“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

I recently finished In Defense of Food, another engaging piece by Michael Pollan. The focus of the book is nutrition science and it’s unfortunate relationship with the food industry. The first part of the book describes our current state of knowledge and the process of what he refers to as reductionist science. As a scientist, Pollan’s critique made me a little defensive. Reductionist science, the process of studying a system or problem by reducing it to smaller, testable pieces is really just science. That’s how it’s done. When a field is quite young, like nutrition science is, the testable pieces do not constitute a sophisticated understanding of the system as a whole. However, as a field matures, we can test more complex aspects of the system until we arrive at a big picture understanding that includes and identifies the most influential factors. I think Pollan’s point is not that reductionist science is bad, but simply that the field is not mature enough at present that we should rely solely on the results and discoveries of nutrition scientists when making decisions about what and how to eat. The conversation between nutrition scientists and the general public is further complicated by the influence of the food industry.

In an attempt to make their products more desirable to consumers, food marketers often apply health claims to their products. But are those claims justified? They probably are when all of the caveats that come with scientific results are taken into account. Unfortunately, that can make for a rather long and potentially confusing label rather than a colorful banner enclosing a catchy phrase. A hard look at the literature and discussions with several prominent nutrition scientists offered Pollan very few certainties about what we humans ought to eat to be healthy. In fact, the only consensus opinion was to eat more fresh fruits and vegetables, advice which is largely absent from food advertising. The lack of certainty about what we should eat is surprising considering all of the diet books and food fads we constantly hear about. Listen to any TV commercial for a food product or weight loss plan and you are likely to hear words like high fiber, low carb, low fat, probiotic, low glycemic index, or antioxidant. All these words are supposedly linked to health benefits and perhaps they are healthy attributes. The trouble is, because of our incomplete understanding of nutrition, we may be substituting away from healthy foods in our quest to get more or less of a certain attribute, which itself only might be better for us given several caveats. In the worst cases, such as substituting margarine for butter to avoid cholesterol and saturated fat, we end up getting far more dangerous substances instead – in that case, trans fat.

Given the uncertainties about nutrition and health, it seems like the health claims on some food products border on false advertising. The waters have been further muddied with the advent of qualified health statements, a category introduced by the FDA in 2002. As an example, Pollan quotes the FDA-approved qualified health statement for corn oil, not a substance usually considered healthy. “Very limited and preliminary scientific evidence suggests that eating about one tablespoon (16 grams) of corn oil daily may reduce the risk of heart disease due to the unsaturated fat content in corn oil”. It’s already not a particularly strong statement, and still requires the qualifying statements that the “FDA concludes that there is little scientific evidence supporting this claim” and “To achieve this possible benefit, corn oil is to replace a similar amount of saturated fat and not increase the total number of calories you eat in a day”.

Now it’s not clear that this health statement has any value at all, and yet, it allows Frito-Lay to claim their chips are heart healthy due to their use of corn oil in chip production. Remember that in order for these chips to offer your heart anything at all, you would need to first determine how much corn oil is in each chip, how much saturated fat you are replacing by eating the corn oil in the chips instead of some other food, and the number of calories you normally eat in a day along with the calories in both the chips and the food you are replacing with chips. This is, of course, totally impractical. Furthermore, the appearance of a heart healthy label is much more likely to induce people to simply eat more of that food, which is certainly what Frito-Lay hopes to achieve. How could anyone guess the amount of calculation that would be required to reap the benefits of corn oil, which may not even exist in the first place?

It seems to me that health claims are all but meaningless. There is no way for the average consumer to understand where a health claim comes from or what it really means. Not only may that consumer not benefit as they might expect, they may actually be negatively impacted by consuming this food! A practical solution, Pollan suggests, is to entirely discount health claims on food products and focus on eating whole, unprocessed foods instead. Fresh produce, the only food that nutritionists agree we should eat more of, rarely even has packaging much less health claims. Given the youth of nutrition science and the fact that it’s results are often co-opted and misconstrued by overzealous food marketers, Pollan advises that we use knowledge about what and how to eat that has been passed down to us for generations. He sums up his recommendations with the phrase: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Sounds like good advice to me!

A char(me)d life.

Okay, it’s a bad pun, but chard is actually pretty terrific. According to The Local Foods Wheel, chard is in season all year long in the SF Bay Area. One cup of chard provides 374% of your daily recommended intake of vitamin K, 44% of A, and 18% of C along with a few percent each of many other important vitamins and minerals and some protein and fiber. Amazingly, all this goodness is packed into only 7 calories!

I will admit I didn’t even know what chard was the first time I saw it at a farmers market. It looked kind of like a cross between romaine lettuce and bok choy. Some have red stalks, others green, or even white. I’m not sure the differences between varieties, but they are all yummy! Chard is easy to prepare. You can toss some into soups and stews or make a simple sauté of chard, garlic, and olive oil. We have mixed sautéed chard with quinoa (a terrific grain), tomatoes, and feta cheese for a nutritious side dish or lunch. My absolute favorite chard recipe is for chard chips. They are easy to make in the oven and have a smoky, almost meaty, flavor with just enough crunch. I can easily eat a whole bowl of chard chips, and they go great with (ethical) burgers or fajitas.

We took such a liking to chard that we decided to grow some on our front patio. We have only a tiny space, but these plants took up very little room and have been providing a steady supply of chard for the past month or so. Recently, I harvested some of our chard to make chard chips, and I decided to share the recipe (complete with pics!) with all of you. Enjoy!

How to make chard chips:

0. Pick up some chard (or kale) from your local farmers market. Here's what the separated and cleaned leaves look like:



1. Preheat oven to 425°.
2. Separate leafy bits from stems and discard stems (extra points if you compost them).



3. Toss leaves in olive oil, sea salt, and ground black pepper to taste. I also like to add a pinch of cayenne pepper or paprika for an extra kick. I used a teaspoon of olive oil for the all of the chard in these photos.

Tip: My favorite method for tossing is to put everything in a big Tupperware container, close it, and shake it up while dancing around the kitchen. I think it tastes better this way, but I guess you can choose your own favorite method.

4. Spread out leaves on a non-stick cookie sheet, and bake for about 5 minutes or until the chard is just beginning to brown. Chard releases a lot of moisture as it cooks so you may want to turn on the exhaust fan, if you have one, or leave a window open.

Tip: I try to place all my chard with the shiny side up. It’s then a lot easier to keep track of which leaves I have turned over (see next step).

5. Remove from oven, turn chard leaves over, and bake for an additional 5 minutes or until they look like this:



6. Eat 'em up!

The incredible, ethical egg.

When I began learning more about industrial agriculture, I had a feeling I wasn’t going to want to eat meat anymore. I have a soft spot for animals, and the idea of killing them (even for food) has always been disturbing to me. I rationalized eating animals by looking into nature. All living things die, many quite violently out in the forest or the jungle or the savannah. Perhaps it isn’t such a terrible thing that we humans prematurely end the lives of some animals to provide sustenance for ourselves, especially since we don’t chase them down and rip their throats out like, say, a cheetah might. Unfortunately, this line of reasoning breaks down in the face of the cruelty endured by most conventionally-raised animals and the detriments to the environment and human health that go along with such treatment. However, I find meat from animals raised on an ethical farm, in which the animals engage in their natural behaviors and play important roles in sustaining the farm’s ecosystem, much more palatable (no pun intended). Of course, I could just not eat meat at all (and often don’t), but my sense of right and wrong when it comes to eating meat from an animal that lived out its days in peace is much less obvious to me.

What I did not expect is the complete revulsion I now feel toward eating conventional eggs. I always looked at eggs and dairy products as the kinder animal products. I could look at a carton of eggs and visualize a label saying, “No animals were killed in the making of this food”. Although those of you better informed than myself may be rolling your eyes at my naivety, there is really no reason to expect that getting an egg from a chicken should involve torture or death. I’ve seen a few ads and brochures about the harm that comes to laying hens, but always at some kind of information booth with people sort of yelling. They gave the impression of being ‘on the fringe’, and therefore, unreliable. I could turn away from the disturbing images with the assumption that bad things certainly do happen but probably on a very small scale. Just as with meat, I really thought there was no way that torturing farm animals could be the status quo in conventional agriculture.

Most of my recent changes in attitude came from reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan. I found his information to be more believable and less preachy or judgmental than literature I’ve received from activists. As a journalist, he has been trained to stick to the facts and cite sources. As a person (a professor at Berkeley, actually), he seems pretty normal. The book is so well done that I hesitate to pull sections out; the context is important. However, the following passage on the ethical problems with eating conventional eggs had such an effect on me, and my attitude toward eggs, that I felt compelled to share it with you. At this point in the book, Pollan is deciding whether or not to continue eating animals. He has temporarily become a vegetarian so that the inconvenience of the lifestyle change would not be relevant to his decision.

From, The Omnivore’s Dilemma (pg. 317-318):

“To visit a modern Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) is to enter a world that for all its technological sophistication is still designed on seventeenth-century Cartesian principles: Animals are treated as machines – “production units” - incapable of feeling pain. Since no thinking person can possibly believe this anymore, industrial animal agriculture depends on a suspension of disbelief on the part of the people who operate it and a willingness to avert one’s eyes on the part of everyone else.

Egg operations are the worst, from everything I’ve read; I haven’t managed to actually get into one of these places since journalists are unwelcome there. Beef cattle in America at least still live outdoors, albeit standing ankle-deep in their own waste eating a diet that makes them sick. And broiler chickens, although they are bred for such swift and breast-heavy growth that they can barely walk, at least don’t spend their lives in cages too small to ever stretch a wing.

That fate is reserved for the American laying hen, who spends her brief span of days piled together with a half-dozen other hens in a wire cage the floor of which four pages of this book could carpet wall to wall. Every natural instinct of this hen is thwarted, leading to a range of behavioral “vices” that can include cannibalizing her cage mates and rubbing her breast against the wire mesh until it is completely bald and bleeding. (This is the chief reason broilers get a pass on caged life; to scar so much high-value breast meat would be bad business.) Pain? Suffering? Madness? The operative suspension of disbelief depends on the acceptance of more neutral descriptors, such as “vices” and “stereotypes” and “stress”. But whatever you want to call what goes on in those cages, the 10 percent or so of hens that can’t endure it and simply die is built into the cost of production. And when the output of the survivors begins to ebb, the hens will be “force-molted” – starved of food and water and light for several days in order to stimulate a final bout of egg-laying before their life’s work is done.

I know, simply reciting these facts, most of which are drawn from poultry trade magazines, makes me sound like one of the animal people, doesn’t it? I don’t mean to (remember, I got into this vegetarian deal assuming I could go on eating eggs), but this is what happens when… you look. And what you see when you look is the cruelty – and the blindness to cruelty – required to produce eggs that can be sold for seventy-nine cents a dozen.”

Even now, it still upsets me. And he hasn’t even mentioned other common practices such as debeaking or the killing of male chicks…

I believe that a single step toward a food lifestyle that benefits animals, the environment, or human well-being is a worthy effort; one does not necessarily need to assess and alter every food decision to be an ethical eater. However, I do value a certain level of internal consistency. Eating an animal that was tortured on its way to my plate is simply not acceptable to me, and it seems obvious that eating eggs from tortured chickens is equally wrong. One solution would be to stop eating eggs altogether, but just as with meat, seeking out ethical eggs is a less restrictive solution to my ethical problem.

In the grocery store, there are many eggs with nice sounding words on them. Unfortunately, few if any actually mean that the hens are living the kind of lifestyle I would want. Cage-free hens, for example, are often packed just as tightly as caged hens, unable to really move about and usually debeaked, just without individual cages. In fact, a lot of phrases used to market eggs aren't regulated at all. They really could mean anything (or, perhaps more accurately, nothing). Below, I have included a chart listing the requirements for those certifications that are regulated put together by the WSPA; it is available on their website along with similar charts for other animals. According to the chart, there is no label for the kind of eggs I want, those laid by chickens living in a natural environment free from harm. However, the farm from which I purchase meat, Marin Sun Farms, does offer ethical eggs at their farmers market stall. Compared with conventional eggs, they are expensive, especially in the winter when the chickens lay far fewer eggs. I think of it as paying the real price up front rather than indirectly through farm subsidies that benefit the industrial system or damage to the environment or the myriad other expenses not reflected in the price of grocery store eggs. I paid $8 for a dozen medium eggs, and they were worth every penny. Each one was a different color: brown, cream, even light blue. They were delicious, healthier than conventional eggs, and had no lingering taste of guilt or cruelty. They are indeed, incredible, ethical eggs.

On The Border; Off the charts

I love On The Border – a southwest casual dining restaurant owned by the same company as Chili’s, another of my favorites. In college, I would go there with my friends and share relationship gossip over margaritas and burritos. It’s always been one of my favorite places to eat. I never worried much about the calories I was consuming during these outings. Eating out is a special treat, so what’s the big deal if I go a little over my recommended daily intake? And there’s another reason why I ignored the potential health impact of my food choices. As much as women may feel pressured by media images and messages telling them to be thin, there is also a backlash pressure to not give in to society. Especially when out for a meal with friends, I never wanted to seem like the kind of woman who can’t let loose and relax, who is obsessed with every calorie and terrified to gain an ounce of weight. I’m not that person.

When I started this blog, I began paying more attention to my food consumption - not just where the food came from and how it was cultivated, but also how much nutritional quality it provided and whether it could fuel my body through my intense half-marathon training. As I have reported here before, I determined a daily caloric intake goal to maintain my current weight and support a desk-job lifestyle. On days in which I work out, I eat a little more to compensate. My daily goal is 1847 calories. It’s definitely not a restrictive number, and I have had no trouble staying below that limit even with a glass or two of wine with dinner, having popcorn or cookies for dessert, or indulging in the occasional plate of nachos for lunch. The main reason this hasn’t been very difficult is that I usually prepare and eat breakfast and dinner at home and bring my own snacks to work. I am in control of what and how much I eat. Going out to dinner has become even more of a special occasion, which made me extra excited for my next trip to On The Border.

Recently, chain restaurants in California began offering nutrition information inserts (not of their own accord – a law was passed). It gives you the calories, macronutrients (fat, carbs, and protein), sodium, and a few other details for all of the food on the menu. It can be tricky, however, because the information for salads doesn’t always include the dressing, and calories listed for an entree don’t always include the side dish. For this trip to On The Border, I wasn’t planning on relying too much on the nutrition information. I ate a light lunch, since I knew I’d be going out, so I figured I could afford to relax. Then I started looking through the menu. It was actually my husband who pointed out that there was an icon for healthy food options. To qualify, the menu item had to have no more than 750 calories and be under some limit for fat. That got me pretty concerned, since 750 is about 40% of the calories I am supposed to consume in the entire day. And that's for the “diet” option! He went on to point out that only one item on the menu had this icon. I gave in and asked for the nutrition info.

It was horrifying! My usual entree, the Big Borduritto with chicken and side salad (dressing not included) is 1780 calories, 85 grams of fat, and 4870mg of sodium. Now the calories alone are pretty bad, over 96% of what I should consume in a day. However, the fat and sodium are off the charts: 140% and 220% of my daily-recommended intake, respectively. On occasion, I have eaten half the Borduritto (saving the rest for another meal) and instead split the guacamole appetizer with a friend. Sadly, this does not improve the situation. One serving of the Guacamole Live appetizer (listed without chips!) is 570 calories, 50 grams of fat, and 2330mg of sodium. Adding half a basket of chips gives me a grand total of 1675 calories, 114.5 grams of fat, and a ridiculous 5202mg of sodium! It’s less total calories, although still 90% of my daily goal, but even more fat and sodium. And that’s all without the margarita!

In the end, I opted for the Mahi Mahi fish tacos (as served they’re 1200 calories) with some healthy substitutions. I ordered them without sauce and with the special healthy grilled vegetable side. The meal was tasty, but the whole experience felt awful. From having to ask the waiter for the nutrition information to scouring the info sheet for a complete meal within my caloric budget to ordering my meal with a bunch of special requests (the healthy veggies have a specific diet-sounding name), I felt really self-conscious. Not only did I give off the impression of being exactly the kind of person who obsesses over every calorie, I still over-consumed! It made me really angry. How can I enjoy a meal out when the options are so much worse than I could have ever imagined? It’s not a matter of going a little over my calories for the day in the spirit of fun. No average person should be eating this volume of food during one meal. I am forced to be vigilant, to be a calorie-counter and a high-maintenance consumer, just to avoid doubling my intake for the day! Someday, I hope menus will be made up of mostly reasonable options (say, 400-800 calories) and a few diet entrees that really are for dieters (say, under 400 calories). Perhaps they can have one item on the menu for the super-eater rather than one item with less than 750 calories. Then I actually could choose to splurge on a special occasion and have the ability to make healthy choices rather than being restricted to one marginally healthy option.

I hope that the next time you walk into one of these places, you won’t turn your nose up at the nutrition information, perhaps thinking that you shouldn’t have to limit yourself on your evening out or that you’re not dieting so it doesn’t apply. I think restaurants are counting on customers to adopt that attitude because it means they will never have to change. They won’t have to offer entrees with a reasonable number of calories or reduce the sodium contents of their foods. They can continue to profit while we all wonder why so many Americans have heart disease or diabetes or continue to gain weight. It’s easy to look at fat people and assume they just make poor choices, but how can we expect people to make good choices if none are offered, or worse, the information with which to make the choice is unavailable or incomplete? It’s up to us to force a change. That’s why I will continue to ask for the nutritional information, order the diet veggies, and simply avoid restaurants that won’t offer healthy options. Even if it’s embarrassing; even when the waiter is judgmental; even when I’m out with my friends… Ultimately I am responsible for what I put into my body, and I’m not letting anyone push me around.

Vegetarian Chili Over Baked Potato

This hearty, veggie chili recipe makes about six servings. If spread over multiple nights, cook the potatoes each night as needed.

Timing: 30 minutes or less
Type: Pantry meal

Ingredients:
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
1 medium onion, chopped
6 baking potatoes (e.g. Russet, Yukon gold)
1-2 cloves garlic, chopped
½ cup A1 steak sauce
3 large tomatoes, chopped (about 3.5 cups) OR 2 cans (28 oz, total) diced tomatoes (undrained)
1 pkg taco seasoning mix OR the following spices:

1 tsp chipotle chili powder
1 tsp paprika
½ tsp cumin
½ tsp crushed red pepper
½ tsp garlic powder
¼ tsp dried oregano
(If you don’t like spicy foods, halve this part of the recipe)

Shredded cheddar cheese, to taste (optional)

1. Chop onion, garlic, and tomatoes (if fresh). Drain and rinse beans. Rinse and scrub potatoes, remove any eyes (read: odd protrusions).
2. Warm oil in large skillet over medium heat. Add onions and garlic; cook until onions become glossy and translucent.
3. Stir in steak sauce, tomatoes, beans, and seasoning mix. Heat to a boil.
4. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer 10-15 minutes. The chili should thicken a bit.
5. While chili is simmering, stab potatoes in multiple places with fork or knife. Place on plate in microwave, and cook on high for 6-8 minutes for two potatoes, 12-15 minutes for six potatoes. They are fully cooked when a fork can easily be inserted and removed.
6. Slice a potato, top with chili, top that with shredded cheese, and serve!

Know thy dinner; know thyself.

Cooking your own meals is the easiest way to assure that you are eating both healthfully and ethically. It gives you a much greater ability to know where your food came from, how it was prepared, and the amount of nutrients and calories you put into your body come mealtime. And yet, many of us rely on restaurants to provide us with sustenance. A friend of mine, who eats out for dinner almost every night, tried explaining to me why he can’t cook for himself. The main problem, he said, was getting home too late. This seemed odd to me because it can take just as long to go to a restaurant and order a meal as it takes to cook. It took some time before I realized that his idea of cooking dinner started at picking a recipe and buying groceries. And he’s right; that just isn’t going to work. I can’t imagine anyone choosing to cook dinner if it means coming home from a long day of work and first having to select a recipe, then go buy the ingredients, and finally come home and cook the meal. What my friend is really lacking is not time to cook, but rather, a plan. Walking in the door after work cannot be the first time you think about what to cook for dinner or it will simply never happen.

For my household, the plan that works best is to sit down on a Saturday or Sunday morning, pick three recipes to cook for the week, create a grocery list, and then go shopping. If grocery shopping isn’t that convenient for you, an alternative would be to buy a lot of frozen or canned produce and freeze any meat or seafood in order to stretch the food you buy over several weeks and reduce the frequency of grocery store visits. Another produce option is to join a CSA (community-supported agriculture) program. In these programs, local farmers deliver a box of seasonal produce either to your home or a neighborhood drop-off location. The size and frequency of deliveries depends on how much you want to pay. If you can find a good CSA, you have the potential to receive organic, local, seasonal, fresh produce brought directly to you! Also, look for farmer’s markets in your area. There may be one on a weeknight close to your workplace, which can make picking up fresh produce (for your pre-planned dinner, of course) much more convenient. The goal here is to reduce the amount of last-minute food you need to acquire in order to cook.

A food plan also requires some idea of what you are going to cook. If you have a well-stocked pantry and freezer, you may be able to get away with less planning, but you will still need recipes. There are now many online databases for recipes (allrecipes is one that I use) although the shear volume of options can be overwhelming even if you have some idea of what you’d like to make. One great way to get new recipes, especially for an unfamiliar veggie that arrived in your produce box or somehow seemed appealing at the farmer’s market, is to ask your friends. I know it sounds very 1950’s, but you get the added bonus of relying on someone you trust and having someone to consult if things go terribly wrong. Of course, you have to have friends with recipes, but that is where you, dear reader, may be in luck. Since my switch to a produce-based diet, it has taken some effort (and the help of friends) to find recipes that are tasty, filling, and nutritious. As it turns out, even chard (yes, chard) can be delicious! To help you all on your journey toward an ethical, produce-based diet (or at least the few of you who may be considering it), I have decided to post some of my recipes so that you don’t have to rediscover all the delicious recipes I have already found. I’ll be sure to note quick versus long meals and whether most of the ingredients can be found in your well-stocked pantry/freezer or would require a lot of fresh ingredients. Look for a yummy recipe coming soon!

Pesky pesticides.

A friend of mine sent me this little fact sheet, which was put out by the Environmental Working Group. The EWG determined which conventional produce items deliver the most (and least) pesticides and chemicals into our bodies when we eat them. They suggest that we buy only organic versions of the conventional worst offenders (“Dirty Dozen”). They also list produce items that deliver the least of these chemicals when grown conventionally. If you aren’t ready or able to make the switch to only organic produce, consider at least switching to organic for the worst fruits and veggies listed here. As it says on the sheet, you can get more information at www.foodnews.org (they actually have even more produce evaluated on the site).