Thoughts about Food

I just finished reading Michael Pollan's "In Defense of Food" and have found that, though it seemed impossible, I am thinking even more about food than ever before. 

I love food. I love it a lot. Increasingly so since moving into my first apartment in DC and beginning to cook house meals almost daily. Additionally, our proximity to Eastern Market at the NE Capitol Market makes shopping for food even more enjoyable, despite the fact that I continually feel I am the physical embodiment of a post from www.stuffwhitepeoplelike.com, (#5 - Farmer's Markets; #6 - Organic Foods; #48 - Whole Foods and Grocery Co-ops; #90 - Dinner Parties... and don't get me started on shit like #44 - Public Radio...).

Coincidentally, I had to go grocery shopping today, directly after having read and absorbed Pollan's prescriptions for eating food. One of his guidelines for shopping is - if and when you have to visit a grocery store - stick to the peripheries. It is on the edges of the store that most chains stock produce, dairy and meats -- things more likely than not to be Food (rather than processed food-like substances). Another quaint rule of thumb - don't buy things your great-grandma wouldn't recognize. So yeah, no slim jims or cheez whiz, or frozen taquitos. 

These rules work very well at helping you reach the aim of buying non-processed food goods, especially veggies. And for better or for worse, I've now become interested in the ingredients of things, which perhaps isn't quite what Pollan - who advocates the foregrounding of food experience versus foods-as-nutrients - is shooting for. 

These were things I was already interested in before, however, as a food lover (and someone who has the socioeconomic luxury of considering food in terms of enjoyment rather than basic life sustenance, let's be honest). My roommate aspires to be an organic farmer, a goal that looks more an more attractive to me as well, day by day. Since moving here, we've had many discussions about gardening, patronizing local farm stuffs and about the unfortunate disconnect we feel about what we put in our bodies and where it comes from. 

If you think about it - as Pollan invites us to - it's a little weird. To consume things without knowing how, where, when or by whom they are made. But it is a byproduct of our highly specialized society and culture - Wikipedia Culture - where all information is Google-able and therefore commodified. I don't know how to do a lot of things. Aside from general common sense, in which I rank about average, I don't have many survival skills - a fact that makes me more and more uncomfortable as I take on more responsibility. 

Unfortunately, the way we eat is very much tied up in our social class and this kept nagging at me while I read "In Defense," though Pollan is aware of it as well. He advises the reader to "be the type of person who takes supplements" but goes on to admit that that person is highly educated and most likely middle or upper class. I'm not sure what to do with this, its just one of a few ways the book oversimplifies or circumvents the way the mutation of our social fabric has changed our eating habits - dwelling more often instead on the popular notion of Fast Food Culture or the opposite side of the token, orthorexia nervosa. 

It is so disturbing that the simplest food production processes - growing crops, hunting animals - are now rarer, more difficult to come by and much more expensive. Also, considering the often unconfronted yet accepted truth that industrial producers willingly market products to the American public which contain little or no dietary value - or in many cases are actually harmful to people's health - is supremely disturbing.  Food consumption is just one of many cases of things that makes me ask myself why people can't or don't think for themselves (installment two coming soon: voting!). 

In the final chapter, Pollan compares our eating habits with the food culture of European countries, specifically the French in this case. The French and Italians are envied for their attitude toward food - their immense enjoyment of it, their food culture. Yet there is this attitude of Americans toward European food culture that it is still some sort of vacation from the norm. We Americans don't have time for hoity toity leisurely meals with our families. We're busy being the world's supplier of Little Debbies snacks... Oh wait...  Pollan points out that American families don't really sit down to Norman Rockwell-esque meals anymore - nostalgic language that immediately sent up a red flag in my mind. He completely ignores that part of the reason why families aren't eating together anymore is because now many women and mothers are working full time instead of devoting their afternoon and evenings to cooking dinner. There was something off about the portrait of the American family without recognizing this shift in the family dynamic that our culture as a whole hasn't dealt very well with as of yet. 

This portrait of American eating made me think of what my future family life would be like in terms of cooking and eating (contributing factor to this train of thought also being this Inside Higher Ed article today about women with advanced degrees). It make me hope that someday I find a partner who is like my roommate -- equal parts in love with food and concerned about these questions, and just as excited about our herb garden.