Column What if the solution to our health and environmental problems was a matter of just making more delicious food?

“Why eat one donut when I can eat all six in the package?”

I was having a tongue-in-cheek conversation about the standard American mindset to food with a couple of friends, who both happen to love donuts.

Instead of savoring one quality donut, many opt for the cheap, $2.99 box of six industrial donuts. Because six is always better than one, right? And so we stuff ourselves, because in reality, those donuts are disgusting, and after we eat one, we’ve failed to be satiated, so we eat another, and another, in the hopes that just another bite will leave us feeling the way we want to feel.

You can replace donuts with essentially any food product, and the result is the same: in the Standard American Diet quality and taste are our last qualifiers for what food we buy and eat.

This is problematic, an approach to food that’s not only harmful for us as humans, but our environment as well.

There is a growing group of researchers now starting to make a link between taste and overeating, the idea that the more delicious food that we eat, the less likely we are to overindulge. For example, in 2009, researchers in the Netherlands studied participant’s cravings after eating certain foods, in this case, a portion of cottage cheese and a portion of chocolate mousse. Cravings were significantly less after eating the chocolate mousse than the cottage cheese, leading to the conclusion that people were less likely to overeat if they ate foods that they liked, as opposed to more boring, neutral foods.

It has also been shown that the more we eat of a food, the less we like it. That is to say, if you eat one piece of chocolate cake, you’ll be thrilled. You’ll go back for another one. But with the second piece you will be less satisfied than with the first, and so on and so on.

I don’t mean “delicious food” in the sense of just baked goods. I mean “delicious” in all forms of food. The carrots that you pull from the ground, rinse off, bite into and are so surprised by the crunchy sweetness. The loaf of bread, pulled freshly from the oven, and made with a natural starter. The roasted butternut squash that almost tastes like eating a dessert. The lentil soup on a cold winter day that has been simmering on your stove. Food that blows you away because of its simplicity. Food that is delicious because all of the ingredients that went into it were natural, and good to begin with; no need for additives and preservatives. Food that is real food.

If we focused on quality, rather than quantity, there’s a chance that not only would the food on our plate taste better, but we’d be healthier too. The same goes for the environment.

This is well-discussed in famed-chef Dan Barber’s book “The Third Plate” (if you haven’t read this yet, hop to). As a chef, when focused on good quality produce, he begins to connect the dots between tasty fruits and vegetables and how they were grown. “When we taste something truly delicious, something that is persistent, it is most likely originated from well-mineralized, biologically rich soils,” writes Barber. He continues a few pages later, writing, “chemical farming – and bad organic farming – actually kills soil by starving its complex and riotous community of anything good to eat.”

In other words, our entire system of agribusiness has always operated to reduce costs and increase output, yet it has all come at a serious costs to our health and the environment. Taste has never been a part of the equation in this system – or it’s only part of the equation when food companies, working with base ingredients that have no taste to begin with, have to add a variety of fats, sugars, and salts to get any taste into their product, leaving us with grocery shelves worth of unhealthy food (and even then, I am sure no one is going to argue that it’s “delicious food”). It’s because taste isn’t part of the equation from the ground up that this system has depleted the earth, while keeping our waistlines growing.

As Glenn Roberts of Anson Mills, a company that grows and mills organic heirloom grains, is quoted in Barber’s book, “food and cuisine have to be an important part of our culture, and not just something that fuels the culture in one way. Food as fuel is a dangerous concept. That’s where we are right now – food as fuel. It’s why nothing tastes good, and why our farming systems are collapsing.”

Taste equals diversity, and when we focus on diversity (which means first and foremost, focusing on the soil), instead of one where only a few crops reign, we are better for it, both for our own health and for that of the environment. So think of food not just as fuel, but as the chance to indulge in something amazing. When you cook with good ingredients, or buy foods made from good ingredients, ingredients that are produced with respect for the environment, you need less of them to be happy with your meal. And isn’t it nice that focusing on something like taste can have such positive ramifications?

Related on EcoSalon

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Care About Sustainable Food? Start Thinking About the Soil: Foodie Underground

This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Image: Susy Morris

The post If We Ate More Delicious Food, Would Everyone Be Healthier? Foodie Underground appeared first on EcoSalon.

Column Want to build a more sustainable food system? Think a little less about yourself and a little more about your community. 

We live in an individualistic culture, where everything is about me, me, me and very little about us, us, us.

In the Western world, our important life questions are most often about what studies we do, which get us thinking about which job we will have, and whether or not it will be well paying enough so that we can buy a big house, and so that hopefully there will be enough for us to take fancy vacations to help us relax.

Our general cultural dialogue is very rarely about our impact on our community. Instead, it’s about what we as individuals need and want. You could look at this individualistic way of thinking as biological; we are trying to survive, and therefore, to each their own. Of course we make decisions based upon our own well-being. But there’s also the other way of looking at it, considering the necessity of more communal thinking for our success and survival; if we tribe together with those around us, we protect ourselves, better our situation.

The me is a part of the us.

We are all a part of a community, and our actions that affect the community in turn affect ourselves. When we only consider the me, we don’t consider our individual impact on the people and planet around us. We take, take and take some more, because there are no immediate consequences to pay. But someone, somewhere in the world, pays those consequences.

In food, this plays out in many ways. When people argue about the benefits of organic, it’s about whether or not organic produce is healthier for them the consumer, as opposed to healthier for the environment and the producer, whose health isn’t threatened by pesticides. When people talk about buying local, it’s often about how the purchase makes them feel good, not that it actually helps to improve the social network and economy of the community around them.

Your actions have a larger impact than the nutritional value of what’s on your plate. Fortunately, thinking about the impact of those actions is good for your health too. What’s good for the community as a whole is also good for us as individuals.

If we started putting communal benefits in front of individual, not only would we create a food system that was better for the environment and people producing the food, but we would build one that would improve our own lives as well, providing us access to healthier, more sustainable food.

When we focus on more sustainable food, we build community. And when we focus on the benefit of our community, we build more sustainable food systems. The way forward isn’t an individualistic one, it’s a communal one.

Building a more sustainable food system means more collective thinking. It requires thinking about the whole – the soil, the plant, the animals, the humans – and not just the me.

Related on EcoSalon

For More Sustainable Food, Women Farmers Are a Big Part of the Answer: Foodie Underground

Local Food, Local Community: Foodie Underground

Food Builds Strong Community: Foodie Underground

This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Image: Mosman Council

The post For a More Sustainable Food System, We Have to Start Thinking Communally: Foodie Underground appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnFeel a little creeped out by all the health coaching happening? You’re not alone.

The other day, I saw yet another acquaintance post something about their magical experience this summer with some life-changing health plan. The words of the post carried the excitement of when something happens in your life and you want to share it with your friends, but also the creepy feeling that they were trying to sell something. They had decided to get into the business of health coaching.

I’ve seen a lot of this over the past couple of years. People that try the latest This Will Fix Everything And It Will Be Easy program and then are so convinced by the results that they become an ambassador or coach for the program that they are so convinced is the solution to the world’s eating problems. “It’s only going to take you 21 days to get back on track! Join me!”

When did everyone decide to get into the business of health coaching?

As a friend put it, “it’s a pyramid scheme.” It’s true that whenever I see these kinds of things, I get the creepy feeling that it’s less about health and more about making money and running a business.

It’s not that there’s anything wrong with health coaching. In our modern world of processed foods, pesticide laden produce and the trifecta of fat, sugar and salt, we aren’t very healthy and we do need to change what we eat. But often, we don’t know how. Food education is dictated by the food lobby, and as the average time spent in the American kitchen drops, we have a worse and worse understanding of what we’re putting in our bodies. It makes sense that we would need some direction.

But is the direction that we are getting the right one?

I can understand where the fanaticism spawns from, and I am happy that people out there are thinking about what they are eating and are starting to feel better in the process. When you start eating well, you start feeling good, and when you feel good, you want to talk about it. Why? Because we live in a culture where most people don’t feel great, and when we feel great ourselves we want to help others to do the same. I myself believe in challenging people to think about what they eat and their health, it is after all why I write this column.

The other thing that makes these initiatives successful, and gets people excited about being an “ambassador” for them is that eating well takes a community. While eating well is first and foremost is a personal choice, it helps if the people around you are doing it too, and often these health initiatives provide that community, giving people a support system that they can plug into.

Diets give us a tribe. They give us a definition. They give us a reason to turn certain foods away. We can say “I’m doing the [insert diet here]” without having to accept personal responsibility for our eating choices. We are subscribed to a dogma, if carbs don’t fit in, then we won’t have them. When we don’t have a tribe that dictates our choices, it’s a lot harder to turn down that oversized serving of fries. “I eat what makes me feel good and try to find a healthy balance of real foods,” isn’t the answer anyone wants to hear when they offer you a piece of chocolate cake and you turn it down. Way better to respond with “I’ve given up [insert any ingredient here] for the next 30 days as part of the [insert diet here] and I feel amazing! Do you want to try it too?” Not only did you just turn down the cake, but you also just made a potential customer.

No wonder it feels like a diet pyramid scheme. The same friend wrote to me, “there is no trending food fad called ‘eat this delicious thing that you cooked and go for a walk.'”

It’s true. Telling someone to eat something tasty and go for a walk isn’t going to make you any money. Because it doesn’t involve any tablets, or any workout machinery or any special type of blender/food slicer/dehydrator/whatever other fancy contraption people are selling these days. It just involves real food and taking the personal responsibility to listen to your body and give it what it needs. That doesn’t have a catchy name, and therefore, it can’t be a trend. And if it can’t be a trend, then what’s the point in following it?

Here’s the deal. If anyone is selling you a meal replacement shake, be it Soylent or otherwise, smile, nod and say “I prefer real food, thank you very much.” Cut our processed foods. Eat more vegetables. Drink more water. Go for a walk. Or a run. Or a hike. Or a bike ride. Don’t go to fast food restaurants, even the one that brand themselves as “healthy.” And please say no to butter in your coffee. Coffee doesn’t deserve to be ruined in that way.

Can’t we all just be part of the Real Food Tribe? The one where there are no diets involved? The one where moderation is the name of the game, but not all the time, and we allow ourselves indulgences every once in awhile, but don’t drive ourselves crazy when we have them? Can we embrace food instead of demonizing it?

There isn’t a special trick to good health. You’re not going to eat a certain thing for 30 days and have it magically change your life. Being healthy is about having a well-rounded approach to real food every single day of your life. It’s not trendy, it’s a lifelong approach, and the sooner we embrace that, the better off we will be.

Related on EcoSalon

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11 Reasons to Completely Change Your Diet (And How to Eat Healthy): Foodie Underground

This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Image: John Watson

The post Do You Have Any Business in the Business of Health Coaching? Foodie Underground appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnWhat is the modern kitchen all about? Anything but cooking.

Take a look at any set of television ads, an interior design magazine or a home appliance store these days and you’ll notice one thing: everything that’s sold for the modern kitchen is made to make time spent in the kitchen more efficient. And if it’s not something that’s sold for the modern kitchen, it’s how to make your kitchen even better than it already is.

But you know what? Everything that’s sold is sold because we treat cooking food like the dullest of chores. Everything is sold to take the artistry out of making food. I have heard one too many times, “I don’t have a [insert fancy kitchen appliance here] so I can’t make a [insert basic food item here].” Sure, a bread machine reduces the amount of time that you have to spend making bread, but just because you don’t have one doesn’t mean that it’s impossible to make bread. Don’t have an electric mixer? You can still make meringues and whipped cream and all that good stuff. Kitchen appliances and gadgets give us something to blame for our own lack of food skills. And food skills are what keep us healthy. But now computerized kitchens are coming our way, so watch out.

Kitchen gadgets incorrectly believe us to believe that we can have everything and we can have it in a short period of time. A triple layer cake? Yeah, that’s going to take some planning to make. A fresh loaf of bread made with sourdough starter? No, you cannot have that in one hour.

Did you know that the average cost of reported kitchen remodels in the United States is almost $20,000? And people say they don’t have enough money to eat well. I know people who can cook a gourmet meal on a camp stove. You don’t need a fancy kitchen to make good food. Not to mention the fact that when we’re spending time in the kitchen, we’re spending it making completely useless food like rainbow colored unicorn cookies filled with sprinkles.

Let’s get one thing straight: this is about priorities. Good food takes time, anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something. It doesn’t take all the time in the world, but it does take time. But you have to ask yourself: what will you be doing with all the time you have gained from your ten new kitchen gadgets? Will you read a book? Will you work on that startup business plan? Will you spend time with your family? I am going to guess, no. You’re going to spend it on a screen. Checking your bank account to make sure that loan for your kitchen remodel went through.

We are so consumed with being “busy,” and having things look good, that we don’t even have time for the essentials anymore: put a roof over our heads, put food on the table, find water to drink and love each other. It really isn’t more complicated than that.

So what if we spent 30 less minutes everyday being online and put that time into making food instead? We’d be better off for it.

Because when we focus on looks before function, efficiency over time well spent, we lose something in the process. In fact, we lose a lot. We lose nutrition; choose microwave dinners over handmade ones. We lose tradition; we think birthday cakes come from the store. We lose knowledge; when resources were few, all food had to be put to use instead of wasted, nowadays few of us know how to use up vegetable scraps to make a broth. We lose quality time spent together: a family meal at the fast food joint isn’t the same as standing together in the kitchen preparing a meal.

Even if you enjoy cooking, it is in fact a chore. There is no way of getting around that. We have to eat three times a day. That means that you need to come up with something to stuff in your mouth three times a day. That might mean buying something at a restaurant, it might mean reheating last night’s leftovers, and it might mean cooking a meal from scratch.

But while cooking is a chore, we don’t always have to treat it like that, because it’s in treating it like a boring chore that we take all the fun out of it. And the fun is what gets people into the kitchen in the first place.

Gadgets won’t make us healthier. Cooking will. Learn how to do things from scratch, not because it’s the hip thing to do, but because it’s the healthy thing to do. Once you know the basics, you can cut corners. You can speed things up. You can whip together a pesto without a PestoMatic 5000. You can thinly slice vegetables into strips without a Spiralizer.

The beauty of finding pleasure in cooking is that it’s an activity that not only gives us pleasure, but also nourishes us all at the same time. It’s like going to a therapy session, except that therapy comes with dinner.

Don’t let any gadget or new kitchen take that away from you.

Related on EcoSalon

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This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Image: Steve Larkin

The post The Modern Kitchen: Do You Consider Cooking a Pleasure or a Chore? Foodie Underground appeared first on EcoSalon.

For the last few years I have been doing a summer roundup of food-related activities. Things to challenge you in your food repertoire, as well as things to simply enjoy eating well. Ready? Print this list out, hang it up on your refrigerator and start checking things off.

This is your official Foodie Underground 100 Things to Do This Summer list. Let’s get started.

1. Make meringues with a different ingredient mixed in, like ginger or cocoa powder.
2. Build a picnic table. From a pallet perhaps?
3. Repurpose a wine bottle into something cool, like a citronella candle.
4. Use chalkboard paint to make coffee mugs you can write on.
5. Pickle kale stems.
6. Find a piece of wood destined for the rubbish bin and make a wooden cutting board.
7. Bake something with ground coffee.
8. Ferment herbs.
9. Master poached eggs.
10. Make labneh cheese and spread it on everything in sight.
11. Experiment with sorrel.
12. Make a recipe into a temporary tattoo.
13. Learn how to make shrubs.
14. Try to go for a week without creating any food waste.
15. Make your own vanilla extract.
16. Use fresh berries and ground flaxseeds to make a simple, and quick, jam.
17. Paint with coffee.
18. Try a wild plant that you have never eaten before.
19. Take part in the Three Loaves project; bake something and help someone in hunger.
20. Pick some herbs and make herb infused honey.
21. Plan a three-course meal to be eaten outside; on a farm, on a beach, in a field, in your backyard.
22. Make pesto with something other than basil, like mint, carrot tops or radish greens.
23. Use cauliflower to make hummus.
24. Start a supper club.
25. Make bread with kombucha.
26. Prepare a meal and give it away to someone who needs it.
27. Buy an old cookbook at a garage sale.
28. Do a brewery tour on bicycle.
29. Start your own sourdough starter.
30. Brew coffee outdoors (if you don’t have a camp stove, boil some water ahead of time, pop in a thermos, take it with you and then use to brew).
31. Write a cookbook proposal.
32. Visit a vineyard.
33. Visit a farm.
34. Visit a distillery.
35. Do a coffee cupping.
36. Listen to a food podcast.
37. Make a food podcast.
38. Develop your own cooking show.
39. Dry your own herbs.
40. Cook with lavender.
41. Revamp a vintage recipe.
42. Blend your own teas.
43. Start a food zine.
44. Get to know freekeh.
45. Whip up a batch of tabouleh with something other than bulgur.
46. Infuse vodka with blueberries.
47. Fika.
48. Make ice cubes with tea so you don’t water down your iced tea.
49. Make your own ginger ale.
50. Plan a meal themed around one ingredient, to be used in a starter, main dish and dessert.
51. Use kombucha in smoothies.
52. Make a blend of beet and carrot chips.
53. Read some M.F.K. Fisher.
54. Write a haiku about your favorite summer fruit.
55. Brew some dandelion wine.
56. Go a day with eating only foods that are local and in season.
57. Go a week with eating only foods that are local and in season.
58. Don’t buy a single piece of disposable cutlery.
59. Learn how to say “I love food” in 10 languages.
60. Make your own bitters.
61. Harvest your own sea salt.
62. Forage seaweed and cook with it.
63. Sew a bag that turns into a picnic blanket.
64. Make candles from old beer bottles.
65. String lights in your backyard to make it feel like a cozy outdoor cafe.
66. Give up on buying salad dressing and make your own.
67. Make your own ketchup too.
68. And mustard.
69. And why not mayonnaise?
70. Make limoncello.
71. Dye some fabric with dyes made from plants.
72. Concoct some seed bombs and throw them in every deserted lot that you see.
73. Take a coffee nap.
74. Ferment berries.
75. Go through your kitchen supplies and get rid of all of the non-essentials.
76. Build your own magnetic spice rack.
77. Marinate tofu.
78. Learn how to smoke vegetables.
79. Make a fabric bread basket.
80. Print with potatoes.
81. Make your own red wine vinegar.
82. Master campfire bread.
83. Host a garden pizza night, with toppings straight from the ground.
84. Design your own wine label.
85. Plan a garden tour.
86. Throw a croquet and cocktails party.
87. Make your own frozen yogurt.
88. Brew your own tonic water for the ultimate in G&T.
89. Bake your own hamburger and hot dog buns.
90. Buy a plastic swimming pool, fill it with ice cubes, then fill it with drinks and invite your friends over.
91. Make cucumber sorbet.
92. Forage elderflower and make elderflower cordial.
93. Go overboard at the U-pick and then make fruit leather.
94. Soak cherries in bourbon.
95. Use summer squash to make noodles.
96. Get friendly with purslane.
97. Have some mead on hand? Make popsicles with it.
98. Make your own vegan marshmallows for gourmet s’mores.
99. Plan a dinner party themed around a specific color.
100. Develop your custom hot sauce recipe, bottle it up, give away to friends.

Need more things to do this summer? Check out the archived lists:

Foodie Underground: 100 Fun Things to Do This Summer if You Love Food (2014)

Foodie Underground: 101 Summer Bucket List Items for Foodies (2013)

Foodie Underground: 100 Things to Do With Your Summer Vacation (2012)

This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Image: Anna Brones

The post 100 Things to Do This Summer if You Love Food: Foodie Underground appeared first on EcoSalon.

Column When it comes to talking and writing about what we eat, how much power do we really have to change the food world?

I am bored with food writing.

There, I said it. Bored.

Why? Because I continually ask myself: how much more is there to say? And with whatever we say, how much impact do we really have?

I look through food magazines and books, and it all seems to be a slight variations on things that have already been written. So little of what we do as food writers is revolutionary. And yet, we keep doing it.

Some people write about how to make the best pie or what the ultimate way to boil an egg is, but I am not one of them. I write about food because I believe that what we eat is important, not just for ourselves but also for our community and our planet. And so I ask myself, how much change can we hope to have with our words?

In the face of all the things that happen around the world every single day – war, conflicts, oppression, natural disasters, death and destruction – writing about food can sometimes seem, well, a bit trivial. That’s because food writing is after all an activity of luxury; if we write about food then we have already managed to put food on the table. This puts us leaps and bounds ahead of the general global population. There’s no wonder some people call food writing elitist. Maybe it’s not so much that I am bored, but this conscious focus on food actually makes me a little uneasy and uncomfortable with my own role in all of it. And beyond that, I feel like I get repetitive, and question what my own power is to make real, positive change.

Maybe in our modern world we put too much value on food. Everyone needs to eat, but for those of us that can put food on the table, often there is an interest in food that verges on obsession. If we are all consumed with our everyday eating choices, if we are enthralled with reading about new restaurant openings and the latest and greatest kitchen gadget that is going to revolutionize our lives, does it keep us from putting energy into other topics that matter just as much, if not more?

I don’t want glossy magazines. I want dirt beneath my nails. I want real food. I want stuff that doesn’t come in plastic. I want food made with actual ingredients, not synthetic compounds with long names that I can’t pronounce. I want the food world to not be about the latest trend, but to be about feeding people – all people – with good whole ingredients. I can only hope that in writing about all of these things that there is some little contribution to tipping to the scale, so that we get to a place where everyone around the world has access to clean water and enough food.

The world doesn’t need an avocado toast recipe. But it does need advocates for change.

Being an advocate for change can be as simple as having a conversation. There is so much in our world that is out of our control, and yet, there is a lot that is in our control. We can control what we eat. We can make a neighbor a meal. We can build a planter box and grow a garden. We can volunteer with an organization that teaches other people to garden.

In my opinion, if as food writers we are going to change the food world, then we have to focus on the dirty stuff instead of the shiny, glamorous stuff. The world does not need more Michelin-star restaurants. But it does need more gardens in at-risk communities. It does need more activists protesting big agribusiness. It does need people working at soup kitchens to ensure that families don’t go hungry.

Related on EcoSalon

Real Food Shouldn’t Be Fashionable: Foodie Underground

When Food Waste is Food Treasure: Foodie Underground

Do We Really Know How to Eat Healthy? Foodie Underground

This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Image: Jemma Billings

The post How Much Power Do We Have to Change the Food World? Foodie Underground appeared first on EcoSalon.

Column If you enjoy food from other cultures, how do they fit into a locavore diet?

When I travel, I love discovering a place through its food. Go to a market and you’ll immediately get a taste of what the locals eat. Food is also the impetus for a conversation. It’s the chance to get together with people for a meal. Because of this, food is one of the easiest vehicles for cultural exchange. The food on our plate, and where it came from, who produced it and who cooked it, is often an excellent lens for looking at the culture as a whole.

When we travel, food also often ends up being the thread that ties our travel memories together, and when we return, of course we want to recreate those memories, either in the kitchen or by going to a restaurant. You ate the best street food of your life in Bangkok and now you’re on a mission to find a place that does something similar. Or you had an unforgettable night of cheese and wine in France and now you are scoping the local market to see if by chance they import at least one of the items that you now feel that you cannot live without.

In a globalized world, it’s easier and easier to get foods from abroad. Almost any large supermarket nowadays has a section devoted to food products from various regions, and with specialty retailers, as well as the online world, there are few items from around the world that are absolutely impossible to get. We live in a world where if we want it, we can have it.

But should we have it? If you’re trying to stick to a largely locavore diet you can be sure that the can of coconut milk didn’t come from down the road.

I thought about this a lot in writing the book “Fika.” Swedish baking uses a lot of cardamom – grown nowhere near the Nordic countries – and shredded coconut and ginger are common ingredients. As somone who writes a lot about local foods, how do I come to terms with the fact that sometimes, the ingredients that I use come from afar?

The embrace of foods and ingredients from around the world is exciting. It allows us to step out of our own culinary comfort zones without actually traveling. New ingredients can spice up an old dish. Yet in this hyper-growth of availability of exotic cuisines, have we turned the focus away from our own?

We are quick to assume another culture’s diet than to fix our own, that’s why things like the Mediterranean Diet and the Nordic Diet have become so huge. Maybe this isn’t so surprising in a country like the United States, whose food culture has from the beginning been made up of the food culture of many other places. We are quick to embrace the foods from elsewhere, because that is hat we have always done. Globalization and cheap transport has only made that easier.

Unfortunately, when it comes to food from other cultures, we get so focused on doing exact replications, instead of taking inspiration. When your entire grocery list is made up of ingredients that come from an ocean away, a red flag should go off.

The ability to get different cuisines from around the world has spiced up many a bland food nation. The ability to get a diversity of food from different cultures is a nice thing. But in doing so, we’ve put all the focus on what we can get from elsewhere instead of thinking about what’s available closer to home. Goji berries, I am looking at you.

Just like with a healthy diet, it’s all about moderation and balance. To exist solely on a locavore diet is hard – and even if you go back a few hundred years people were already eating imported goods, like coffee, chocolate and spices – but most of us could deal with eating a little more locally sourced foods – particularly foods that do grown closer to home (buying apples from Chile and New Zealand is just silly) –  and making the exotic foods an indulgence instead of a regular, everyday occurrence.

This just means rethinking some of our favorite imported dishes. Thinking in terms of inspiration instead of replication. How can you adapt a recipe from afar to include more ingredients from close by?

You might love a certain French cheese, but what are the cheese producers making in your region? You may be a fan of the Nordic Diet, but what about simply applying some of the general principles instead of making a mad dash for the Scandinavian supermarket and buying lingonberry jam?

Let’s not just import taste, let’s be inspired it by it, and adapt it, making something new in the process. Instead of just copying and pasting a food culture and calling it our own, we build a completely different one. Use a few exotic ingredients here and there, but let us not make them a staple of our everyday dishes. Let food from other cultures be an indulgence, and be challenged to think about how everyday, ordinary ingredients could be used in a new way.

Related on EcoSalon

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This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Image: Anna Brones

The post Can You Be a Locavore and Indulge in Food From Other Cultures? Foodie Underground appeared first on EcoSalon.

Is the Nordic Diet just the new “it” thing or is it actually a sustainable approach to food?

If it’s not one diet, it’s another, because let’s face it: we want the magic trick that will keep is fit and slim.

The truth is, there is no magic trick, the best diet isn’t a diet at all, but a healthy lifestyle built around eating real food. But this doesn’t stop us from seeking out things that can guide our eating habits. Which is maybe why things like the Mediterranean Diet have proved so succesful, both for people looking to eat better, and for authors and health gurus looking to make a buck. Of course a diet full of fresh produce is good for us. But don’t forget that it should also include physical exercise, and just because you started throwing back shots of olive oil doesn’t mean you can enjoy a fast food meal every Friday.

But forget the Mediterranean Diet, there’s a new health plan in town. The latest diet to hit the scene is the Nordic diet. Yes, we’re talking Viking food, or at least, a Viking approach to eating.

As a food trend New Nordic has been consuming the media for quite some time now. Whether you’re into Icelandic, Swedish, Norwegian or Danish foraged food, there’s a chef and restaurant for you. In the cutting edge food world, people like Rene Redzepi and Magnus Nilsson have become household names. But lately, this New Nordic trend has taken a different spin, away from the the culinary elite and towards the average eater. Because it has taken the form of a trendy diet. When Vogue is writing about it, you know it’s a “thing.”

In the last few months, eating like a Viking has been called The Best New Diet For Weight Loss, The New “It” Diet and The Next Big Trend in Weight Loss. Which begs the question: what exactly is the Nordic diet?

Officially the New Nordic Diet came to fruition in 2004, when René Redzepi and Claus Meyer brought together a symposium of regional chefs to talk about the ever increasing consumption of processed foods and all those things we know we shouldn’t be eating. They came up with a “Manifesto for the New Nordic Kitchen,” which was then adopted by the Nordic Council of Ministers as its food policy in 2005.

There are 10 basic principles to the New Nordic Diet:

1. More fruit and vegetables every day (lots more: berries, cabbages, root vegetables, legumes, potatoes and herbs)
2. More whole grain, especially oats, rye and barley
3. More food from the seas and lakes
4. Higher-quality meat, but less of it
5. More food from wild landscapes
6. Organic produce whenever possible
7. Avoid food additives
8. More meals based on seasonal produce
9. More home-cooked food
10. Less waste

What this list isn’t something that’s specific to Scandinavia; these principles can be used anywhere, whether you’re in North America or Australia. It’s less of a Nordic Diet and more of a Smart and Sustainable General Approach to Good. A no-diet diet plan so to say.

But of course, the media is happy to latch onto anything that is the next “it” diet. Of course, there are some essential things to keep in mind. No matter what “diet” you choose to be on, there are still things to think about like portion control and exercise; just because you decided to from here on out only eat rye bread and foraged berries doesn’t mean you’re going to drop pounds instantaneously.

The basis for the New Nordic Diet was also to get people thinking about ingredients and foods that came from closer to home. In Scandinavia that might mean certain grains and certain vegetables, but wherever you are in the world, it doesn’t mean that you should start importing them. If you really want to “eat like a Viking” then you should start thinking about what local foods are available to you, lest we let the ideals of Nordic Diet get co-opted by health fanatics that take it the way of superfoods, putting certain ingredients on a pedestal even though they come from thousands of miles away. Just because someone in Northern Sweden is eating reindeer jerky doesn’t mean you necessarily need to be.

But there are many takeaways from the Nordic Diet no matter where we are. It frowns upon processed foods and refined grains, something we should all be frowning upon, it promotes eating in season, consuming less meat and doing more cooking at home. If there was one diet that we should all stick to, it’s this one. Because it’s actually not even a diet, it’s just a smart and healthy approach to food.

If anything, we can hope that this fervor for the Nordic diet will simply translate into people thinking more about what they eat and where their food comes from. That’s the best kind of diet we can all be on.

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Image: New Amsterdam Market

The post The Nordic Diet: Eating Like a Viking is Good for All of Us appeared first on EcoSalon.

Column New years resolutions to keep you eating well in 2015.

A new year, a new chance, right? With a blank slate, the world is your oyster. You could completely change your diet overnight if you really felt like. You could go from meat loving, bacon drooler to hardcore raw vegan overnight if you felt like it. Yes, the birth of a new year always gives us the opportunity for change.

Now normally, I am not big on new year’s resolutions, mostly because so often we set ourselves up for failure. We’ll do this, we’ll avoid that. New years resolutions are for the most part very black and white, with no room for the gray area. But life is all about the gray area.

Food related new years resolutions however don’t have to be black and white. Sure, you could commit to cutting out sugar, but you could also come up with a more sustainable option like “learn how to bake a cake without refined sugar.” Food allows us to experiment, and in the new year, what better way to live healthier than to get creative with what we eat?

With that in mind, here are ten new years resolutions that are all about eating and eating well.

1. Incorporate new foods – how about one a week?

If we’re not careful, routines can quickly turn into ruts. Take inspiration from the #52newfoods challenge and incorporate a new food – or a new way of preparing a food – every single week. It will keep you out of your culinary rut.

2. Find local replacements whenever possible

How about a little olive oil instead of coconut oil? Or blueberries instead of goji berries? There are plenty of things in our everyday diets that have alternatives that can be sourced from closer to home.

3. Learn how to bake a cake without refined sugar

You didn’t think I’d leave this off the list did you? You’d be surprised how many alternatives there are to sugar, and it doesn’t have to mean that your end product tastes like hippy sawdust.

4. Cut out meat for a certain number of meals, or days, every week

The world would be better off if we all ate less meat. However, not everyone is ready to go vegetarian. That’s ok. But what you can do is committing to eating less. If you already have one meat-free day in the week, why not make it two? Set a goal.

5. Stop using coffee pods

If you already ditched that nasty habit in 2014, good for you (and the planet). For the rest of you, please oh please don’t buy into this expensive, wasteful trend.

6. Cook a meal from a country whose cuisine you don’t know anything about

Certain ethnic cuisines get a lot of exposure – Mexican, Thai, Italian – but there is an entire world of food out there waiting to be explored. Don’t limit yourself. Pick a country and learn a few dishes. All I have to say is this: Indonesian satay sauce.

7. Grow something edible

I don’t care if you only have a tiny balcony space with room for one planter, you can at least grow some herbs. Get those hands dirty.

8. Don’t buy food based on looks

Good looking food doesn’t always mean better food, so remember that appearance shouldn’t trump quality. Support those ugly vegetables!

9. Decide on a few staples that you can make yourself

There are so many grocery store products that we could easily be making ourselves. Almond butter? Yup, you can do that at home. Nutella? No point in getting store-bought ever again. Rice milk? Cut that off the shopping bill.

10. Stay informed

To keep voting with your fork, you have to know what’s going on in the world of food. Want to keep up with what’s happening in food politics? A few great resources include Civil Eats, Marion Nestle’s Food Politics and Food Tank.

Now, here’s to a healthy and delicious 2015!

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This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Image: swong95765

The post 10 New Year’s Resolutions All About Food: Foodie Underground appeared first on EcoSalon.

Column Don’t want to serve classic Thanksgiving food? That’s just fine.

Since it’s Thanksgiving week, I figured we’d tackle the topic of Thanksgiving food.

For the latter part of November, all food media, be it print, web, radio or television, turns into a “Hey You, Don’t Forget It’s Thanksgiving” feeding frenzy. Feature articles and episodes are devoted to recipes, tips and tricks that will help you ensure that this Thanksgiving is the Official Best Thanksgiving Ever.

Feel that pressure rising?

This will be the second year in a row that I’m not in the US for Thanksgiving. And this year I am so far removed from the realities of North American holidays that had I not seen a bunch of Thanksgiving themed food articles in my newsfeed, there’s a high chance I would have forgotten all about it.

My family was never one to do the traditional Thanksgiving roll out. In terms of Thanksgiving food, there was always some concoction of sweet potatoes, a cranberry salad of some sort and a rendition of a pumpkin pie, but only because those foods made seasonal sense; that’s why they’re Thanksgiving classics to begin with.

In an attempt to try to make Thanksgiving more official, one year my mother and I committed to cooking a turkey just for good measure, and the process was so time consuming and the result so boring (I mean really, of all the meats, turkey is not the most exciting) that it came to be lovingly referred to as The F*ing Bird. We never attempted to cook a turkey again, and these days I’ve gone mostly vegetarian.

And yet, I’ve always loved Thanksgiving. Not for the exact dishes that we eat, but simply because I get to sit around for a few days off with my parents, drink some good wine, eat some good food and just spend time unplugged. It’s not about what we eat, it’s the fact that we’re doing it together.

Over time I have found that there is a certain genre of Thanksgiving related stories that comes from people spending the American holiday abroad. There’s the account of trying to find a turkey, or if that’s impossible, something that will replace it. There’s the humorous tale of trying to bake a pumpkin pie when you don’t know how to translate the word pumpkin, and when you do, realizing that it’s not squash season wherever you are. There’s the embarrassing story of inviting a bunch of people around to experience a Truly Authentic Thanksgiving dinner, only to realize that you burned the pie, the bird and the stuffing (but the guests just ended up drinking more wine, so in the end, things turned out alright).

I always shy away from these stories with a hint of annoyance. Not because they shed light on the triumphs and tribulations of living abroad and trying to build community when far from home. My frustration has always come from the obsession with getting all the food elements exactly right. There’s no room for error and no room for creativity. If it’s Thanksgiving then a turkey has to be served and that’s that.

The same goes back at home, and yet our obsession with doing Thanksgiving “right” comes at a cost. According to the USDA, the average American family wastes about 35 percent of edible turkey meat. With around 248 million turkeys raised for slaughter in the United States, that waste comes out to about $282 million. Keep that in mind when you’re debating what size bird you “have” to get.

Food is a beautiful vehicle for transporting us back to certain memories. We bake pumpkin pie because it’s a reminder of a certain place and time. The smell invokes a sentiment, no matter where we are in the world. We stick to certain recipes because they remind us of the people that taught them to us in the first place. We’re reminded of our family and friends.

But in a quest for the appropriate dinner spread, we lose track of the goal at hand: to be thankful of what we have, to be present and spend time with people we love, to give to those less fortunate than ourselves.

No matter what food you put on the table this Thanksgiving, I ensure you that you will gather around it with your friends and family and have a wonderful celebration. Take the stress out of Thanksgiving food and you’re left with a wonderful dinner party. Cook in season, and cook what feels good, not what you feel obligated to serve. Create your own memories and traditions. And if you feel like baking a pumpkin pie a week after the Thanksgiving holiday, have at it. Seasonal food is comfort food for a reason; eating in balance with what the earth provides us is what we’re meant to do.

Food shouldn’t feel constricting, it should be a celebration. And that’s what I hope you get this Thanksgiving.

Related on Foodie Underground

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This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Image: Satya Murthy

The post With Thanksgiving Food Traditions, It’s Not the Food That Counts: Foodie Underground appeared first on EcoSalon.