My Food Philosophy

I was at Whole Foods today (as I missed the Farmer’s Market due to a desire not to want to dredge through the rain and cold – is this really spring?) dodging people in the produce section when I had a strange realization. I probably spend about $50-$60 a week on groceries and eat out maybe once every other week or so. Considering how well I eat and the fact that I stubbornly buy everything organic, this is pretty good. On average, 80% of my budget is fresh produce, 10% is from the dairy case (eggs, milk, etc.), and 10% is from the meat or seafood counter. The baking aisle and bulk food section see me only when I manage to get through a bag of flour or lentils, but very rarely. As does the canned veggie aisle, which only sees me grabbing canned tomatoes and canned legumes.

This means that two-thirds of this supposed grocery store is useless to me. The shelves and shelves of processed food-like substances, prepackaged meats, frozen goods, baked goods, and prepared foods are useless to me.

Now compare this to the average market in Mexico. Everything is in raw form. Half the animals are still snorting or clucking. It’s bring your own basket and lug away 20 pounds of produce for $3. The only “prepared” food are the food stalls, where a little old lady makes food from scratch and most likely, her raw ingredients came from the market, or she is selling in baskets next to her little fire and pot.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about food. Michael Pollan and Brian Wansink are two of my favorite authors of late. In fact, Pollan cites Wansink multiple times in his book In Defense of Food, which I found to be a decent read. The Omnivore's Dilemma, however, was much better. It really drove home why I am so incredibly right (as I always am hahaha) in choosing to eat the way I do. I learned a lot more about getting sucked into the Whole Foods brainwashing as well (that is, the joy of shopping at Whole Foods Market which still is full of environmental and processed bombs). Mindless Eating makes a perfect companion as it focuses not on the industrial food complex, but rather the psychology of food. Of course, it leaves you feeling like you have no free will, and in many ways, we have been indoctrinated with "finish your plate, there are starving children in China" rhetoric. Our parents do not teach us to eat until we feel full or not hungry. They teach us that waste is bad and so you must eat everything so as not to waste it. No wonder why America is obese.

And of course, our society's reaction to all of this is much like the all or nothing of fad diets and eating disorders. You have raw food fanatics who won’t eat food cooked above certain temperatures. You have touchy feely vegans who don’t want to hurt anything and whine about it. You have environmentalists who will only eat locally and want to make as little of a footprint on the earth. You have organics freaks who cling to the word organic like its magic. You have nutritionists who grab up anything that is fortified with Omega-3 fatty acids, soy protein, and 500 vitamins.

I can clearly remember some of the big American all or nothing food eating disorders. My mother bought into all of them. I remember the no-fat purge. No-fat cheese that didn’t melt and tasted like plastic. The few times my mostly vegetarian parents served ground beef, it was cooked to well done, then hot water was run over it until it looked and tasted like the soy crumbles we normally ate. No-cal Pam and butter flavored sprinkles lined our cupboards. Popcorn was air-popped. I clearly remember the cabbage soup diet craze because my mother made a huge vat of it one night that I remember ending badly for some reason or another. I don’t really have fond memories of real actual food from growing up. I looked forward to holidays when Chex mix was a treat, or when my mother would let me make cookies. Or the insanely fatty and delicious corn soufflé which called for obscene amounts of egg and butter and creamed corn. Summers when I was old enough to make my own lunch after swim team were full of cans of chicken noodle soup a la Campbells or even better, Top Ramen. These were salty foreign tastes to me that I relished. I loved the rare times we went to Pizza Hut or Arby’s or ordered in Chinese food.

I would sneak off to my best friends’ houses to eat real ice cream, marshmallows, make sandwiches with Wonder bread, make layered bean dip, and eat full fat non-baked chips until my stomach hurt. Its no wonder I didn’t grow up obese. I was blessed with a fast metabolism until about college time when it began to catch up. Then instead of looking waifishly thin, I just looked like an average sized American. Maybe not an average sized Asian, but not fat, not skinny, just there.

These days, I feel really good. Healthy. Active. I probably exercise or stay active the same amount as most people watch TV on average. I cringe when I walk through the halls of my work at the food on the support staff's desks and in the break room where attorneys and secretaries alike ponder their vending machine breakfasts. My co-workers are shocked when I tell them that I bake my own bread and bring my lunch every day. They peer into my tupperwares with wonder ... maybe shock that I've managed to cobble together something more impressive than canned soup or pasta with jarred pasta sauce or a salad. I peer at their oatmeal packets, candy bars, chips, microwave meals, and McDonalds with the same wonder and shock. I watch them sprinkle Splenda on their out of season strawberries and grimace through their obvious displeasure at eating cottage cheese in the morning and gorging on free cookies in the afternoon.

I don’t think there is any one magical nutrient. Nor any one way to think about food. Nutrition is still very much an inexact science. No one can explain the French paradox of a butter and saturated fat laden diet that seems to produce healthier people than the so-called American diet. No one can explain why Mexican food, the majority of which is fried in lard and has enough spice to give the world heartburn, still promotes general good health in comparison to American food. Why can Italians eat carbs and drink wine until the sun rises and why can Greeks with their fat laden diets be healthier than Americans. Why do Asians live longer with fewer diseases with their rice filled food cultures?

All I know is that what Americans deem exotic ethnic cuisine provides a whole nutritional picture. Rice and beans creates a complete protein. Rich French cuisine satiates quickly which breeds moderation. Most cultures are vegetarian by poverty because meat is expensive. Most cultures do not rely on beef, but rather seafood, poultry, lamb, or goat, all of which are healthier and environmentally less harmful than beef. Goat milk is a staple in many countries because it is easier to digest. Rennet free cheese is easy to make and the staple cheese from Latin America all the way to India. Food from India, Southeast Asia, and Latin America are full of vibrant flavors from spices which eliminate the need for things like salt, fat and sugar to make things taste "good." Spices are satisfying, they satiate the brain. Sugar, the body reacts to sugar by craving more. The body can't tell the difference between sugars either, really. Stupid body.

My only rule is that if I can picture people in any other part of the world other than America eating it over 200 years ago, then I will eat it. None of this no-fat lets make everything taste like cardboard crap. None of this wholesale cutting out of any particular food, unless it is eliminating food-like substances that the grocery store tries to sell us in the form of microwave meals and breakfast cereals. Food should taste good. Food should be raised naturally. This means grass-fed beef, if any. No cows stuffed with corn or animal byproducts it was not meant to eat. No farm-raised fish stuffed with fish pellets. Sure, I’ll be conscious of what is sustainable and environmentally friendly – but I won’t let that dictate my diet because I think it is unrealistic and sometimes impossible to know exactly where and how food came to me. Whole Foods is a corporate machine, too. Local always wins. Seasonal, too. Mexico is a toss-up with California – remember, I can fly to Mexico in 3 hours. It takes nearly 6 hours to get to California.