Foodist Page 29

  We all have a set of personal values that we use to define our relationship with the rest of the world and guide our behavior. Unfortunately, there is so little transparency in our modern food chain that we rarely see how our eating habits align with those values. Almost everyone can find reasons to transcend their personal health goals and care more about their food choices, however. By digging a little deeper and further educating ourselves about where our food comes from and how it is produced, we can start to see what we eat as more than something that makes us fat or skinny, healthy or unhealthy. We learn that our food choices have a powerful impact on the world and help define our community and our character. Whether we connect what we eat with food safety, environmental sustainability, religious beliefs, national security, local food economies, culinary artistry, or simple enjoyment, embracing a broader philosophy about the way we eat helps make our food choices more clear, easier to maintain, and ultimately more rewarding.

  REMEMBER THE ELEPHANT

  Research shows that value-based motivators are more effective for changing people’s behavior than health-based ones. In 2010, scientists at Stanford published a study comparing the eating habits of students in four different food-related upper-division biology courses. Three of the courses focused on health, emphasizing the impact of dietary choices on health outcomes, while the experimental “Food and Society” class focused on food-related social issues, but not health. At the end of the semester, only the students in the Food and Society class showed a marked increase in the amount of vegetables and fruits consumed and a decrease in less healthy foods. Ironically, the students in the health courses showed a significant decrease in vegetable consumption over the course of the study. The students in the Food and Society course also reported feeling more strongly about the importance of the environment, animal rights, and a healthful diet, indicating that their new beliefs may have influenced their behavior.1

  We’ve already discussed how trying to use willpower day in and day out in order to eat better, exercise more, and lose weight is ineffective. This is largely because the goals of health and weight loss are too abstract and distant to substantially sway your immediate, hedonistic desires. The elephant in your brain is too lazy, and the rider trying to guide it is too weak. However, your elephant will respond to loftier, value-based goals, and these can be some of your most powerful sources of motivation. By educating yourself more on the issues surrounding food, you can fuel your elephant’s determination to take the high road and keep the noble course. You might even lose some weight in the process.

  FOOD IS NONDENOMINATIONAL

  One of the best things about the food movement is that, regardless of your political or spiritual leanings, you can almost certainly find something to get excited about. Food is a relatively nondenominational topic that supports values that range across the political spectrum. Love furry animals and considering going vegetarian? Read up on industrial meat production and the differences between it and humane, sustainable farming. Farmer Joel Salatin’s excellent book Folks, This Ain’t Normal is a great place to start.2 Worried your family may be exposed to food-safety hazards like those half billion Salmonella-tainted eggs recalled in 2010? Learn about the problems with having a centralized food system dominated by industrial food and how supporting smaller, regional farmers can help diversify and strengthen our resources. Books like Poisoned, by Jeff Benedict, can help you get the ball rolling.3

  Choosing foods from smaller, local farms supports regional economies, bolsters small business, and creates more competition, ideals that strongly align with traditional conservative values. Industrial farmers also receive massive government subsidies to overproduce commodity crops like corn, wheat, soybeans, and rice, a practice that is directly responsible for the market flood of cheap junk food. If you don’t like the idea of your tax dollars going to fuel this kind of corporate welfare, read up on the Farm Bill and how voting with your fork can impact government policy. For a more liberal perspective, dig into the vast amounts of literature on how agriculture and food production are as bad (or worse) for our environment than even the transportation industry, and how biodynamic and sustainable agriculture practices can reverse this devastating trend. Read books like Barry Estabrook’s Tomatoland to get a glimpse of the atrocious living and working conditions of industrial farm workers, which have been likened to modern-day slavery.4 You’ll also learn that the (lack of) taste of industrially grown produce isn’t simply collateral damage caused by modern agriculture, but that powerful farming interests intentionally suppress the production of tastier tomato varieties in favor of cheaper production and transport.

  Politics aside, all of us should be concerned about the proliferation of “superbugs” such as MRSA, new strains of bacteria that are resistant to multiple kinds of antibiotics. Antibiotic drugs are arguably the most important tools we have in containing disease and infection, and as they become less effective, the potential damage to human life and society is immeasurable. About 80 percent of the antibiotics used in the United States go to livestock, most of which is added to their feed and water to promote growth while enabling them to be raised in high-density conditions. Overuse of drugs in this capacity creates selective evolutionary pressure for the development of antibiotic resistance, which has been shown to be directly responsible for the emergence of human strains of superbugs.5 Antibiotic resistance on farms also increases the risk of deadly food poisoning outbreaks that may be resistant to traditional drugs. Though the FDA is taking steps to limit the use of antibiotics in livestock production, choosing organic and pasture-raised meat products supports responsible farming practices and limits your risk of exposure to antibiotic-resistant E. coli.

  At a more personal level, cooking and eating real food is fundamental to our most basic human needs and desires, and this gives it tremendous value in its own right. As the late food writer M. F. K. Fisher says in the foreword to The Art of Eating, “It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others.”6 Although better health for yourself and your family is certainly an important reason for paying more attention to the foods you eat together, the value it brings to your home extends far beyond your BMI and cholesterol levels. Cooking and eating together with family and friends strengthens our relationships with the people who matter most to us. Meals are a time for sharing, learning, and laughing, and as we move away from real food toward processed, manufactured products we lose much of the closeness that cooking and eating together creates. Embracing a tradition of food and cooking serves to build lifelong memories and enrich the time you spend with those you love.

  Focusing on food builds ties beyond the family as well. There is something innately comforting about knowing the people who grow (not manufacture) your food. People who care about what they produce delight in sharing their passion. Simply asking a farmer or butcher “What’s good today?” will lead to tales about the farm, the weather, and the intricacies of seed selection and pest control. Those stories bind you to your food, your farmer, and your community. If you’ve spent most of your life without these things, as the majority of us have, they may not seem very important. But historically these relationships are the backbone of our culture and the root of our identity, and restoring them is an important step in healing our bodies and food system.

  These community relationships are also more powerful than you might expect in helping you achieve your healthstyle goals. When I think about how hard these farmers work to grow their beautiful produce and trek it to market before the sun comes up every Saturday, part of me can’t help but feel obliged to support them in any way I can. What that means is I’m willing to pay more for a peach if I know it’s the best one at the market, I’ll try a new vegetable because I trust my farmer’s dedication to delicious food, and I’ll haul myself out of bed on a cold, rainy Saturday just to support the farmers and let them know I’m more than just a
fair-weather shopper. In other words, I eat better because I care about them. Although building these deeper relationships isn’t necessary for eating well, they give more meaning to the food decisions you make and provide the sort of subtle psychological rewards that strengthen habits and make it easier to fulfill your goals.

  Food is also a gateway into new cultures. Traditional cuisines reflect the climate, resources, values, and spirit of different communities around the world. One of my favorite things to do before visiting another country is to buy a cookbook of the area’s traditional cuisine and familiarize myself with a few of the signature ingredients and dishes. I do this so that when I get there, I know what to order and can appreciate the cuisine and culture at a deeper level than I could have by ordering at random (though this can be fun too). Having the cookbook also gives me a way to transport myself back there whenever memories and nostalgia get the better of me. I consider it a bonus that traditional cultures are based on real food and are therefore (mostly) good for me.

  The topics I’ve outlined here are just the tip of the iceberg for issues that show us how food contributes to more than just the perkiness of our backsides. Start down the rabbit hole and you may come out a different person, and this is probably a good thing. Understanding the world better makes us more responsible citizens, and if it helps you develop values that trickle onto your dinner plate, it’s a double win. Your healthstyle will practically upgrade itself.

  If you still aren’t quite sure where to start, try renting a copy of the documentary Food, Inc. It’s entertaining and educational and does a good job of covering some of the most pressing food issues. My only recommendation would be to not have a plate of industrial food in front of you when you turn it on. I saw the film when it was first released at a local theater, and the girl eating a hotdog in the seat next to me nearly lost her cookies when she saw what goes into making industrial meat. The film isn’t gory, but it will certainly make you wonder where your dinner has been before it found its way to your plate. If, like me, you’re more of a book person, Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma is one of the most well-written and educational books on modern food I’ve ever encountered.7

  FOODIST OR ELITIST?

  But isn’t all this talk about fancy food and small farms just elitist San Francisco drivel? Isn’t organic produce a luxury only the upper middle class can indulge in, like private schools and hybrid cars? The food movement has been attacked from every side, but the accusation of elitism is the one that tends to stick. It’s easy to understand why. At the grocery store organic food certainly sports a higher price tag than conventional food, and not everyone has access to farmers markets year-round. Cooking takes time, as does educating yourself about global food-supply issues. These are very real concerns, and in no way is this book intended as a judgment on those who don’t have the means or access to these luxuries.

  The reality, however, is that the industrial food chain is making people very sick. Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation,8 sums it up nicely in an editorial he penned for the Washington Post in 2011. In reference to the exotic ingredients and expensive meals championed by prominent foodies he writes, “Those things may be irritating. But they generally don’t sicken or kill people. And our current industrial food system does.”9 We all have a stake in making our food safer and healthier for ourselves and our children, but change can only occur if those of us who do have the time and willingness to think about these things actually do something about it.

  The food system in the United States is dominated by politics and a handful of corporations* that have a very strong interest in maintaining the status quo. These forces work to artificially deflate the price of industrial food with large government subsidies, while artificially inflating the price of smaller-scale food production with incongruent safety regulations.10 The apparent elitism of high-priced, difficult to attain, organic grass-fed beef, for example, is really an artifact of a system that favors industrial food production over smaller, family-run farms. In countries where such policies do not exist (e.g., most of Europe), real food is considered normal, not elitist.

  Modern agriculture has accomplished some amazing feats, and the goal is not to disregard these and move backward to a nonexistent era of pastoral bliss. There are still plenty of challenges to making sustainable, organic farming a viable option for feeding the nation, but our country has never been short on innovation. A new generation of young, enthusiastic farmers is pioneering new technologies and farming practices that make better food more affordable and easier to attain. It’s really exciting to see, and I think future generations of foodists will look back at this time as the Renaissance of real food and sustainable agriculture.

  Farmers markets and Whole Foods aren’t in everyone’s budget, but that doesn’t mean that we should turn our backs on real food. As Eric Schlosser goes on to explain in his Washington Post piece, “The wealthy will always eat well. It’s the poor and working people who need a new, sustainable food system more than anyone else. They live in the most polluted neighborhoods. They are exposed to the worst toxic chemicals on the job. They are sold the unhealthiest foods and can least afford the medical problems that result.” The popularizing of the food movement will inevitably lead to some extravagance—we all love to fantasize about once-in-a-lifetime, decadent meals. But it also raises awareness of the sometimes life-or-death issues that come with food production, which helps consumers make more informed choices and sways voters and politicians* to build a system that supports healthier food for everyone.

  LIFE SHOULD BE AWESOME

  At the end of the day, and at the end of your life, the reasons you choose for eating well really don’t matter. The results are all that count. Choosing real food over edible products puts you on a path toward better health, a slimmer body, and a richer, more fulfilling life than any dieter could dream of. You’ll protect yourself and your family from the most common chronic diseases of our time, so you can live out your days active and involved in the world. Sacrifice and willpower will be eliminated from your weight-loss tool kit and be replaced by delicious food and mindfulness, enabling you to savor everything worth eating. Your weight will settle at a new set point, where you can maintain it comfortably, without stress.

  It’s not an easy journey, but upgrading your healthstyle isn’t particularly difficult either. By far the hardest part is getting started, breaking free from the clutches of habit that have you convinced that buying vegetables, cooking dinner, or walking that extra flight of stairs is impossibly difficult, habits that make you think you need superhuman strength of will and resolve to stop eating from the candy jar at the office. Your habits, in other words, are the only things holding you back from taking the first step toward your new life and new body.

  Habits make change difficult, but they (and therefore the difficulty) only exist in your mind. You now have a blueprint for rescripting old habits, so that your daily routines work for you instead of against you. You know how to turn healthy eating from a punishment into something you adore. You know how to recognize when less is more and how to optimize your food choices for health and pleasure. You know how to eat like a foodist.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Foodist would still be a twinkle in my eye if it weren’t for all the amazing people who have supported me throughout my career. First and foremost I’d like to thank my readers, whose endless feedback and encouragement have helped me refine my ideas and turn Summer Tomato into the tremendous resource it has become. I am constantly amazed by the high level of thought, dialogue, and compassion you have shown to one another and to me, and this book would not exist without you. Thank you deeply.

  Special thanks to Patrick Birke, Cheryl-Ann Roberge, Kevin Systrom, Shayne Sweeney, Adam Gazzaley, and Michael Dempsey for allowing me to share your stories. You are inspirations to us all.

  No individual has provided more physical and emotional support than my amazing husband, Kevin Rose. Thank you, love, for giving me the
ability to follow my dreams, and for always knowing when I need help with dinner or a trip to a warm beach. I also need to thank our adorable labradoodle, Toaster, for making sure that no matter how much work needs to be done, there’s always time to go for a walk.

  I’m still astounded that my agent, Lisa DiMona, was courting me to represent this book, instead of the other way around. Lisa, you’re a total rockstar. Thank you for believing in me before I had a fancy endorsement from TIME. I’ll never forget that.

  Huge thanks to the entire team at HarperOne, especially Mark Tauber and my editor, Gideon Weil. Somehow I doubt publishing is always this easy, but you guys made it feel like a summer breeze. Thank you for understanding my vision from the beginning and for helping me see it through. I am incredibly grateful for all your wisdom and support. Thanks also to Suzanne Quist and Babette Dunkelgrun for your tremendous help and enthusiasm.

  Thank you, Sam Wilson, for your encouragement, vigilant editing, and the Twin Peaks soundtrack that got me through this book. You were the first to explain to me the difference between a good sentence and a crappy one, and for that I’m eternally grateful.

  I am incredibly fortunate to have a dream team of friends and mentors who have been willing to donate their time and wisdom to helping a youngling find her way in the big world of publishing. I’d especially like to thank Michael Pollan for encouraging me to “just start writing,” when starting a new career felt even scarier than continuing an unsatisfying one.