I am thinking that eating

is an artform.

From the way I think about the food I am eating,

to how it looks,

to how it is grown,

to where it comes from,

to who grew it,

to how it is packaged,

all of this navigating becomes an artform.

How do I get all the nutrients my body needs?

The more I can create a pallet of beautiful colors

with all the fresh vegetables and fruits I eat,

the better I will feel from all the amazing nutrients,

and the more enjoyable the eating ritual

will be.

Also, I have been pondering that when

I do prepare food for myself, my family, friends,

when I’m coming from a happy, peaceful and calm place,

my food will transmit that peace, calm and beauty when it

is presented, served and eaten.

How wonderful to know that the food I eat is alive

and fills me up with nutrients and beauty and contributes

to my health, my peace of mind, and supports the

local food system and economy.

It is making more and more sense to me that

locally grown food is best for eating because of

freshness, sustainably grown food,

and thus the

environmental impact because of minimal

transport and fossil fuel useage,

support of the small family farm,

and keeping the local economy going.

The beauty and artform continues as I eat more

plant food so fresh, green and bright,

food lower on the food chain more often

than not

to keep my body happy and healthy.

Michael Pollan author of In Defense of Food and The Omnivore’s Dilemma,

writes in his blog

about how to eat healthy without obsessing about nutritional content

guidelines that I find extremely helpful and pertinent:

I try to distill this cultural wisdom into a series of eating algorithms–mental tools for navigating the food landscape and eating well. Instead of talking about how to get your antioxidants or probiotics, my rules of thumb go more like this:

1. Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.
2. Avoid food products with more than five ingredients; with ingredients you can’t pronounce.
3. Don’t eat anything that won’t eventually rot.
4. Shop the perimeter of the supermarket, where the food is least processed.
5. Avoid food products that make health claims.
6. Eat meals and eat them only at tables. (And no, a desk is not a table.)
7. Eat only until you’re 4/5 full. (An ancient Japanese injunction.)
8. Pay more, eat less.
9. Diversify your diet and eat wild foods when you can.
10. Eat slowly, with other people whenever possible, and always with pleasure.

There are more, but this should give you some idea of how I approach the question of what and how to eat.

Since publishing the book last month, I’ve collected several more useful rules of thumb from readers and people I’ve met on my book tour. For example, someone told me her grandmother used to say, “The whiter the bread, the sooner you’ll be dead.” Another reader wrote that her grandfather used to say, at every meal, “I always like to leave the table a little bit hungry.” This cultural rule against eating until stuffed seems to be widespread. Muslims have told me that the prophet Muhammad addressed the issue of appetite by advising we should supply the stomach one-third with food, one-third with drink, and leave one-third for “easy breathing.”

A couple of others I’ve collected:

“If it arrives through the car window, it isn’t food.”
“Eat all the junk food you want–as long as you cook it yourself.”

Makes a lot of sense yes?

And how simple!

My grandma definitely said, ‘the whiter the bread, the sooner your dead’ and

‘an apple a day keeps the doctor away.’

And I know I have been listening to what my

body wants me to eat for the last 25 years,

which is organic food.

The results are I feel great almost daily.

Local organic farmer and acquaintance, Jack Hedin,

has had a tough time trying to accommodate

the demand for local fresh fruits and vegetables

on his 100 acre farm. In a New York Times

Op-Ed article he wrote on March 1st, Hedin

details how in attempting to rent 25 acres of land

on two nearby corn fields, after planting watermelons,

tomatoes, and veggies for natural food stores.

The farms didn’t get their subsidies because the Farm

Service Administration, the Agriculture Department

branch that runs farm commodities forbids farmers who usually

grow corn, soybeans, wheat, rice or cotton, from trying vegetables

and fruit on that land.

So the farmers didn’t get their subsidy and they were penalized the

market value of the crops grown on the land.

Jack had to pay an extra

$8700 for that season to cover the penalties these farmers incurred.

So, it appears another obstacle exists for the

small local farmer to grow organic fresh vegetables.

What a bummer when the fact is small farms are providing

a huge resource for the people on a grassroots level

in the US! Small farms are truly feeding the people

healthy food.

And they must continue to be able to do so

without the interference from corporate farms and their

lobbyists (huge organic farms in California,

Florida and Texas)

or the US Department of Agriculture.

I don’t mean to get gloomy and doomy here,

but the reality is that the people want fresh produce.

This demand is ever increasing.

We love the artform of eating beautiful

and locally grown food.

We love knowing we are contributing to

the sustainability of our local farmers,

the economy and

the environment.

We want to do good, feel good, and be good.

Let’s all grow gardens whenever possible

or become members of community supported

agriculture CSA farms or regular patrons

of farmers markets or stores like Hope’s Harvest

that carry locally produced foods, and may

we

pay attention

and participate in any legislation

that promotes the small organic farmer

being able to grow fruits and vegetables

on any land them deem farm-able!