Healthful and Homemade

It's bizarre that the produce manager is more important to my children's health than the pediatrician. ~Meryl Streep

I do a lot of reading on nutrition. I typically always have a non-fiction book on the nightstand, and it's invariably about nutrition: human or pet. Recently, I've been reading what I've found to be the most (apparently) honest and unbiased book I've found on human nutrition ... though to call it a book about "nutrition" may be a misnomer. What it's really about is food ... and IMHO there is a vast difference between food and nutrition.

The book is called "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan and it's fantastic. He's written about how we get our food and what goes into getting our food. He covers corn (which is involved in nearly everything we eat), CAFO's (Confined Animal Feeding Operations aka feedlots), REAL grass fed/cage free animals (he featured a place called Polyface Farms, and I am in awe of their system and wished I lived in Virginia) and lastly, he covered hunting and gathering.

What was most interesting about this book was two-fold.

1. He's not a rabid anything. Most books I read on food and nutrition have an agenda that is clear and they beat you over the head with it. He's not anti-any kind of food (i.e. no "carbs are bad" or "meat is evil") and appears to have gone into the research of this book with a fairly open mind.

2. He was hands on (or as hands-on as he could be -- the CAFO's wouldn't let him onto the killing floor) during each segment of the book. He worked with a corn farmer, bought a calf to observe as it made its way through a CAFO, worked on Polyface Farms (up to and including slaughter) and hunted and gathered. He was quite open about his observations, even when they may have been less than flattering about himself.

The point of all this gabbing on my part is this: I've decided to embark on a year of living healthfully and as locally as possible. I've decided to try to eliminate as many processed foods as I can (and, as a result, eliminate as much hidden corn from my diet as possible) and learn how to make my own homemade versions of what I can. I'd like to share some of the nutritional tidbits I've learned and share with you my experiments (both failures and successes -- I've already had both) and I'll be sharing the book I've been discussing with some lucky people in a giveaway. I'm not sure how I'll give it away, or how often yet ... it's all still forming in my brain.

But, I've started a new blog for this, Healthful & Homemade, and I'd love for you to visit. The postings probably won't be daily, but they'll be regular (you might want to "follow" it so you don't have to check back unless there is something actually there) and I'll make it as entertaining and informative as I can.

Hope to see you there!

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What American accent do you have? Your Result: The West   Your accent is the lowest common denominator of American speech. Unless you're a SoCal surfer, no one thinks you have an accent. And really, you may not even be from the West at all, you could easily be from Florida or one of those big Southern cities like Dallas or Atlanta.
The Midland
Boston
North Central
The Inland North
Philadelphia
The South
The Northeast
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

I saw this on Maria Zannini's blog and had to try it. It pegged me!! Yes, I am from the west, California to be exact -- how did it know?

What about you?

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