ColumnAmericans have a hard time accessing good food. Are we destined for bad health?

If there ever was a time to rethink our attitude towards food, it’s now.

We cook less, we eat more processed foods, and our health is failing because of it. Meanwhile, we’re so engrossed in reality cooking shows and obsessing over which three star chefs are opening new restaurants this year that we forget that the most important thing in the food world is that people simply have access to food. Real food. Good food.

Not potato chips in a convenience store, not a hamburger in a drive thru. No, people have to have access to whole grains and seasonal, fresh produce (that isn’t 99 percent toxic because of the pesticides sprayed on it), and if they don’t, Americans can only expect more of the same. More obesity. More heart disease. More cancer.

Because in the United States, we are literally eating ourselves to death. That Standard American Diet is referred to as SAD for a reason.

Oxfam recently published a study called Good Enough to Eat? which looked at the best and worst places in the world to eat well. No, it was not an assessment of how many local food co-ops served kombucha or whether or not there was a burgeoning food truck scene. The study consider four key factors:

1. Do people have enough to eat?

2. Can people afford to eat?

3. Is food of good quality?

4. What is the extent of unhealthy outcomes of people’s diet?

Can you guess where the United States ended up? Number 24.

People living in the Netherlands have the best chance to eat well, and right behind them are the French and the Swiss. The come Denmark, Sweden, Austria and Belgium.

Why does the U.S. rank so low?

In regards to the fourth metric of the study – health issues related to diet – Americans don’t do so well. Looking at obesity and diabetes rates, the U.S. ranks 120th out of 125 countries in terms of how eating influences our overall health.

And then there’s the question of economics. There’s plenty of cheap food in the U.S., but it’s highly processed. Fresh vegetables? Those are often more expensive. Result? A country that eats a lot, but at the same time is highly malnourished.

“Food is very, very cheap in the U.S. compared to most countries,” Max Lawson of Oxfam told The Salt in an interview. “But the fact is you end up with people malnourished in one of the richest countries because they don’t have access to fresh vegetables at a cheap enough price to make a balanced diet.”

We live in a modern, developed society and a large percentage of the population doesn’t even have access to fresh vegetables? Something is very wrong with this picture. And I won’t even go into the nutritional aspect of the produce that we do have access to – I recently read a pretty depressing statistic in Michal Pollan’s “In Defense of Food” that over the last few decades, the rise in industrial farming has basically lowered the amount of nutrients in the produce that we eat. We literally have to eat more vegetables to get the same nourishment that our grandparents did.

To say there’s an issue with the food system is an understatement. As Lawson puts it, “Basically, if you arrive from Mars and design a food system, you probably couldn’t design a worse one than what we have today on Earth. There is enough food overall in the world to feed everyone. But 900 million people still don’t have enough to eat, and 1 billion people are obese. It’s a crazy situation.”

Are we destined for bad health in the United States? If we want to eat better, we have to consciously choose to do so, seeking out the products and ingredients that aren’t simply food “products” but actual food. Real and good food. There are frozen muffin tops in the frozen section after all. Muffin tops.

But there are many people that don’t have the choice of better food, be it for economic or for access reasons, making it all the more important that we continue to push for change on this issue so that eventually, they do. Everyone should be able to go to a nearby grocery store and buy fresh vegetables.

The longer that we leave health in the hands of big business (like the french fry and muffin top producers of the world), the worse we can expect our health to become.

Buy real food and be a part of the solution.

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: Alex Cameron

The post Are Americans Destined to Avoid Good Food Forever? Foodie Underground appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnWhy we have to get past thinking about the Big O.

“I now feel completely vindicated for NOT buying organic foods.”

Well, great.

The internet was abuzz with the recent study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine that found little evidence that organic foods are more nutritious than conventional grown food, and I found myself getting severely agitated by comments like the above posted in social media circles. Granted, I spend a lot of time thinking about food, but simple statements like the aforementioned prove to me that we are entirely removed from the food process and what we are eating. We are oversimplifying a complex issue.

We love it when studies prove to us that our decisions are right. Want to justify a habit? You can probably find a study that does just that. Coffee is good for you, no bad for you, no good for you.

In an information based society, there is no surprise that we’re drawn in by headlines. But if we are going to base our eating values on a headline and the first paragraph of an article, we should question the importance we are putting on our well-being and that of the planet.

Here’s the issue with a meta-study: it only focuses on one element. When it comes to organic food, this specific study, as with many others, doesn’t paint a full picture.

“This study disputes how significant the differences in antioxidant and nutrient levels are between organic and conventional food. But that’s not central to the discussion of why organic is important, which has a lot more to do with how the soil is managed and the exposure to pesticides, not just in the eater’s diet but to the farmworker,” said author Michael Pollan in an interview with KQED.

We have to take a step back and take a look at the bigger picture. The study did find that conventional produce has a 30% higher chance of pesticide contamination compared to organic foods, and as the Guardian pointed out, “it should be noted that there are currently no long-term studies of the health outcomes for people consuming organic versus conventionally produced food.”

Beyond that, as Pollan emphasizes, there is an environmental cost to everything that we put in our bodies. Food cannot be reduced to single elements. It’s not just about antioxidants or carbohydrates or omega 3s. Food is a process, a compilation of nutrition, environment and experience.

“Organic” has certainly become a buzz word. Slap the big O on anything and you’re sure to attract a certain demographic. In a controversial op-ed, The New York Times writer Roger Cohen called the organic ideology “an elitist, pseudoscientific indulgence shot through with hype.”

He is partly right.

There is a challenge to feeding the planet, and it’s not going to be solved by $4 organic asparagus from Whole Foods; that’s about the same as the average amount as a food stamp recipient is allotted per day. However, if we are talking about building sustainable food systems that solve hunger, we have to think about the whole approach. And if we’re in the socio-economic group that has the money and time to think about what we’re eating, we have no excuse not to be doing so.

In the modern age, if you are able to comfortably put food on the table, it is inexcusable to not think about what you are eating. This issue isn’t about organic vs. conventional, it is about building a food system that is focused on good food. A food system that puts a value on local small-scale businesses and not just agribusiness. A food system that normalizes appreciating good food instead of making it pretentious.

“Is it organic?” is only one of many questions that we should all be asking when we’re standing with a grocery basket in our hands. “Where does it come from?” “What pesticides were used?” “How are the people that produce it treated?” “What synthetic chemicals are part of this meal?” The list goes on.

There is not one simple solution to eating better. If you think that filling your basket with foods just because they have a specific label on them means you’re doing the right thing, think again. Take a holistic approach – one that thinks about food in a new way. How it affects you. How it affects your community. How it affects the planet.

If we are going to move the food system forward, in a progressive and sustainable manner, we have to be asking the hard questions, and that takes more than just reading a headline.

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’s weekly column at EcoSalon, Foodie Underground, discovering what’s new and different in the underground food movement, from supper clubs to mini markets to the culinary avant garde.

The post Foodie Underground: Should We Care About Organic? appeared first on EcoSalon.

A simple and no nonsense guide to going vegan.

Thinking about committing to a 100% plant-based diet? Going vegan isn’t for everyone, but it’s actually a lot easier than some might think. In his new digital cookbook Eat Awesome: A regular person’s guide to plant-based, whole foods, author, web designer and touring musician Paul Jarvis shows us how simple and fulfilling eating a plant-based diet can be.

A total foodie (if you like food porn you should be sure to follow Jarvis on Instagram), his cookbook is a straightforward account of the benefits of a plant-based diet, full of recipes that focus on simple, whole foods, from Chickpea Curry to Raw Cheesecake (hint: it’s made with cashews). For anyone that has felt intimidated by going vegan, it’s an easy-to-use guide that makes transitioning to a diet that is more plant-based seem less daunting.

We caught up with Jarvis to learn more about the book – which since it’s digital, is paper-free and you can score for a mere $5 – and his passion for food, and he gave us his favorite recipe for Deviled Potatoes.

Deviled Potatoes

Ingredients:

• Potatoes
• Mustard seed
• Turmeric
• Nutritional yeast
• Paprika
• Cashew cream (recipe below)

Directions:

Halve about 20 egg-sized potatoes and place on a lightly oiled baking sheet, flat side down.

Bake at 375F for 30-45 minutes, or until tender.

Scoop out the middles and place in a mixing bowl.

Mash the scooped out potato middles with a bit of mustard seed, 2-4 scoops of nutritional yeast, cashew cream (or any vegan mayonnaise) and turmeric.

Spoon mixture back into the middle of the potatoes, and sprinkle with paprika.

Cashew Cream

Ingredients:

• Cashews
• Lemon
• Nutritional yeast (optional)

Directions:

1. Soak 2 cups of cashews for an hour, then drain and rinse.
2. Put cashews in a blender with the juice of 1 to 2 lemons, salt to taste, and a couple spoonfuls of nutritional yeast.
3. Blend until mixture is creamy and smooth.

EcoSalon: How did you get into food?

Paul Jarvis: I’ve been eating since birth and have grown rather fond of it. It’s also been something I’ve cared (see: obsessed) about for as long as I can remember. I need to know how every dish I encounter is made, what the whole ingredients are that dishes are comprised of, and what techniques are required to cook or prepare it. This led me to spending most of my time playing with whole ingredients — I’d rather make something from scratch, even if it takes longer, than buy it already prepackaged or pre-prepared. Even vegan butter, mayonnaise or kale chips (which can take hours to make and literally seconds to eat).

What led you to veganism?

I was vegetarian for years and constantly experimenting with what I was eating to see how eating (or not eating) certain foods affected my moods, energy levels and physical endurance. I happened upon veganism by accident after realizing I had been vegan for a year or so without making a conscious choice to do so. Eliminating milk, cheese and eggs from my already vegetarian diet was making me feel better (and resulted in getting sick far less), which is also what happened when I stopped eating meat. I didn’t wake up one day and shout, “Hey world, I’m vegan!” It was actually based more on observations on how what I ate affected my body.

What inspired you to write a book?

My book Eat Awesome actually wrote itself before I knew what was happening. I was always getting the same sorts of questions from friends, family and co-workers about why I was vegan, what I ate, and the usual… “How do you get your protein?” So all the information and recipes in the book were written out in emails dozens of times. Then I realized, that I could be a little lazy with things (little did I know that putting together a book was anything but “being lazy”) and write the same answers and recipes for people in a single sweep. The recipes are meals I make on a weekly basis, so I didn’t need to figure out what to include, I just wrote out a list of what I had made for meals in the last couple weeks and that became the recipes included.

Your approach to this book is pretty simple — “Eating vegan is a good time” — why do you think so many people knock veganism?

There are a few reasons for this. The first is that veganism challenges the mainstream way of eating, also known as SAD (a Standard American Diet — it’s not just me being sassy). Most adults weren’t raised vegan, so it’s a bit of a paradigm shift on a plate and some folks would rather not challenge how they think about food or what’s in food they eat.

There’s also a shit-ton (I forget the actual Imperial unit of measurement for this since I’m Canadian) of misinformation out there condemning veganism as an unhealthy, hippie, uninformed way of eating. The meat and dairy industries don’t need to be right or factual, they just need to have bigger budgets than that of an organic kale farmer.

There’s also an often unspoken thought that veganism isn’t very manly since Real Men(tm) eat steak. To that I’d say that real men take care of their bodies and want to decrease their risk of things like prostate cancer, diabetes and heart problems (all of which have been shown to worsen due to the consumption of meat and dairy). I’d also tell any dude who thinks veganism isn’t manly to tell it to the face of winning UFC fighter and long-time vegan, Mac Danzig.

When someone says to you, “Oh, I could never be vegan” what is your response?

I thought the same thing until I was one. I’ve never said going vegan was easy — but it gets easy as you learn more. Compared to 10 years ago, it’s easier than ever that adopt a plant-based diet. There’s a ton of great books out about vegan lifestyle, fitness and recipes. There is also support through things like online message boards, vegan meet-ups, creature-free potlucks, there are even iPhone apps that give you directions to the nearest vegan restaurant in any city.

There are some great products on the market that simulate meat and cheeses too. They may not be as awesome as whole, organic foods — but they’re quick, tasty and much more nutritious than their conventional counterparts. I think of faux-meats as the “gateway drug” to veganism. They’re good to start since they look and taste meaty, and they can be enough to get you hooked on plant-based living. But over time and with their help, you can transition to harder vegan drugs — like kale and quinoa.

The other thing is that I wouldn’t ever say that you have to go vegan cold-turkey (why are so many colloquialisms rooted in meat? I sense a conspiracy). Becoming completely vegan can be a goal over time, as you learn more about it. If you slip up or have a moment of weakness, it doesn’t mean being vegan isn’t right for you, it just means you’re human (so congratulations on that!). The vegan police won’t be beating down anyone’s door, since they don’t exist. Simply eating consciously and compassionately is a move in the right direction. You don’t have to become a 100% total absolute vegan instantly — just try a single plant-based meal and take it from there.

If someone is looking to incorporate more vegan foods in their diet, what would be your 5 recommendations of foods to start with?

1. Kale. Kale is the superhero of a plant-based diet. High in fibre, beta-carotene, antioxidants, calcium, vitamin C, folic acid, potassium… the list could go on forever. If eating a green vegetable makes you want to throw up a little in your mouth — try it in a smoothie with some bananas or eat a kale chip or have it cooked up as perfect southern collard greens.

2. Hemp. I don’t mean smoking marijuana. Eating hemp hearts is awesome for good fats, protein and a whack of other nutritive properties. It’s not just for hippies in ponchos!

3. Lentils. These are packed with fibre, iron and protein. They taste great cooked simply in some salted water with a bit of hummus on top. Throw some asparagus on top of that, and you’ve got yourself a meal!

4. Cashews. Most importantly, there are nut jokes. Nut milk. Nut sack. My nuts. Warm nuts. Salty nuts… Nuts are funny, don’t even pretend they’re not. They’re also great as snacks or used in things like making your own cashew milk, raw cheesecakes or even vegan cream sauce for that alfredo pasta you always secretly wanted to veganize.

5. Nutritional Yeast. Known in the vegan world as “nooch,” this inactive yeast comes in flaky form and tastes a little cheesy. It’s a source of B12, folic acid and some other good stuff — but mostly, it tastes amazing on popcorn with coconut oil and salt.

So, tell us more about these deviled potatoes.

You can’t really go wrong with a baked potato and fixin’s, whether you’re a vegan or an omnivore. They look like a deviled egg, but have all the awesomeness and comfort feel of a baked potato. So they go over great at parties, BBQs or even for after attending a 30 Seconds to Mars concert (fyi: the whole band is vegan).

Want your own digital copy of Eat Awesome? We’re giving 5 away. Tell us how you incorporate more plant-based foods into your diet in the comments below!

Images: Eat Awesome

The post Eat Awesome: An Everyman’s Guide to Plant-Based, Whole Foods appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnWant to change the world? Stop eating packaged food.

A block and a half from my apartment there is a Safeway. For the last few years it has been a dingy place with dark aisles and dusty shelves, the kind of grocery store where you might just see an unmentionable rodent scurry across the floor. Then it got a remodel.

Located in the heart of a neighborhood where bike commuting and raising chickens are of the norm, Safeway knew their demographic, and the remodel followed suite. A few weeks ago the new and improved version opened, complete with brick walls, high ceilings, an abundant organic produce section and even an outdoor patio with tables and chairs for sipping afternoon coffee. Take away the Safeway sign and replace the Starbucks something a little more hip – Blue Bottle for example – and it would look just like every other yuppie-centric food shopping center. Don’t pretend you don’t have an affinity for such things – we’re all slaves to marketing.

Having always avoided the store except for last minute shopping emergencies, I entered the remodeled edition with an open mind. Access to grocery stores is not something that should be taken for granted; the fact that I can buy whole grains, fruits and vegetables a block and a half away from where I live is a luxury, and I try my hardest not to take it for granted. After all, a full grocery cart from Safeway is leaps and bounds from a dinner at McDonald’s.

On first look I was impressed. Fresh looking carrots, apples and kale? Check. Bulk foods? Wow. Topping the charts on sustainable seafood ranking? Hat tip. But as I walked around the periphery and was offered a variety of samples – “Would you like to try some nonfat yogurt with fiber cereal?” – panic started to set in. That nonfat yogurt was strawberry flavored, with who knows how much sugar. And the fiber cereal? Just one of hundreds of packaged cereals in the breakfast aisle touting the benefits of vitamins and minerals and all that other stuff that is part of a complete breakfast.

A quick look down the aisles to see jars upon jars of peanut butter (only one brand made without sugar or high fructose corn syrup) and dozens of different chewy granola bars confirmed my fears: I was in packaged world hell. Yes, much of it was branded as “healthy” – I am sure we would all be better off if kids were eating 100% Fiber Bites instead of High Fructose Neon Colored Synthetic Gems – but is healthy food just a name? As it turns out, as Americans, we don’t have an understanding of what healthy is anymore. We think avocados are fattening and bran muffins and a non-fat vanilla latte are a good way to start the day. Time for a reality check?

To pretend that I normally shop at grocery stores that don’t sell packaged food would be ridiculous – we live in a world of convenience after all and no matter where we shop, packaged foods abound. But what happens in the large percentage of big box chain grocery stores is the quantity and messaging. There is an overabundance of food that isn’t really food; it’s food elements combined with a handful of synthetic nutrients that we’re told is good for us, and because we’re busy, overworked and need to eat, we buy it. Yet our addiction to pre-made products wrapped in plastic, boxed in cardboard and labeled with colorful messaging should certainly be put to question, because not only is our health at risk, so is the planet’s.

The more processed food we eat, the further we are distanced from the food’s source. Don’t ever show a child a farm and a cow, and they might think that meat just comes from the butcher. Artichoke hearts are delicious on wood fired pizza, but do you know how an artichoke plant grows? I didn’t until a couple of years ago. The more we eat out of boxes and determine our diets by nutritional guidelines, the more we pull ourselves away from nature, losing our connection with the earth that is providing us with the food in the first place.

Take a look at zero waste efforts. In the last several years we have seen everyone from No Impact Man to My Zero Waste set out to reduce their footprint on the planet by pursuing lifestyles that reduce their all around waste. At first sight, that may sound like it’s all trash related, but take a closer look and it’s clear how inextricably linked food and waste really are. You can’t talk about one without the other.

In the documentary film The Clean Bin Project, which follows a Canadian couple as they commit to living waste-free for a year, one of the first scenes is a trip to the grocery store and an attempt at buying cheese at the deli counter that’s simply cut off the block and not pre-packaged. Buying food that isn’t packaged, even if you’re on a steady diet of whole foods, is difficult. When even bananas come wrapped in plastic, you know there’s a serious problem at hand.

Talk all you want about being an environmentalist, but if you haven’t taken a serious look at what is in your pantry, you could just as well be running over endangered turtles with a Hummer. An addiction to packaged foods doesn’t just contribute to waste, it contributes to an entire infrastructure that doesn’t support local farmers, encourages us to overeat and leads to obesity and is destroying our environment by continuing a process that is fueled by monoculture, deforestation and a multitude of other things you learn about in Environmental Studies 101. If living more in balance with nature is the path we want to take towards a more sustainable world, we have to start with food.

Question what you eat, where it came from and commit to simplifying, because real food isn’t complicated. Just because the sea salt, fennel and olive oil crackers came from Trader Joe’s and not from Safeway doesn’t mean you should be buying them. They’re still packaged, probably full of preservatives, and do you even know how easy it is to make crackers yourself?

If we have time to devote to watching trashy reality television, we have time to devote to eating well. No excuses.

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’s weekly column at EcoSalon, Foodie Underground, discovering what’s new and different in the underground food movement, from supper clubs to mini markets to the culinary avant garde.

Image: nanny snowflake, pawpaw67

The post Foodie Underground: Dealing With Our Packaged Food Addiction appeared first on EcoSalon.

In a guest series, a foodie takes on an Elimination Diet. 

I’m a foodie. At least, as much of a foodie as a former vegan who still has an aversion to dairy and many animal products can be.

But at a mere 35 years old, after months of anemia and years of low iron, with my rheumatoid arthritis symptoms troubling me –  despite being on the “gold standard” of conventional medicine –  when my primary care doctor suggested I see a nutritionist about an Elimination Diet to see if changes to diet may reduce my symptoms and help me get healthy again, it sounded worth a try.

The list of prohibited foods for Elimination Diets vary, but for the one I’m following the list is long, and boils down to this: No gluten, soy, dairy, eggs, citrus, corn, nightshades (tomato, potato, peppers), peanuts, sweetners (including sugar), chocolate, alcohol, coffee (even decaf), and “Any artificial ingredient or preservative” according to the “Elimination Diet Guidelines” my nutritionist sent me home with.

That leaves out a few fine points – no dried fruit if it’s sulfered, no pepper-based spices other than black pepper, and small amounts of agave syrup and real maple syrup are allowed, for example. After the first several weeks, foods are slowly reintroduced to determine whether I have a reaction to them. The whole process takes six to eight weeks and is supervised by my nutritionist, who is available via email in between appointments to answer my many questions.

I knew I would miss generous cups of decaf all day, two egg breakfasts, brown sugar and cocoa nibs on my morning oatmeal, Thai takeout, after-dinner bites of chocolate and my favorite food – potatoes – but there are so many other wonderful things to eat, my attention turned quickly to what I could have.

Even experienced label-readers would be surprised at how hard it is to find anything that isn’t a “whole food” that’s safe to eat: corn, corn syrup, other artificial sweeteners, soy, barley malt, and peanut oil are in a shocking number of products I optimistically pick up on the grocery store shelf and set back down in their place, inspired to mix up my own from scratch instead.

Ten days in, I feel great. I’ve carved out half a day on Sunday and two nights a week to plan, shop and cook to fill the fridge and freezer with meals and snacks so I never find myself without something “allowed” to eat. I’m as food motivated as a golden retriever, and I haven’t been hungry or unsatisfied at all. My grocery bill has gone way up, but my eating out bill is zero (the best I can do on most menus is a bottle of sparkling water, unless it’s citrus flavored, accompanied by a long conversation with my dinner companions about exactly why I joined them for dinner but won’t eat) so overall, I’m actually saving money. And after years of eating what’s convenient, I’ve remembered the pleasure that comes with slow food, with preparing thoughtful meals and appreciating them with good company.

So for the next several weeks, I’ll be sharing what I learn, along with the recipes that make this whole thing possible. First up, a protein packed citrus-free hummus-substitute that’s been one of my staples. It’s delicious with carrots for dipping; shaken with a little apple cider vinegar and sesame oil for salad dressing; or mixed with smashed avocado and slathered into celery sticks. If you’re sensitive to pine nuts, you can substitute walnuts.

Citrus-Free Hummus

Ingredients

• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 4 large cloves garlic, quartered
• 1 15 oz can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
• 2 Tbsp tahini
• ¾ cup pitted greek olives (no pimentos)
• 2 tsp apple cider vinegar
• ½ tsp salt
• ¼ cup olive oil
• 2 Tbsp water (optional)
• ¼ cup pine nuts (or walnuts)

Directions
Heat 2 Tbsp olive oil over medium-low heat. When warm, add garlic and saute gently until softened.

Place olive oil/garlic mixture, garbanzo beans, tahini, olives, apple cider vinegar and salt into a food processor. Process until well blended and a thick paste. With motor running, drizzle in additional olive oil and/or water slowly until the consistency is creamy and to your taste.

Add pine nuts and pulse just until broken up, but still crunchy.

Top with a drizzle of olive oil, salt and pepper to taste, and serve.

The post A Foodie Elimination Diet: Citrus-Free Hummus appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnNormalizing food consciousness.

“What is that?”

I was pulling out ingredients for dinner from the refrigerator and my friend was visibly squirming looking at the quart glass bottle of green sludge that was on the first shelf.

“It’s just a kale smoothie.”

She looked at me and rolled her eyes.

“I know, I know… who has kale smoothies in their refrigerator?” I responded. I paused for dramatic effect in order to underline the absurdity of my next statement. “It has chia seeds in it too.”

More eye rolling.

Telling someone you ate a bowl of chard sauteed in sesame oil because you hadn’t been grocery shopping lately and it was the only thing you had on hand will most likely get you a “who are you?” type response, but tell someone you snagged a piece of pizza for lunch at the corner joint because you were in a rush, and no one bats an eye. Eating good food has turned from a regular habit into an elitist activity. Ever seen anyone roll their eyes because your refrigerator was full of Chinese leftovers, even though you know perfectly well that those leftovers are soaked in MSG and you have know idea what kind of meat particles they used in the orange chicken?

My mother instilled a healthy eating habit in me at an early age – I was making crackers out of flax seeds over the weekend after all – but it has never been about fitness or physique. It’s just what you do. Which is why when I recently received a press pamphlet in the mail about the latest and greatest diet that was “taking the world by storm” and whose central, revolutionary food was chestnuts and chestnut flour, I had the same response as my friend staring at the kale smoothie.

But wait, why was I rolling my eyes at a diet that was made up of all the things most people should be eating? The whole thing was after all comprised of whole grains, fruits, olive oil, nuts, herbs, honey, Omega-3’s and beyond, the kind of stuff that fills my pantry shelves. Because I realized that we have put ourselves in a place where we need world-renowned fitness coaches to tell us those things are healthy, and in turn, we have turned eating well into a trendy, elitist activity.

Love kale? You probably listen to NPR.

Start your day off with a bowl of yogurt doused in flax seed oil? You obviously are making six figures a year.

Get excited about a meal of wild salmon and steamed asparagus when it’s in season? Speaking of seasons, you probably have season tickets to the opera, don’t you?

When did eating healthy, and having a holistic approach to food become an activity of the 1%? If people have access to good food, and it’s fairly priced, no matter what the socio-economic background is, they will eat it. Junk food isn’t always cheaper than real food, and yet roast a chicken, boil potatoes and serve a salad with an olive oil vinaigrette and you’re immediately on the verge of breaking into the “foodie” category.

I blame marketing.

We’re obsessed with the marketing of food. Instead of taking a holistic approach to what we eat, and buying simple ingredients, we opt for making bad food sound healthy, focused more on the vitamins, phytonutrients and all the other flashy beneficial elements that sound like they’re good for us. Remember the pomegranate craze? Were people downing pomegranate juice because it was truly good for them, or was it just that it’s what they thought they should be drinking? You can argue both sides, but keep in mind that there is an official Pomegranate Council. Ultimately, we don’t need pomegranate drinks. We need fresh fruits and vegetables.

In this unhealthy society, we’re obsessed with trendy health foods. Walk into any large supermarket and there is probably a health food section (hint: it’s where you buy your Kombucha). Almond flour, chestnut paste and sunflower butter? Check, check and check; I want all of those things. But imagine seeing them in someone else’s basket, and you can immediately cue the “who does that person think they are?” comment. Health craze? Maybe, but at least all of those things are 100% natural and not infused with a grab bag of preservatives and corn-based elements you can’t pronounce.

The mere use of the phrase “health food” implies that we know that the other options aren’t all that good for us. At its core, shouldn’t food be healthy? And if you’re committed to buying real food, ones that come from places that you know shouldn’t that just be normal? Going back to the land after all is just as economical as it is on trend, but talk about having your own patch of arugula that you water everyday and people might make certain assumptions about who you are, what you make and your political preferences.

We know what we should be eating. Fast food, and even commercial baked goods (yes, we’re talking croissants, doughnuts and pizza), aren’t just unhealthy for your physical state, they have also been linked to depression. Find me a real ingredient that has the same negative effects and I’ll stop my rant, but until then, we better start checking ourselves when we begin with the eye rolls.

Like coconut water? Great. But are you drinking it because it has less sugar and chemicals that your average sport drink or because the hipster in the drink aisle at the food co-op was buying it or the latest health blog told you it was super good for you?

In the food world, we need to recommit to talking about food in a way that doesn’t just focus on trends. We have to normalize consciousness.

Roll your eyes all you want at the fact that as I wrote this column I ate a bowl of yogurt with flax, sunflower and pumpkin seeds and then I followed it up with a glass of lemon water (don’t worry, there was coffee later), but isn’t that better than high fructose corn syrup-injected cereal out of a box, even though the box is covered in bold text reminding you how many vitamins, minerals and whole grains the stuff contains?

It’s an understatement to say that the acronym for the Standard American Diet (S.A.D) is ironic. But as long as we keep making good foods trendy, and in a way elitist, people won’t eat them and pizza and hamburgers will get a lot less judgement than a kale smoothie. And that is a very risky path.

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’s weekly column at EcoSalon, Foodie Underground, discovering what’s new in the underground food movement, from supper clubs to independent markets to the culinary avant garde.

The post Foodie Underground: Can I Have a Kale Smoothie With That? appeared first on EcoSalon.

A look at food intolerances, food sensitivities and how we need to look closer at our daily diet.

When it comes to American food culture, perhaps the very embodiment of our cuisine – Burger King – sums it up it best: have it your way. We can have Italian for lunch, Thai for dinner, super-sized, low fat, deep-fried or no onions. As a nation, our taste-buds are accustomed to choice.

However for an increasing number of individuals, having it their way means forgoing certain food groups altogether. According to various studies, the reported number of people with food allergies and intolerances to various food groups is on the rise.

Simultaneously, the growing popularity of elimination diets – such as those which cut out dairy, wheat, soy, corn, and/or sugar – is demonstrated by the appearance of gluten-free aisles in grocery stores and the ever-growing variety of Tetra-Pak cartons offering lactose-free milk substitutes.

It seems that only in a country with such an abundance of food, could people start forgoing certain food groups altogether. But is the popularity of elimination diets a function of marketing and a national obsession with weight loss? And why do food intolerances seem to be far more prevalent in the Western, developed nations where there is unlimited access to a wide array of food?

Roughly 30 percent of Americans believe they have a food allergy. According to registered dietician Tracy Stoker, this could be due to the fact that the difference between a food allergy and food intolerance or sensitivity is commonly misunderstood.

“I think elimination diets, if done carefully, are a good way to get an idea of a food sensitivity, intolerance and maybe even an allergy,” Stoker says. “A food allergy spells out a radical [and immediate] reaction like hives, swelling, even anaphylactic shock while intolerance means they don’t have the ability to break down the food so they may get something like diarrhea [if they eat it].”

Nowhere is the phenomenon of elimination diets manifested more than in the widespread avoidance of gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley and rye. In 2011, sales of gluten-free products reached more than $6.2 billion.

Many skeptics say that intolerance to gluten is a fad or trend motivated by a false hope of weight-loss. However, some experts estimate that in addition to the three million Americans who have the severe autoimmune disorder known as celiac disease, 18 million people in the U.S. are sensitive to gluten, a number that continues to grow.

Suzzanne Myer, a registered dietician who specializes in elimination diets, helps patients identify and eliminate the foods that she says cause a range of problems including anxiety, eczema, acne, sinus problems, IBS, asthma, and insomnia. She says her approach, which is somewhat at odds with the tenets of western medicine, is often overlooked.

“Western medicine did this thing where we now think, ‘Oh I’ll just take a pill to solve my problems,’” Myer says. “There needs to be more awareness [because] one in three people have a problem with gluten. We used to believe you either had celiac disease or you didn’t, but now we know it can be more like a threshold – you can just have a sensitivity.”

While a severe allergy or disease like celiac can show up in an allergen blood test, a minor insensitivity often does not. Angie Spinelli is a musician and blogger who has maintained a blog about her diet – which excludes most gluten, dairy, and sugar – since 2008.

After struggling with various health problems including acne and allergies, in 2005 Spinelli decided to try an elimination diet after doing her own research.

“When I was in my twenties, my diet was really awful – the ‘standard American diet’ – whatever was fast and cheap,” Spinelli says. “I went to so many dermatologists for my acne and none of them could do anything for me. None of them suggested cutting out dairy or wheat, which are the major triggers for me.”

After seeing major initial results from changing her diet, a subsequent blood allergy test showed that Spinelli did indeed have mild insensitivities. However, she says there are still skeptics who would reduce her dietary limitations as unnecessary.

“There are a number of people out there that believe that [gluten sensitivity] is a fad because it’s difficult to prove,” Spinelli says. “My blood antibody test did show mild level sensitivity but some allergists don’t even agree that that’s a true allergy.”

Despite the lack of research on the issue, elimination expert Myer believes it’s possible that people like Spinelli are more prone to have food insensitivities due to the nature of the Standard American Diet (SAD) and the high levels of stress that are so common in American society.

“Stress can cause problems just as much as food can, so can eating on the run and not eating whole foods,” Myer says. “The SAD may exacerbate our sensitivity to these foods. When you’re not giving your body enough nutrition to support all the things it needs to do, the gut – which is the largest active immune organ in the body – becomes more permeable, it allows more [unwanted] things to pass through into the blood stream.”

Myer says the effects of this phenomenon are seen more and more as people around the world begin to trade traditional, locally sourced diets for processed convenience foods.

“A lot of indigenous cultures’ diets had a lot of naturally occurring pre-biotics and pro-biotics and things that were healthy for them,” Myer says. “Then with the [exportation of the SAD], they are eating less of these things, and more things like white bread and soda pop, and we’re seeing more incidences of food intolerances or sensitivities.”

The fact that eliminating foods that contain gluten, sugar, and corn usually results in a diet that is less processed is perhaps why so many people connect elimination diets and weight loss. Spinelli, whose blog features recipes and advice on how to maintain her diet, doesn’t seem to feel limited by her new way of eating.

“In other parts of the world they eat real food and make their own food from scratch they don’t buy the kind of junk we do,” Spinelli says. “When I started the blog, I couldn’t find a lot of info out there from people that were avoiding gluten, dairy, and sugar so I just decided to do my own thing and tweak recipes myself. Now I cook from scratch as much as possible.”

Flickr: HealthAliciousNess

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