Wednesday, September 3, 2008

in defense of food...

I'm getting pretty serious about my health. After reading Fast Food Nation and becoming more active, getting healthy seems to consume a lot of my thoughts (hopefully not to a point that is mentally unhealthy). Last night, I skimmed through some of Twinkie Deconstructed, which breaks down all of the ingredients (chemicals) in most processed foods. It was enough to gross me out, but the scientific processes started boring me a bit.

I also picked up In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan (Michael J. Fox's brother-in-law) at the library. Talk about an even further wake-up call. The premise of the book hinges on these seven words - "Eat food. Not so much. Mostly plants."

Seems easy enough! But what a lot of people miss is that most of the stuff available to buy at a grocery store is NOT food. It is chemicals and nutrients formulated into an edible foodlike substance. These things were never intended for human consumption.

I'll get off my soapbox now. I just wanted to share with you things I'm finding out for the first time in my life (that may be common sense to you already).

1 comment:

Josh said...

Yeah, I'm getting sucked into Fast Food nation pretty fast and it is certainly eye opening.

More along the lines of the power and influence of corporations, at least so far.

Still I'm glad you've forced me to read it.