The Silence of the Yams
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto 
on 01.29.07
Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
That is how Michael Pollan starts his wonderful article in the New York Times, that summarizes it all, the foodie version of the question put to Rabbi Hillel: "teach me everything while I am standing on one foot." He then goes on in true talmudic fashion to explain exactly what he means by "food" (stuff your great-grandmother would recognize, not any of the manufactured products filling our supermarket) "not too much" (how our diet has been distorted by too much of everything, that "the main features of the Western diet [are]: lots of meat and processed foods, lots of added fat and sugar, lots of everything — except fruits, vegetables and whole grains.) "Mostly Plants" - (we now eat a monoculture of grain and not enough green veggies.) He ends with a series of rules that all of us could live by without great sacrifice:
1) Eat food. (the great-grandmother kind). 2) Avoid food that makes health claims, Don't take the silence of the yams as a sign that they have nothing valuable to say about health. 3) Avoid foods with unpronounceable or unfamiliar ingredients, or any high fructose corn syrup. 4) get out of the supermarket. 5) Pay more, eat less. 6) eat leaves. 7) Eat like the French- enjoy your food, have small portions and don't snack. 8) cook. 9) Eat like an omnivore. Read the whole thing at ::New York Times
Follow @TreeHugger on Twitter & get our headlines with @TH_rss!
Thirsty for more? Check out these related articles:
- Is School Food Harming Kids? Enlist a Labor Day Eat-In To Promote Fresh, Healthy Food
- Raw Food for the Rest of Us
- What is the Cheapest and Greenest Way to Travel?
- Eat a Vegetarian Diet, Reduce Your Carbon Footprint by a Ton
- What is American Food? A Green Eating Manifesto
- Forget about Pills: Eat Away A Bad Mood!
Really great article and for those who don't want to read it, a brilliant 7 word summary.
Really great article and for those who don't want to read it, a brilliant 7 word summary.
Very good article in NYT. It is a little long, but well worth the read. And it clearly shows how eating healthy, which is the focus of the article, also means eating 'green'. How the concepts he espouse not only help your health but also those of local environments and the global environment.
Great article. Now I'm pondering what exactly they ate in eastern Canada in the late 1800s (I know the author didn't mean us to be quite that literal, but now I'm curious), as that's the food two of my great-grandmothers would have been familiar with, and pondering how to factor in a GFCF household. "Eat whole foods, mostly plants" is a lot easier to live with than "Eat nothing that wasn't grown within 100 miles of your house" though - at least this way I get to keep my coffee! I wonder, does Michael Pollan consider soymilk food, or a foodlike substance to be avoided?
This article is easily the most insightful articles I have ever read on the topics of health, diet, science, politics, and nutrition. I highly recommend that everyone read it, and print it out for others to read. It's that good.