Post 2: Prepare a Meal

Last Sunday, I prepared noodles with vegetables and soy sauce for my whole family. First, I wrote down all the vegetables and spices I wanted to use to prepare this meal: carrots, cabbage, broccoli, mushrooms, green chile, potatoes, snow peas, radishes, onions, garlic, ginger, black pepper, salt, oil, and soy sauce. Then I searched the cabinets and my refrigerator for all the ingredients and found that I was missing some vegetables I wanted to use, like radishes, snow peas and broccoli; therefore I took a trip to the nearby Woodman's and bought all that I needed and some unnecessary items.
Once I arrived home, I started cutting the vegetables into long and thin pieces after washing them well, and I realized that it takes a really long time to nicely cut vegetables. My mom always helped me cut when I made noodles in the past, but as I wanted to do it all by myself it took me a considerable amount of time to finish cutting everything (about thirty minutes). While I was in the process of cutting the vegetables I had to get the noodles ready. I used wheat linguine pasta and added it to salted boiled water, and drained it after it was cooked. Once I was done cutting the vegetables, I put a big pan on the stove with about three tablespoons of oil in it. Once the oil made a cracking sound, I added the onions, garlic and ginger. Once the onions turned a golden color, I added in the green chile and potatoes. A while later I added the carrots and radishes. I let the pan sit, stirring often, until the vegetables looked partly cooked. Then I added in the cabbages and green peas. Afterwards I added in the soy sauce and the salt to taste. All there was left to do was to mix the noodles and the vegetables.
Once I finished doing everything I was famished! Once everyone was served, I started eating and was pleasantly surprised and happy because of the pleasant taste. It is quite rewarding to know that you made the whole thing by yourself and the end result is pretty satisfactory. After filling myself with noodles, I realized there was still cleaning to do. I used homework as an excuse to get out of cleaning and it worked. I could not clean as the whole cooking process was exhausting.
If I was asked to describe my feelings afterwards, I would say that I felt pretty great as the experience is rewarding and it really lets you see the effort one puts in cooking for others.
Michael Pollan says in his book, In Defense of Food, "Like sex, the need to eat links us to the animals, and historically a great deal of Protestant energy has gone into helping us keep all such animal appetites under strict control." There are claims that eating is more than an animal instinct as Pollan says. But if you ask yourself why you eat, the answer is simple: because you are hungry or just plainly want to eat food; there is nothing more to it. Pollan also says that people have developed the idea that healthy food (food that is good for you) does not taste good. This is what lead to "a flood of damaging innovations...such as low-fat processed food." After I had prepared my meal, I felt satisfied because of the taste and also because I was satisfied with such a "healthy" meal with lots of vegetables. I am totally under the spell of nutritionism even without realizing it. I purposely chose this meal because it seemed healthy with all these vitamins and other things that were going to help me live longer.
I found an article called called Instinctive Eating in Gaia Yoga. This article says that if one follows their instinct in choosing what to eat, they will be well off as our bodies are so complex in that they start making a certain product taste bad after you have had a certain amount of it. "Essentially, instinctive eating yields tremendous clarity, liberation, and the security that you’re eating the best foods for you – and only in the quantities that you need – as well as generating profound, long-term health benefits. And it all happens through following your pleasure!" This sounds so great and believable as all of us know that even though chocolate tastes extremely delicious, after two bars you kind of feel sick.

Post 1: Response to In Defense of Food, by Michael Pollan

"Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly Plant," begins In Defense of Food written by Michael Pollan. The introduction of the book is captivating as it tries to show the readers the reality of food items today--they're not really food anymore. Nowadays majority of the food items are classified by the nutrients that make them up. What do we always hear? This item has high protein, less carbs, less fat, increased fiber and Omega-3s. Pollan continually warns his readers to be aware of processed food that scream out promises such as these. 

Pollan picks apart nutritionism, saying that the -ism in the word says that nutritionism is a bunch of unproven hypothesis put together. Therefore why are we so hung on every word that the scientific researchers publish? It is quite evident that many of us have made the conclusion that all things need to be proven by scientific research in order for us to believe its good or bad attributes. Therefore we listen to the nutritionists and the industrialists who make imitations from nonfood items and put it on the shelves of the store. We are so convinced that we are doing the right thing for our body. For example, lets take margarine. This product has gone through a lot of opposition before it was finally able to occupy space on the shelves of the grocery stores. Everyone knows that margarine is better than butter because it has less things that are going to kill you sooner as it has fewer calories, trans fats, cholesterol etc as HealthCastle.com says! Of course! If America is so much better due to its increased knowledge in the are of nutrition, why are its citizens so unhealthy?

America and the other developed countries with their increased knowledge in the area of nutrition seem to be worse off in their health in comparison to developing and undeveloped countries. Why is that so? Well first of all it is evident that those of who have been hearing about nutrition have developed a phobia for unhealthiness as Pollan states. Then shouldn't we be healthier than those that don't really know these amazing facts? That's where the mistake of classifying food as nutrients comes into play. Those in the developing/undeveloped countries still follow their culture and tradition when it comes to food. These food are designed through numerous amount of years to provide the best for the eater. NationMaster.com shows the rates the obesity rate of countries. It is quite evident that the amount of Western diet a country consumes is proportional to its obesity. Pollan tell us that as soon as the Western diet is introduced in a country, the Western diseases start to appear out of nowhere. Now shouldn't that give us the clue that we are doing something extremely wrong? We need to go back to the days when we followed the eating habits of our ancestors and eat things made from scratch and not in laboratories. 

After reading the excellent first portion of Pollan, I was completely blown away. Personally I mostly eat things made from scratch (by my mother) that follow my tradition and culture. But of course I also eat processed food that claim they are healthy because why wouldn't I want more of that Omega-3 or Protein? I want to live a healthy life. And the Luna bars, cereal bars, and yogurt that scream out a easy  breakfast plus a healthy meal make life so much easier. But reading Pollan has now made me feel kind of foolish as he talks about how nutristionism evolved because of political issues from the government and big powerful firms that opposed research against their products. I also feel that it is going to take awhile for Pollan's suggestions to be put into use as so much of us are dependent on the fast processed meals that we can pop in the microwaves.