Your Comments and Food Haikus (Guest Blogger: Michael Pollan)
Thanks for the many provocative posts this week, especially the thoughtful comments on the challenges of eating well when we’re feeling so stretched, both for time and money. Yes, there are people who can’t possibly invest any more time or money in their food, but before deciding that describes you, it’s well worth considering whether the issue is really resources or priorities. For many of us it turns out to be a matter of priorities.
A few readers offered some good rules of thumb. Thanks to Richard Demers for this one:
“The more packaging, the worse it is.” He explains: “Like the individually wrapped Biscotti, in a plastic tray, in a cardboard box with a plastic window, in a plastic grocery store bag.”
Richard also included the aphorism “Eating is an agricultural act,” which he acknowledges he “stole from somebody.” He guessed it was Carlo Petrini or Alice Waters, but in fact the line belongs to Wendell Berry, the Kentucky writer and farmer, who wrote a wonderful essay on the theme of this blog that I recommend to everyone interested in these issues. It’s called “The Pleasures of Eating,” and it appears in an anthology of his work called “What Are People For.” You can also find it on the web.
I wanted to share something I picked up in Portland last week, while on book tour. Before speaking at an event at the Bagdad Theater, sponsored by Powell’s bookstore, the audience was handed index cards and asked to compose a food haiku in the style of the one printed on the cover of In Defense of Food: “Eat food. Not too Much. Mostly Plants.” For some reason, that particular form and rhythm seems to be especially sticky, and it has spawned many imitations. (One of my favorites was submitted to the New York Times website: "Ate the plants. A whole heap. Still hungry.") Anyway, the audience at the Bagdad came up with some particularly sweet ones. Here are a few of my favorites (more are on the website of the magazine Edible Portland:
Grow corn
Just for food
Not cars
Go home
Rip up lawn
Plant kale
Sweet beet
Dye my mouth
Winter red
Earl Butz
Liked his corn
In cups
Feedlots
Make our beef
Torture raised
Picking fruit
Low hanging plum
You're mine
To eat
What I grow
Is heaven
As you can see, they’re not true haiku. (Two words/three words/two words) But try one: there’s something about the form that really works.
Look forward to reading yours.
Bob Lock on February 26, 2008 at 03:11 PM
Chicken soup?
Don't like it
Tastes fowl
Fast food!
What, where, how?
Too slow...
Baked beans
Gives you winds
That's Bull
Long expired
sell by date
gippy tummy
Alphabetti spaghetti
says it all
just rearrange
Rebekah on February 26, 2008 at 03:32 PM
Mr. Michael Pollan:
I have recently read a part of your book The Omnivore’s Dilemma. I read it as a part of our health class; in which we have been learning about nutrition.
I found it interesting in your introduction when you said that we can eat almost everything that nature has for us but its deciding what to eat that many people have problems doing. I also agree that part of America’s problem with healthy eating is that we have accepted many different foods from different cultures.
We also have a problem with industrialization. You said in your book that we grow lots of corn and eventually that corn becomes everything else we eat from feeding our beef with it to adding corn syrup in a lot of our foods. I personally have never thought of it this way, we mostly just go to the supermarket and buy food without realizing what is put in our food or where it comes from. Due to the industrializing we have an overabundance of food and so we have a need to get rid of it, by as you said super sizing the serving size. Unfortunately this has led to Americans getting the wrong idea about serving portions. It seems that if we look at our plates we need to fill it up and pile lots of food on it. Not many people get enough exercise to burn those extra calories off.
I enjoyed reading your book, it made one think about the food they eat on a daily bases and where it comes from.
Sheri on February 27, 2008 at 07:47 AM
Healthy choices:
grasses plus grains =
live longer.
No brainer:
brown rice or
white rice?
Eat more
gluten to be
less gluttonous
John Spurlin on February 27, 2008 at 07:48 PM
Dear Michael Pollan:
I have read Second Nature, the Botany of Desire, and Omnivore's Dilemma, and am about to begin In Defense of Food. I am a huge fan of yours and have immensely enjoyed reading your books. However, I am very disappoinbted at the large number of typographical errors in Omnivore's Dilemma. I am amazed that a book with so many mistakes in it (more than I've ever seen in any other book) was allowed to be printed and put on the market. Your editors really dropped the ball. Indeed, if it were any other type of product it would have been considered defective been recalled and replaced with a corrected version. I am also asurprised that you, as a well known author with a reputation to protect, haven't addressed this problem in some way.
Michelle on February 28, 2008 at 03:36 AM
Slow down
Plant some fruit
Eat it
Fast food
Avoid like plague
Soylent green
Cook food
Eat with fork
At table
That was fun! I have am curious, where do you eat when on the road?
Carol Bell on February 28, 2008 at 06:37 AM
As far as new algorithims, how about: the less was done to grow the food, less inputs, the better it is.
Judith on February 28, 2008 at 09:56 AM
lives turn
seed to mouth
eating spirit
Risha on February 28, 2008 at 11:22 AM
Listen
Ex-er-cize
Eat Wise
Jen Wu on February 28, 2008 at 03:36 PM
Plants Mostly
Eat Food Too
Not Much
Jen Wu on February 28, 2008 at 04:20 PM
Believe it or not, I found the bit on mushrooms the most fascinating part of The Omnivore's Dilemma. Who knew that lunar energy may possibly be a part of the mushroom ramen you just had for lunch? Even if unproven or a mythological belief, it's fascinating.
I know - mushrooms are fun guys, not plants. (Udder cheesiness, but I'm really bored at work, so 'scuse me!) Both derive their form and mass from outer space, air, water, and molecules. I mean... that's amazing. Then you look at the things that eat the plants/fungi, which therefore combine them into even more complex arrangements, and on it goes until we eat it and it becomes part of our bodies.
So, let's take care of the little ones - the building blocks of everything else* - and be careful and respectful about what we force plants to eat. They build the form and mass of your body.
* The other bit of The Omnivore's Dilemma on the "grass farmer" is my next favorite part of the book.
Morgan on February 29, 2008 at 07:33 AM
I have just purchased In Defense of Food, and if it is anything like Botany of Desire and Omnivore's Dilemma, I know I will love it. You are very right (as far as the comments I have seen) about "Nutritionism". I am a PhD candidate in Nutritional Sciences, and soon I will have to take a 3-hour oral exam on the biochemistry of nutrition. However, I agree with you that we focus too much on the individual and invisible nutrients than the foods that contain them. Too often we try to justify eating bad foods by "fortifying" them with the vitamins and minerals we have just taken out through processing. It will be my goal as a researcher in Nutrition to put some sense into people...eat slowly, eat unprocessed, eat variety, and eat what makes the body feel good and work well. Thats all most people need to know about nutrition.
thevineyard on February 29, 2008 at 08:56 AM
For fun, a couple of haiku on the traditional format - 5, 7, 5 syllables
My youth shelling peas
Digging up new potatoes
In the soft moist earth
In fifty-nine years
I have never owned a car
But I am not poor
Richard Swearingen on February 29, 2008 at 09:08 AM
Can't wait to pick this book up...have to wait until I've finished with Omnivore's Delimma first though. Can only have so many books going at one time....halfway through both Omnivore and Schlosser's Reefer Madness right now, plus grad school...eep! Must resist temptation....
I really just wanted to post and say thank you so much for blogging on here...what a treat to find. Botany of Desire has remained one of my very favorite non-fiction reads for many years....such a RICH amount of fascinating information in such a beatiful package of writing. Thank you for that fine work!
Oh...and a haiku?
Wife's Grandma
Spry at ninety
Farm fed
eddie kaye on February 29, 2008 at 12:00 PM
Home grown
Flat tummy full
Conscience clear
zentrainer on February 29, 2008 at 09:14 PM
Lucky Yuppies
Eating so well
Poverty's hell.
Digestive system
in an uproar,
eat more?
Beans, beans,
the magical fruit...
wrong poem.
ms. ls. on March 01, 2008 at 10:18 PM
animal poop
sunlight and water
perfect soil
Okay, that's a pathetic attempt at a vegetable gardener's haiku...I've almost finished reading In Defense of Food (a week after reading The China Study). Both are great...I loved your discussion of Weston Price... the little that I previously knew about him, I found very intriguing (I do own his foundation's cookbook, Wise Traditions) but I wonder did you consider including Rudolph Steiner in your book? He also seems fascinating (early on made a strong connection between growing food and healthy soils)and I believe he is the founder of Biodynamic Farming (not to mention Waldorf education). Thanks for your contribution towards a healthier America.
Crystal on March 02, 2008 at 03:47 PM
Hey Michael Pollan,
In my health class, we read through some portions of your book the Omnivores Dilemma. I am really glad that we did because it really opened my eyes. I never before bothered to notice these problems in America. For some reason I had never before realized why healthy food is so expensive. I thought it was just for the quality. Now I realize that if people bought more healthy food it would be cheaper. Can’t believe I never saw that before. Also I really enjoyed the part about how there is so much corn and high fructose corn syrup in everything. My family and I went around and checked the labels in the hose and found it in almost everything. It disturbed me a little. Anyway, I am a lot more conscious of what I am eating nowadays. I would like to read more.
Tyler on March 02, 2008 at 04:39 PM
As a health class, we were to read some excerpts of your book on our national eating disorder. We read the introduction, and then chapters four and six. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, because I found it informing and some of the facts were pretty startling.
In the introduction, some things that caught my attention were that our eating habits change about every five years, we have experts tell us how to eat to better our lives, and then a few months later tell us something completely different. This always makes me wonder who I should listen too, and what I should follow. I also found it interesting that you said that the French and Italians, tend to eat more unhealthy foods than the typical American, but they tend to be healthier. You said this might be due to the fact that they stick to eating the same things, while Americans try all different kinds of foods. This may be true, but I am skeptical of this. I think it would have to do more of what is in the food. Our “American” food may have been tampered with, so on they outside they look healthier than the common French or Italian diet, but due to the things that happened to our food make them not as healthy. From the introduction, I came to a conclusion that we should just stick to having a balanced diet, with a moderation of everything. We need to have a fruits, veggies, meats, and breads, and we don’t need to follow these trendy diet plans.
For the fourth chapter, I was just totally amazed of all the work you did on that alone, it shows that you are extremely dedicated to your work, and I commend you for that. You followed that cow for nearly a year, and then you had to write all of that up and make a sense of that data. This chapter was an eye opener for me. I did not realize all the things that the cows go through, before they are slaughtered. Also I realized that not only is that bad for the cow, but it is bad for the consumer = me. What goes into the cow, must come back out, and not all of it comes out in the bi-product of their feces but it stays in them, and we eat that contaminated meat. Not only is their meat contaminated, but their waste can not be used as fertilizer, because it is too acidic for plant growth. So, we are killing ourselves, torturing cows, and not making use of their poo. I found it startling that the cows would not live much longer if we did not kill them for their meat. This all got me thinking. So, I looked for a solution. You said that “switching a cow’s diet from corn to grass or hay for a few days prior to slaughter reduces the population of E. coli in the animal’s guy by as much as 80%.” I found this stat amazing. All slaughterhouses should at least do this small measure in helping out our environment and health. But, I looked deeper; I thought that if we have all this surplus corn, why we keep produce it if it’s not a good food source for cows. We could instead use the space used to grow corn, and put cows there, and they could eat grass and hay there. This would make the cows healthier, and make the consumer “us” healthier.
Chapter six was a very interesting chapter to say the least. Most of the things in this chapter were review to me, but some things did stick out again. I found it really sad that one out of every five Americans is considered obese. That just is a stat that should not be; we need to take care of our bodies. We are only killing ourselves by it, and also being a bad example for the future generations. One thing that you said was that this might be the first generation in which they might not live to be older than their parents. With all the advances in technology and medical fields, this should not be. We should be living several years past what our parents did, not dying at an earlier age. You also said that Type II diabetes was normally considered adult onset diabetes, but this name no longer applies because it is now common for young people to develop this. What are we doing to ourselves?
I think that you really hit this topic of our nation’s eating disorder on the head. I only read a portion of your book, but from what I read it was commendable work. Your material seems to be from credible sources, and much of it was done through personal studies, which is also very commendable. Thank You for this awareness, and keep the good work up.
Sincerely,
Tyler Hostetter
Marissa on March 03, 2008 at 06:36 AM
Mr. Pollan:
I go to school at Tabernacle Christian Academy in Poughkeepsie, New York. I am a senior there and am taking a health class. My teacher, Mrs. Guadagno, has given us three excerpt from your book The Omnivorous Dilemma to read. We have read the introduction, chapter four, and chapter six. I have a few questions concerning them.
In the introduction there is a comment you make about a view of life. "Ecology also teaches that all life on earth can be viewed as a competition among species for the solar energy captured by green plants and stored in the form of complex carbon molecules." Does it really teach that or does it simply teach survival of the fittest.
I enjoyed reading chapter four, the feedlot. I think it is so interesting that you bought a cow to track how its life progresses. I thought it was so interesting how you talked about the natural process. It seems to make much more sense then the feedlot approach currently widely used. I wish it would be used by more cattle farmers.
In chapter six, The consumer, you talk about childhood diabetes. "The disease formerly known as adult-onset diabetes has had to be renamed Type II diabetes since it now occurs so frequently in children. A recent study in the Journal of American Medical Association predicts that a child born in 2000 has a one-in-three chance of developing diabetes." I don't believe that the children are to blame for this. A large part of healthy eating comes from how children are raised. I think it would have been interesting to see some information on how those children were taught to eat.
I enjoyed reading the excerpts we were given. It was enlightening and interesting to hear your thoughts and opinions on the global situation in our world due to "the omnivorous dilemma."
Sabriya on March 03, 2008 at 11:08 AM
I read portions of your book "The Omnivore's Dilemma" with my health class at my school and the issues you discussed have caused many interesting discussions in our class. I learned so many things that I had never even realized. For instance the things you wrote about the problems of obesity in America and its causes; I never knew that obesity was such a serious problem in America. Our weight is one of the few components of our health that we can control and the fact that we are completely neglecting it is shameful and we really need to do something about it. But its not just the consumer’s fault but also the industries that provide the food because of the way they make it. I never knew that they treated the animals so poorly and fed them things that they were never created to eat just so it can be cheaper, it's disgraceful. We would be doing ourselves a favor if we fought to make industries manufacture the food better, because it will not only be healthier for the animals but also for ourselves. I hope that you and your book will continue to grow in popularity, because it discusses such vital issues that unfortunately have become ignored.
cheri on March 07, 2008 at 07:12 PM
thanks and i want to learn, to soak it in, and despite of my peeers and family, become even more active
feed me!!!
Figge on November 09, 2008 at 02:10 PM
Nutritional Value
Facts or Fictions
Bought Opinions
Ingredient Listing
Smoke and Mirrors
Corporate Magicians