True Food: 8 Simple steps to a Healthier You by Bond, Breyer and Gordon is a one stop guide for conscientious consumers.
The eight chapters address many of the topics I cover on this blog — eat local, eat a variety of foods, aim for organic, eat lower on the food chain, eat fresh food, eat whole foods, stock your pantry, and green your kitchen. The book is full of sidebar tips, recipes, and quotes from other leaders in the field. I especially appreciated the detailed descriptions of the lesser known grains, herbs and vegetables available in the States, and even a primer on finding whole foods in grocery stores. It’s filled with a whole spectrum of useful nuggets such as how to repel large pests from your yard, recipes for natural cleaners, and making sense of what food labels actually mean. If you need another reason to buy organic, consider this:
“Organic fruits and vegetables contain only about a third as much pesticide residue as conventionally grown food…Why does organic food contain any such residue? From past soil contamination or drift from conventional farms. Where there is pesticide spray, there is drift: Less than 0.1 percent of pesticide applied to crops reaches the target pest. The rest goes into the air, rivers, and living organisms.”
By purchasing organic, we are preventing other crops from contamination.
Another thought-provoking point is that “[m]ost agricultural plant breeding programs in the United States emphasize yield, uniformity, market acceptability, pest resistance, and transportability – not nutritional quality. In fact, breeding plants for the characteristics desirable for industrial production and marketing often lowers the plants’ nutritional values.” When we are shopping in the produce section, we are usually looking for health, and have not taken any of the seller’s requirements into consideration. By choosing most conventionally grown produce, our choices have already been narrowed to inferior products. The desire for nutritional superiority, as well as the markedly smaller chance of contamination are compelling reasons to shop at stores that carry local produce from small farmers. Lest we give local the overriding high road, the book excerpts an article by Dan Barber from the New York Times. “The five-acre monoculture of tomato plants next door might be local, but it’s really no different from the 200-acre one across the country: Both have sacrificed the ecological insurance that comes with biodiversity.” The book recommends Seed Savers Exchange (which I mentioned in an earlier post) and Bountiful Gardens as sources for heirloom seeds, in addition to instruction on saving your own seeds.
Speaking of seeds, here is their recipe for Pumpkin Seed Pesto in case any of you have copious amounts of them left over from carving pumpkins…
Pumpkin Seed Pesto
½ C pumpkin seeds, hulled and roasted, plus more for garnish
2 T grated Parmesan cheese or roasted cashews
1 garlic clove
1 ½ C (total) parsley, basil, cilantro, or other herbs
2 t lemon juice
1/3 C extra-virgin oline oil or pumpkin seed oil
Salt and pepper to taste
1. Place pumpkin seeds, cheese or cashews, and garlic in a food processor with the metal blade. Process until mixture is ground, about 30 seconds.
2. 2. Add herbs and lemon juice. Pulse, and slowly add olive oil until the mixture is finely chopped and olive oil is just blended in. Taste and season.
When you get a chance to read this book, I’d love to know what you gained from it. For those of you who can’t wait, there’s a trailer on Amazon for it, or this article by Annie Bond.
I also found this informative, though unrelated, True Food site.
Happy Reading!
