Is it too much of a gross generalization that Americans tend to be split, roughly, into “Eat giant hunks of meat” people and vegetarians? That’s my impression, though I know lots of pescatarians and flexitarians and chickentarians and whatnot. Anthony Bourdain’s funny and profane Kitchen Confidential has this to say about vegetarians:
“Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans … are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit.”
Michael I’m-Better-Than-You Pollan has this decent though reductionist advice about food: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” He does not believe that we should eschew animal products (or at least didn’t when he wrote In Defense of Food).
Me, I like Pop Tarts, which I imagine would make both Bourdain and Pollan (especially Pollan) shudder. I don’t like Pollan’s quote about never eating something that your grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food; one grandmother tended to drink her meals, and the other represented the very worst in Depression-era let’s-put-it-in-the-meatloaf cooking. But I think that both men have hit on something: Real food is good, and Americans would be better off if we mostly ate smaller portions of tasty food that doesn’t have a lot of sodium and additives and didn’t worry so much about the food. “Oh, I don’t know–should I have a piece of cake? Oh, this has such a rich-looking frosting! All that sugar…maybe just a little piece…oh, this isn’t going to be good for my hips!” No, eat the cake or don’t, and if you eat the cake, enjoy the cake!
Of course, a diet too rich in cake is not good for anyone. Neither is a diet rich in Pop Tarts, which is why I rarely buy them. Homemade desserts are more of a problem, because I keep a stocked pantry and am a competent enough cook that I can make dessert any time I want, but at least it does take time and effort to make goodies versus absent-mindedly wandering over to the Oreos container and popping a few into one’s mouth.
Americans, with our curious mixture of pride and self-loathing, love to try and praise lots of different diets, and even better if they’re somehow “ancient” or “traditional.” (Paleo! Ancient grains! Heritage this and that!) I don’t know about any given set of food being intrinsically healthy, even if it is traditional; I hear about French people living to 100 off butter and wine, but the reality seems to be that they do watch what they eat, don’t consume as many calories as Americans do, and move more. The Japanese eat lots of fish and vegetables, but also highly-processed rice and noodles–but again, do not stuff themselves. Traditional Scandinavian food seems to be sorely lacking in vegetables, but adults there aren’t nearly as sedentary as Americans. In other countries, undernutrition starts to be supplanted by obesity, as in countries like India and Mexico. Everywhere that people move less and eat more, they gain more weight.
I know that people have found very good success following one of the high-fat, high-protein diets, but I tend to do best on a diet that is, in fact, mostly plants, and not too much added sugar. I will never “identify” as a vegetarian, though, and I believe that it’s easier to get a balanced diet by including meat and fish. I will always strive to make my meals tasty, unless I’m too tired or sick.
If I’m cooking for someone, I always ask about allergies and food restrictions or preferences. I may privately think your my-corn-allergy-means-I-can’t-have-iodized-salt issue is bogus, but I promise I will treat it with the utmost seriousness, as if your life depended on it. If you are a vegan, or gluten-free, or can’t eat citrus fruits, or have any other restrictions, I will do my very best to accommodate you. I want to please you, after all! And there are so many delicious things to eat in the world that DO conform to various restrictions that I know I shall enjoy myself, too.
My favorite piece of food advice is found neither in Kitchen Confidential nor in In Defense of Food, but in the book of Acts, Chapter 10:
“9The next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hourb to pray. 10And he became hungry and wanted something to eat, but while they were preparing it, he fell into a trance 11and saw the heavens opened and something like a great sheet descending, being let down by its four corners upon the earth. 12In it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air. 13And there came a voice to him: “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” 14But Peter said, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.” 15And the voice came to him again a second time, “What God has made clean, do not call common.”
AW YEAH!
Lazy Mother Musings 