An Eater's Manifesto

I just read "In Defense of Food; an Eater's Manifesto" and it was a life-changer. I highly recommend reading this book to understand the impact your eating habits can have on the environment, your community, and on your health. This is a very fascinating read. I have adopted a modified version of Michael Pollan's rules to be our family's food manifesto. We have now been living by them for a week, and it feels good to be putting our food dollars in line with our values. The resulting meals have been memorable as you will see in upcoming posts. I am going to share our slightly modified version of the manifesto with you so that you can understand how we are deciding what to eat (and thereby what we blog about!). This list, while informative, is not an adequate substitute for reading the book itself. It is well worth your time.

1. Don't eat anything your great grandmother wouldn't recognize as food
2. Don't eat anything incapable of rotting
3. Avoid food products including ingredients that are unknown or unpronounceable
4. Stay away from high-fructose corn syrup
5. For the most part, avoid food products that make health claims on the package
6. Mostly shop the peripheries of the supermarket
7. Avoid the supermarket wherever possible...try farmers markets! It is best to get food from people you meet personally! As Michael Pollan says, "Shake the hand that feeds you!"
8. Eat mostly plants - to this end we have been including vegetables all over our meals from the arugula pesto on the lamb brats to the mix of veggies included in our panzenella.
   
9. Avoid industrial meats. Only get meat that you KNOW (a pretty farm on the package doesn't count) was raised humanely and ideally on pasture.
   
10. Shoot for gastronomic diversity. Pollan makes the good point that "the greater the diversity of the species you eat, the more likely you are to cover all of your nutritional bases."
11. Regard non-traditional foods with skepticism
    
12. It is worth paying more for better food. Fun fact I got from the book: Americans spend a smaller percentage of their income on food than any other industrialized society
13. Eat meals, at the table, in the company of others. When snacking, also try to make it a table moment. When you are eating, you should focus on eating...it should not be done as a time filler.
    
14. Listen to your gut - eat only when you are hungry and stop when you are full
    
15. Eat slowly. For more info on this, check out the slow food movement.
16. The manifesto is more about celebrating the great foods that you can eat than thinking about the restrictions.
    

HAPPY EATING!