Michael Pollan's work has been to illuminate the food culture that Americans are currently mired in. My first encounter with him was in Food Rules. In addition to Food Rules, The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food round out his works on what and how we should go about eating. The latter two are both groundbreaking in the way they look at the mistakes we have made as a culture and society when it comes to eating.
I have recently completed In Defense of Food (and only just started Omnivore's Dilemma). There was one thing that jumped out to me beyond the general advice on how to eat healthy. Which was: eat—enjoy eating—eat for pleasure. The idea that food should be delicious and pleasurable balks at a national consciousness that still holds a Puritanical definition of gluttony. We fuel ourselves like we fuel our cars; if we are responsible, we take into account chemical composition and environmental impact.
Turns out, when you strip away culture and flavor and tradition you aren't left with food at all. Our culture has experts and scientists telling us what to eat. No other culture in history needed that. They knew what to eat because their parents knew. Michael Pollan dwells a lot on this idea. Culture and tradition are important to health. So are family and connecting to food beyond items in a grocery store.
But the immediate take away lesson for me was pleasure. Americans have a hard time eating less. Each new "super food" is simply added to the diet without removing something else. But there is something everyone can do the next time, and every time, they eat. Enjoy yourself. Make something you love. [OK, learning curve here, but when you start to see cooking as a vehicle for the pleasure of eating it's less odious to take the time to learn a few new skills.] Sit down at a table with a few friends and a bottle of something else you love. And enjoy.
It turns out, the more you savor your food the less of it you eat before you start to feel full. And if you plan on savoring food, you aren't like to buy something that becomes inedible if not eaten in the first thirty seconds (I'm looking at you, McDonald's fries). Diets are something we dread. Eating for pleasure becomes an adventure, takes the fear out of eating.
It is all we need to be healthy? No. But it's a start. And it may be the most fun you ever have with a diet.
I have recently completed In Defense of Food (and only just started Omnivore's Dilemma). There was one thing that jumped out to me beyond the general advice on how to eat healthy. Which was: eat—enjoy eating—eat for pleasure. The idea that food should be delicious and pleasurable balks at a national consciousness that still holds a Puritanical definition of gluttony. We fuel ourselves like we fuel our cars; if we are responsible, we take into account chemical composition and environmental impact.
Turns out, when you strip away culture and flavor and tradition you aren't left with food at all. Our culture has experts and scientists telling us what to eat. No other culture in history needed that. They knew what to eat because their parents knew. Michael Pollan dwells a lot on this idea. Culture and tradition are important to health. So are family and connecting to food beyond items in a grocery store.
But the immediate take away lesson for me was pleasure. Americans have a hard time eating less. Each new "super food" is simply added to the diet without removing something else. But there is something everyone can do the next time, and every time, they eat. Enjoy yourself. Make something you love. [OK, learning curve here, but when you start to see cooking as a vehicle for the pleasure of eating it's less odious to take the time to learn a few new skills.] Sit down at a table with a few friends and a bottle of something else you love. And enjoy.
It turns out, the more you savor your food the less of it you eat before you start to feel full. And if you plan on savoring food, you aren't like to buy something that becomes inedible if not eaten in the first thirty seconds (I'm looking at you, McDonald's fries). Diets are something we dread. Eating for pleasure becomes an adventure, takes the fear out of eating.
It is all we need to be healthy? No. But it's a start. And it may be the most fun you ever have with a diet.
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