What I like about Michael Pollan’s analysis is that he encourages us to focus on foods and not nutrients. This kind of thinking frees us up from picking apart foods for what they supposedly contain and helps us to get back to the basics — focusing on the whole foods that God created for our consumption. Mr. Pollan suggests that people stay away from foods making health claims, for these foods are generally more or highly processed.

…you’re much better off eating whole fresh foods than processed food products. That’s what I mean by the recommendation to eat ”food.” Once, food was all you could eat, but today there are lots of other edible foodlike substances in the supermarket. These novel products of food science often come in packages festooned with health claims, which brings me to a related rule of thumb: if you’re concerned about your health, you should probably avoid food products that make health claims. Why? Because a health claim on a food product is a good indication that it’s not really food, and food is what you want to eat.

He includes a great assessment of how scientific studies — focusing on nutrients — are flawed.

Most nutritional science involves studying one nutrient at a time, an approach that even nutritionists who do it will tell you is deeply flawed. The good news is that, to the carrot eater, it doesn’t matter. That’s the great thing about eating food as compared with nutrients: you don’t need to fathom a carrot’s complexity to reap its benefits.

While he seems to believe in a flawed evolutionary principle (that over time our bodies will adjust to consuming high-fructose corn syrup and other processed food stuffs), he suggests that we should recognize that our food is one part of a complex relationship.

”Health” is, among other things, the byproduct of being involved in…relationships in a food chain — involved in a great many of them, in the case of an omnivorous creature like us. Further, when the health of one link of the food chain is disturbed, it can affect all the creatures in it. When the soil is sick or in some way deficient, so will be the grasses that grow in that soil and the cattle that eat the grasses and the people who drink the milk. Or, as the English agronomist Sir Albert Howard put it in 1945 in ”The Soil and Health” (a founding text of organic agriculture), we would do well to regard ”the whole problem of health in soil, plant, animal and man as one great subject.” Our personal health is inextricably bound up with the health of the entire food web.

One fact he shared simply shocked me! Humans historically used to consume 80,000 species of foods — 3,000 of them being in widespread use. Currently, most of the Western diet consists of processed corn, soybeans, wheat and rice. He points out that we require somewhere between 50 and 100 different chemical compounds and elements to be healthy. Then he rightly asks the question: how would it be possible to get those essential elements and compounds from just four processed food sources?

Finally, he concludes the article with 9 points — things you can do to: “Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

1. Eat food. Don’t eat anything your great-great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.

2. Avoid even those food products that come bearing health claims. They’re apt to be heavily processed, and the claims are often dubious at best.

3. Especially avoid food products containing ingredients that are a) unfamiliar, b) unpronounceable c) more than five in number — or that contain high-fructose corn syrup.

4. Get out of the supermarket whenever possible. Head for a Farmer’s Market.

5. Pay more, eat less.

6. Eat mostly plants, especially leaves.

7. Eat more like the French. Or the Japanese. Or the Italians. Or the Greeks. Confounding factors aside, people who eat according to the rules of a traditional food culture are generally healthier than we are.

8. Cook. And if you can, plant a garden.

9. Eat like an omnivore. Try to add new species, not just new foods, to your diet.

– Read “Unhappy Meals” article by Michael Pollan for the full discussion on these 9 points.

Many more arguments are made, in depth, in the article. Please consider reading it. I cannot possibly mention all the things he addressed which made an impact on me.

Would you like to develop a workable, efficient and even fun-to-use pantry? You don’t have to get fancy with store-bought solutions to get your pantry storage in shape. To make your time in the kitchen delightful and efficient, keep these things in mind…

Read more of Creating a Workable Pantry… 

I don’t have many store-bought trinkets or storage aids, with the exception of 2 lazy susans. I use what I have. I collect large containers and jars which come in handy. I admit to having an “extra” supply of jars stored in the barn… anyone need any jars?

Spice & Baking Cupboards. These two cupboards are side by side. I purchase these items in 1 or 5 pound bulk increments. I keep a jar-full of each item handy in these cupboards. The little jars (bottom right) fill up 2 lazy susans for easy access. The bigger jars are stacked up 2 high in some cases. I don’t stuff the cupboards; that way, I have plenty of room to reach in and gain access to something in the back.

Grain & Bean Bucket Storage — Kitchen View. I purchased used food-grade buckets from a local source. Some of my buckets I got at a grocery store in the bakery department (those were free). They are filled with: rolled oats, spelt, kamut, wheat (soft and hard), millet, lentils, garbanzo beans, and pinto beans. I store them under the breakfast bar counter in our kitchen. We don’t use this counter for eating, so it makes a great place for the buckets.The picture that follows shows the bucket storage under the counter as it opens up to the kitchen.

Grain & Bean Bucket Storage — Dining Room View. To hide the buckets from view in the dining room, I made a curtain from a remnant of green fabric I found at the thrift store. It is held up in the recess under the counter by a curtain tension rod. The first picture shows the curtain as it normally is. The second picture shows what it looks like if the curtain is pulled back (which it rarely is).

The dining room view of bucket storage, with the curtain down

The dining room view of bucket storage, with the curtain pulled back

Official Pantry Cupboard. I have one tall cupboard unit containing 4 cupboards to the right of the sink, probably intended for pantry storage. The cupboards are each deep and tall. I probably could use the space much better if I would buy some internal shelving structures, to help me fill up the space higher. But since spending our money on this isn’t a priority, I make do and use the space as best as I can with what I have. The 1st cupboard (not shown) stores infrequently used items like cake-decorating and soap-making supplies. The next cupboard stores canned goods. The 3rd cupboard stores more bulk food items that I don’t purchase in the same quantities as the items which fill the buckets. Finally, the 4th cupboard stores jugs and buckets of oils and vinegars, as well as a big box full of packages of whole wheat pastas.

Canned Goods Cupboard

Bulk Food Items Cupboard


Oils, Vinegars and Pasta Cupboard

A Couple of Other Places for Storage. I have a shelf in the laundry room that holds a 30 pound box of raisins and a 30 pound jug of agave. In my bedroom (which is usually cool year round), I have two boxes of extra spices and baking supplies that eventually will refill the jars in the spice & baking cupboards.

When we first married, Jeff told me how much he loved salads and how he would love to eat salad every day. I’m sorry to admit that I didn’t take him at his word until about five years into our marriage. After repeated encouragements from him and a desire growing in me to provide healthier foods for our family, I started serving salads at every lunch and dinner. Now it has been another five years that we have eaten salad daily. There are perhaps a dozen days a year when we do not have salad. Those days we don’t have it, we miss it.

Our son, Mikah, is looking forward to his 6th birthday. When I asked him what he wanted to eat on his birthday, he said — pancakes for breakfast, grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch, and cabbage salad for dinner. He frequently eats more than one helping of salad. But he is not the only one in our family who loves salad; we all do.

Read more about A Healthy Salad Habit…