I've been reading a lot of Micheal Pollan lately ...

Our desires to change and be changed live happily in the kitchen. There we find a palette of pleasures with which we can paint the most whimsical gratifications to our specific tastes and needs. What is significant about the relationship between cooking and human nature is that as we desire pleasure we also require balanced nourishment. A two way street flanked by billboards imploring you to make the right decision.

Voltaire said that, “Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.” Often when eating and cooking are not chief interests in a person’s life, the “task” of feeding oneself can be burdensome and inconvenient. This has led us toward the increasingly processed and faster food diet that has become ubiquitous across our country, which is now known as the Western diet: High fat, high sugar, high carb, high gratification. The comfort foods of old, based on traditional, hand-made links to our heritage and history, have been replaced by the products of a thirty-two-billion-dollar food-marketing machine. The prosperity we’ve enjoyed since the end of WWII has instigate the decadent society we’re rapidly becoming (faster than ever).

In “In Defense of Food,” Michael Pollan tells us that “today in America the culture of food is changing more than once a generation, which is historically unprecedented….” This disconnect between historical foodways and modern eating habits has led us down a path laid with filet-o-fish sandwiches (instead of catfish po’boys), chocolate chip granola bars (instead of whole grains), and factory processed chicken “sausage” (instead of fresh roasted chicken). We have lost our way. The road signs are pointing in too many directions at once, which leaves one in a state of panic. With the multitude of choice out there, we forget to trust our instincts. The “paradox of choice” is true and alive in our national eating habits.

This is the part I’m most concerned about. Sure there are the related issues of dubious food marketing and imitation-food products masquerading as nutritional wunderkinds, but the choice to eat what we eat is still an internal process of our own psyche. The act of choosing to east ten big macs a week is still the choice that you made, not the choice of some evil processed food supplier out there in the ether of American commodities commerce. It is you and your neighbor who are choosing not to go to the farmer’s market and instead depend on the supermarket to provide you with wax covered, pesticide ridden vegetables. But how are we supposed to make the decision with all the conflicting information out there? It’s a complicated answer to nail down.

True, we are constantly bombarded by media and advertising telling us to eat this and not eat that (which is why Michael Pollan HAD to write a book defending the simple act of eating food) but every person who saddles up to a booth in their local fast food hamburger joint is compelled by the comforting notion of beef, cheese, and fried starch. This process of indulgence turned instant gratification releases so many endorphins into our brain that we stand little chance of denying our desire for the resulting feelings of satiation and comfort. Eating like this is an addiction. Making the right decision is a secondary consideration to the convenience of such a gratifying consumer experience.

So we have to move past our indulgent desire for instant gratification and strive for something more responsible. Beyond the environmental, social, and economic reasons to eat locally and organically, there is the most immediate concern that affects all of us: our health. The personal responsibility to respect our bodies and balance the indulgence with sensible, healthy food choices is the first step toward repairing the damage. Michael Pollan and Marion Nestle have both distilled the numerous adages and “rules to eat by” into three simple phrases: EAT FOOD. NOT TOO MUCH. MOSTLY VEGETABLES.

Words to live by, and eat by.