2008/01/11

Foodie Friday: 2007 in Review

Grist.org has a post up from their food editor, Roz Cummins, discussing the high and low points of her year in food. And yeah, she's had some low points - Grapples??? I guess they're not so new, but so far, I've been spared the creep factor of seeing them. Nutritionally, they're no different than a unadulterated apple, so the only gain in eating them is the flavor. The negative? Check out the ingredients of the Grapple: apples, natural and artificial flavor. Yep, nothing like "artificial ingredients in your apple!

Ms. Cummins' post did get me thinking of some of my best and worsts of this, a very big year for me nutritionally speaking.

My worst discovery - What's happened to our corn? I read the book The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan, and became annoyingly conscious of how this simple grain has turned into a bad, bad thing, both politically, economically and nutritionally. Grocery shopping became much more complicated.

My best discovery - Meat isn't a great thing for me. At least, not in the amounts this Midwestern, middle class, German heritage person was raised to think were "right". I started cutting it out of my life, partially because of what I read in that pesky Omnivore's Dilemma, partially because it's gotten so damn expensive, and partially because I wanted to try something new as a part of a calorie reduced diet. Within a few weeks of replacing most of the meat in my diet with veggies and whole grains I noticed a lot of positive changes in my general health. I'm not a vegetarian by any definition and have no desire to become one (yet), but I gotta say - too much meat is about as bad as too much alcohol, at least for me.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi. I just came across your website. I am not a vegetarian (yet) either, but I have also cut down substantially on the amount of meat that I cook and eat for environmental reasons. Every little bit (less) helps! - Roz