About a year ago: I was just entering the third trimester of my pregnancy, reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle like religious text, and coming up with plans for gardening and local eating for the year to come.This year: I have a nine-month old daughter, just finished reading Nina Planck's Real Food: What to Eat and Why, and have given myself unabashedly to whole milk, eggs, and fish, a food I've shunned for all of my 28 years.
My relationship with food has evolved slowly, and is still evolving. But reading Real Food was quite eye opening. Planck's argument for eating traditional foods prepared in traditional ways was convincing to the point that I felt a twinge of guilt in my grocery purchases this week. I opted for whole organic milk (that is ultrapasteurized, which sanitizes the good stuff out -- go figure) and eggs, but ended up with beef from a cow that probably spent its entire life indoors. I figure it's one step at a time.
Again this year, we're planning a garden. A small one consisting of tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, and herbs. Nothing spectacular, but enough that we can wander outside for fresh food. We're also seriously considering purchasing a side of beef from a local cattle company whose cows are grass fed and roam freely.
Don't get me wrong -- I like naughty foods as much as the next person. But I prefer that be the exception rather than the rule. The rule for me is good food, old food, traditional food, and a balanced diet. For me, for my daughter, and for my husband, who gets the luxury of eating whatever he wants ever third day at work. Lucky guy, huh?
2 comments:
Oh, I need to check those books out.
omar just finished planck's book, and while he was most definitely supportive of our food changes a couple of years back after i first read the book, he is now very vocal about his belief in all things "whole," fish, even fish oil (!), and eating more greens.
such a good book.
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