"Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch"

Here's an interesting article by Michael Pollan from the Sunday New York Times Magazine.

It talks about how cooking in the US has slowly become a spectator sport. He traces the development over time of TV cooking shows from Julia Child (encouraging participation and bravery in the kitchen) to Iron Chef America (mostly spectacle, but encouraging bravery in consuming). Because it's Michael Pollan, he ties it up with some observations about how people's overall eating habits could be impacted for the better in the midst of all this.

And some Lisa P. family background:

Dad is a better cook than Mom, but mostly refuses to cook except for special occasions. Mom had a hot family dinner on the table every evening, but beyond a few go-to dishes, anything beyond food from a box or can is beyond Mom's abilities or desire. Pretty typical of dual-income suburban households, I think.

As my sisters and I got sick of the same repeated schlock, we learned to cook. We were the first generation to embrace written recipes. Previous folks in our family had all cooked and baked by "feel." But we picked up our skills mostly as we were on our way out of the house. So now, if there's a big family Thanksgiving or Christmas or Reunion dinner, the sisters and I are usually in charge. If we're not there, Dad takes over. As empty nesters with dual income, the vast majorities of their meals are convenience foods or meals eaten out. It's not worth the effort to heat up the oven for 2 people any more.

But it is true - cooking is mostly a spectator sport for folks. Lots of times when we cook, we're adding water and eggs to a cake mix or browning ground beef for Hamburger Helper. And that's all good, but honestly, it doesn't take that much longer to make a cake from scratch or to make beefy cheesy macaroni with the basic ingredients.

But it does take more preplanning, it does take a stocked pantry, and it takes knowledge. And getting all that stuff together does take more time. There's got to be a way to help balance things out for folks that doesn't suck up all their time and energy and resources.

Any ideas?

"Why are Southerners So Fat?"

Time magazine asks the question, as do doctors and public health officials south of the Mason-Dixon.

As a native South Carolinian, transplanted to Chicago, the answers are what I expected:

So there you have it. Southerners have little access to healthy food and limited means with which to purchase it. It's hard for them to exercise outdoors, and even when they do have the opportunity, it's so hot, they don't want to.

Surprise, surprise, surprise [/Gomer Pyle]

Bringing good food to the city

The New York Times had a profile of Will Allen, a farmer in Milwaukee. Allen is working to help bring "good food" to the people of Milwaukee's northwest side.

He's encouraging people to get the best food they can, ideally stuff that's locally farmed in a sustainable way.

Good quote: "So no, Growing Power [Allen's venture] isn’t self-sufficient. But neither is industrial agriculture, which relies on price supports and government subsidies. Moreover, industrial farming incurs costs that are paid by society as a whole: the health costs of eating highly processed foods, for example, or water pollution. Nor can Growing Power be compared to other small farms, because it provides so many intangible social benefits to those it reaches."

Michael Pollan and Stephen Colbert

I can't embed this video with two guys I dig, so

here's a link.

Eat Well = $$$?

Why does crap, processed food cost less than good, from-the-earth food?

Really, it does.  Go into any neighborhood store - especially in a neighborhood in the middle of a food desert - and try to eat decently for $2.  You can find biggie bags of chips and gallons of soda for 70¢ each.  But if there's any fruit, it'll be spotty, sketchy, probably less-than-fresh, and more expensive.

It shouldn't be more expensive to eat in a healthy way.  I don't necessarily mean even organic or fair trade or sustainable.  It seems amazingly crazy from a public health standpoint that it's hard to get healthy food in the hands of people that need it.

People often wonder why poor folks are fat.  But as income goes up, people typically spend a lower percentage of their overall income on food.  Thus, richer folks can shop at Whole Foods without doing the percentage damage to their wallets that poorer folks do just trying to buy at Aldi.  Add in the fact that various factors combine to make processed food cheaper (can you say corn subsidies?) than actual whole foods, and you have the triple wallop of poor + malnourished + obesity.

Yes, there is a lot of personal agency and choice involved in what we put on our plates, but it's not right that the most vulnerable among us - kids living in poverty - have the deck sooo stacked against them from the start.