off mine, and I’ll take two for the price of a bran muffin.  The bran muffin is loaded with sweeteners to make it gooey and delicious, plus it’s the size of three regular muffins like your mother would make. You’ve seen these offered as “alternatives” at Dunkin Donut and Noah’s Bagels.

 

Chicken Wrap – offered in the deli as low carb, the plate size tortilla had twice the carbohydrate as a regular bun, and was covered with mayonnaise to the edge. This health food sandwich was 700 calories and 35 grams fat, compared to a grilled  chicken breast sandwich which would be 375 calories and 15 grams fat, roughly half, and available from McDonalds – just skip the fries and shake.

 

Yoplait yogurt with fruit – it turns out the fruit is mostly fructose. Compared to an equal weight of plain yogurt with your own fruit which reduces the calories from 190 to 110, and cuts the sugar in half.

 

Caesar salad with chicken – these premixed salads are swimming in fake dressing, on a ready to serve plate. This one had 900 calories with 60 grams of fat. If you grill the chicken and serve on mixed greens tossed with balsamic vinaigrette, it reduces the damage to 400 calories and 20 grams of fat, less than half. Also, in this part of the country this usually uses Napa cabbage as the only green (longer shelf life) so that it wilts less in the dressing. They should call it Caesar Slaw. Yuck.

 

I won’t bother you with what’s in a fruit smoothie, the generation-X alternative to a chocolate shake. Because the point is, the damage to all these items is in the preparation and storage, not the ingredients. Pollan explains it simply – if your grandmother wouldn’t have bought it in the grocery, don’t eat it. These dishes not only have far more calories than the ingredients they come from, but a lot of the calories are placed to affect the texture and shelf life. Mayonnaise keeps the tortilla from drying and cracking. HFCS glues the muffin together, and prevents mold growth. The yogurt uses fruit preserves instead of fruit to prevent spoilage. The result is a bran muffin at Starbuck’s has more fat than an Egg McMuffin.

 

I would add one further piece of advice. Don’t assume that a food is healthier just because the manufacturer says it is. This applies to healthy sounding food as well. There are no government standards for freshness and health, all the maker has to show is that it’s non-toxic, just like rat poison. I prefer it that way, actually. If the government started deciding what was healthy for us, fois gras would be replaced with thousand calorie muffins. The founding fathers wisely refused to design a state religion that satisfied everyone, and so it should be with a state diet.

 

For further reading, consult Eat This, Not That by David Zinczenko.

Reading for Eating – the Enlightened Palate

Chefs possess what we call “educated palates” – an ability to discern ingredients, flavors, and techniques.   Restaurant critics and food writers hopefully have “sophisticated palates” – a taste for what represents refined cuisine and meets high standards.   But in the current era of environmental threat, global warming, and the declining health of our population, we need more: enlightened palates. 

Heed the plea from many mothers: who do I believe, what really is the best for my children, how should I be feeding them?  Or the growing middle age and elder population: what should we eat to maintain our health or regain our health and insure quality of life in our senior years?  In this age of overabundance, the choices are mind-boggling. When news bites bombard us with health-snippets, often funded by food conglomerates or pharmaceutical manufacturers, it is small wonder that we remain confused.

Perhaps we need to return to a simpler solution.  Perhaps we should narrow our focus, put blinders on and eat only real food, grown in a sustainable manner, and for the most part, as close to home as possible.  One caveat – we might have to pass up computer time and hone our cooking skills.  I remember my home economics class in junior high. Girls took home economics and boys took shop – a luxury of well-funded schools and painfully divided sexes.  Here were 12 and 13 year-old girls learning to use Betty Crocker brownie mix and various cake mixes – home economics indeed!  No wonder the tradition of cooking suffers.

Segue to today – a program such as The Edible School Yard needs to become part of every school curriculum.  What good are math and language skills if we don’t know how to feed ourselves to remain healthy, brains forever fogged from lack of nutrients in the formative years?  Why do so many children lack the knowledge of food – real food?  Immigrant children, when they first arrive in this country, eat a healthier diet than the majority of our own children.  As they adapt to the Standard American Diet (SAD) and succumb to the lure of the average grocery store, the health of these families deteriorates.  Look around that same grocery store – how much real food do you see?  Unadulterated, unrefined, unprocessed real food. 

Where to start the process of enlightenment.  To become fired up for change – The Omnivore’s Dilemma by the man who brought food consciousness into the mainstream media, Michael Pollan.  To educate yourself for navigating the grocery store and more – What to Eat by Marion Nestle (if only she had a different last name!).  To steer yourself towards a knowledge of the healthiest natural foods (and make you hungry!) – Real Food by Nina Planck. To give yourself an edge towards a healthy longevity – Secrets of Longevity by Dr. Maoshing Ni, a revered 38th generation doctor specializing in longevity with real food solutions to health issues.  All of these books are around $10 and available in paperback.

With these tomes in hand, relax, visit your local farm market, fire up the stove, check out The Omnivore’s Solution, gradually purchase some of the recommended cookbooks and most of all,  have fun.   Fill the kitchen with the aromas of real food, engage the children, grandchildren, or neighbor's child.  The art of cooking holds possibilities available to all of us.  Know that you are doing the best for yourself and your loved ones.  Above all, enjoy sharing your accomplishments and love of pure food with family and friends.  Healthy, tasty, love-infused real food is the greatest and most nourishing gift you can give.

Addendum: January 10, 2008.  Having just finished In Defense of Food - need I say brilliant (I didn't see how he could match the impact of The Omnivore's Dilemma, but voila!) - I stand by the above post stronger than ever.  I found myself jumping up off my chair and saying "YES"!  This should be required reading for every high school curriculum. 
 

Another Pollan Interview on NPR

Michael Pollan has given another interview to Ira Flatow on NPR that reveals more of the content of his new book: In Defense of Food.  The interview is quite thorough and addresses many of the issues that bother all of us when we are deciding what to eat.  A lot of discussion is dedicated to a discussion of why we began to focus on the microscopic aspects of nutrition rather than on whole food.  There were also call-ins for this interview. 

One point in particular that really hits home is that people who focus intensely on food as mainly a health solution are actually less healthy than those who have a more holistic view of food as family, community, pleasure, and social interaction. 

This interview addresses many issues and deserves attention.  In Defense of Food promises to be as popular, if not more so, than The Omnivore's Dilemma.

Hooray! It's Here.

Border's has done us a huge favor and released a reading by Michael Pollan from his latest book, the just-released In Defense of Food.  This book promises to be everything we had hoped for - a common sense answer to The Omnivore's Dilemma.   This is his omnivore's solution - one that we knew was coming and would be done in his wonderful soothing style.

As stated in the first entry on this blog, so many people I talk to are confused about what to eat to stay vital and healthy - tugged in many directions by health claims and contradictory research reports.  This fractionalized, "scientific" approach makes us so myopic that we lose the big picture.  I am waiting for my copy of Mr. Pollan's new book, and I know it will help many of us breath a little more easily and trust our own intuition when preparing food for our families.  And, we can always read The Omnivore's Solution to make that preparation fun and tasteful.

We wish all of you a very Happy, Healthy, and Mindful 2008!