Hiatus

In the past week, life has outran me and left me trailing behind in the dust. A blogging hiatus was in order if I wanted to get my life, well, back in order. Amidst all that, I've been trying to keep up with foodist knowledge with Michael Pollan. Once again, he has amazed me with his brilliance via In Defense of Food. 

At this point, I can safely declare that he has influenced my perspective on food more than all my grad school nutrition classes combined. His ideas encourage people to develop healthier relationships with food (note: not nutrients) and to be critical of our government and food manufacturers.

One of his manifesto is that eating more plant foods is good for us, and he made his point by illustrating the dependence most Americans have on meat. "Each American now consumes an average of 200 pounds of meat a year", and most of "that meat comes from a highly industrialized food chain." To better grasp that figure, a pig with all its bones and organs weighs about 125 pounds- 75 pounds shy of all the meat we might be consuming in a year. Yowza.

Besides Pollan, other visionaries before our time have talked about the benefits of eating more from plants. One of them being Thomas Jefferson who "recommended using meat more as a flavor principle than as a main course, treating it as a 'condiment for the vegetables'." A righteously apt advice for this Meatless Monday and future ones.

Artwork credit: austinkleon.com/tag/bookshelf