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Listening to my favorite news program today, Democracy Now! , I had the pleasure of hearing Amy Goodman interview the omnipresent Michal Pollan, who was recently on Oprah. I don't necessarily agree with his "mostly plants" dietary advice (many cultures have traditionally done beautifully with mostly animal products), but he is ultimately a political and social advocate for real food, and he is truly fighting the all-powerful industrial agricultural monstrosity that is attempting to control the food chain of the entire world. That sounds dramatic but only because it IS that bad. Pollan has literally had speeches he was set to give at universities cancelled because an industrial agricultural company told the university they would withdraw funding if they allowed him to speak.
I really respect this man for being so outspoken (and out-written!), for helping people regain vibrant health through awareness of what exactly is real food. My favorite thing Pollan said was in regards to the false labeling on foods such as the now defunct "Smart Choices" program: "We want an excuse to eat badly", explaining that food manufacturers and industrial agriculture commodities owners are more then happy to find ways to promote the poor food choices average consumers make.
I always enjoy reading the latest Savuer magazine, and their Top 100 issue did not disappoint. Number 95 was the cookbook Nourishing Traditions, written, as you probably know, by the mother of the traditional foods movement, Sally Fallon Morrel, who founded the Weston A. Price Foundation.
Also in the top 100, eggs from backyard chickens! I dream of doing this myself someday. For now I am happy to buy eggs from Sam Kedem, of Kedem Roses in Hastings, Mn. I have picked berries at his organic farm and my kids were graciously invited to chase the chickens and Guinea hens about.
I've been reading two good cookbooks lately, yes I read cookbooks for fun, as if I am reading a novel! The Lhasa Moon Cookbook was the only Tibetan cookbook I found in the archives of my library. The most interesting part of this book, to me, is the history of traditional Tibetan foodways. The author, Tsering Wangmo, is Tibetan, grew up living in exile, and she explains that until the Chinese government forced the Tibetan people into farming wheat (which she writes caused massive environmental degradation of the land in Tibet), they had lived as nomadic herders and subsisted on a diet of yak meat, yak milk, yak butter and cheese, and small tubers. They ate almost no vegetables at all. A mainstay in their diet was yak butter tea, which sounds interesting, a recipe can be found here.
The Eat Well, Feel Well Cookbook is a Specific Carbohydrate Diet cookbook that is gluten-free, low-lactose and generally pretty "yum!" inducing! I'm not following this diet, yet I have found all the recipes so far to be really good. The recipes are all made with real food, and no grains so I think anyone interested in traditional foods, primal or paleo eating, gluten-free cooking and just plain-old good health would find this book interesting.
What food news has caught your eye recently? What cookbooks are you loving?
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2 comments:
Not sure about the whole yak butter tea thing...I recently read "Eat Fat, Lose Fat" and found some more interesting tidbits from Mary Enig. Now I'm re-reading Nourishing Traditions. I've finally got my kitchen stocked to the point where I can actually make most of the recipes (not so the first time I read it).
the author of the Tibetan cookbook i refer to explains that people needed the high fat contentin the butter tea tosurvive in such a harsh, cold climate.
I too owned NT for years before actually cooking from it.
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