Food for Thought

I'm making my way through Michael Pollan's Book In Defense of Food and came across an interesting footnote that I thought fit in with the title of this website. From the study "Why Have Americans Become More Obese?" by David M. Cutler:

In 1995 Americans spent twenty-seven minutes preparing meals and four minutes cleaning up after them; in 1965 the figure was forty-four minutes of preparation and twenty-one minutes of clean-up. Total time spent eating has dropped from sixty-nine minutes to sixty-five, all of which suggests a trend toward prepackaged meals.

Another point made on the same page, but not from this study, is that Americans spend 9.9% of their income on food. Italians and French spend 14.9%, while Spanish spend 17.1%. Interesting...

Food, Inc.

I needed a bit of a break from all the elaborate cooking from last weekend, so last night was a very uninteresting leftovers night. But, I haven't had a chance to write about the documentary Peter and I rented last weekend - Food, Inc. It's nominated for an Oscar, and I don't think Blockbuster has that many copies to begin with, so it took me a little while to get my hands on it...but it was worth it.

This movie will totally make you think differently about how you eat, and what you buy at the grocery store. It shows how big meat companies treat the farmers that are contracted to grow livestock for them, and how those farmers treat their animals. It also shows how animals have changed over the years in order to get the most profit out of them, both through genetic engineering, and through how they are fed and unnecessarily medicated with antibiotics. One of the most disgusting things I saw in the movie was a big box of hamburger filler treated with ammonia to kill e.coli bacteria...and they say this filler is put into 70% of hamburger meat in the U.S.

I buy all of my meat from Whole Foods. They have signs at their butcher counter pointing out that their cows are grass-fed and that all their meat is antibiotic free. They have more information online about how each specific animal is fed and treated. I know Whole Foods is also a big corporation, and I've read a lot of debate online about how truthful their claims are, whether their beef is 100% grass fed or grain fed and "grass finished", but I know it's better than buying meat filled with ammonia and antibiotics from the regular grocery store.

I also want to read one of Michael Pollan's books. He was on Oprah a couple weeks ago, talking about his newest book Food Rules. He talks about eating real food, like meat, fish, whole grains, and things that grow in the ground. He also says not to eat things with ingredients that a 3rd grader couldn't pronounce.

Food, Inc. also points out that the CDC estimates 1 in 3 Americans born after 2000 will have early onset diabetes. That is CRAZY! Anyway...check out this documentary, it's really eye-opening!