Cooked freight follow up

[darkemeralds]

Yesterday's educational encounter with low-grade restaurant food laced with MSG has had some interesting outcomes.

• I had a panic attack this morning--my first since I really cleaned up my food act several weeks ago, possibly supporting my suspicion of a causal link between MSG and the attacks
• I've had a developing migraine all day--oh joy
• I've started reading In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan
• I've put the documentary "The Future of Food" into my Netflix queue, thanks to a rec from serenity_valley

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." That's the first sentence in Chapter 1 of In Defense of Food, entitled "An Eater's Manifesto". Pollan goes on to define food in ways that shouldn't surprise any thinking person: the stuff you buy from farmers or the edge of the supermarket, the stuff without much, or any, packaging. The stuff that's no more than a simple processing step or two away from its original state. The stuff that can't be advertised, patented, trademarked.

He spends a lot of the book defining "food" by what it is not. He examines the history of the food manufacturing industry, which increasingly produces what he calls "edible foodlike substances," what I call cooked freight.

I guess Project Empty has entered a new chapter.

Comments

[roseambr.livejournal.com]

I've obviously got to get that book. Sounds like a very educational experience. As for cheese food, yickes, what nasty stuff. My husband is still reeling from when we were still dating and I read him the ingredients of the can! I assured him if it did not require refrigeration it was not cheese! He hasn't had any since and it was a staple for his bachelor life.

[emeraldsedai.livejournal.com]

I'm getting well into the book this morning, and it's excellent. It's written in a casual, conversational style that's very pleasant to read--more like a long blog post. Already, in the introduction, I've learned that the whole concept of "nutritionism"--the idea that somehow science can help us eat our way to longer life and perfect health--is suspect. The author simply points out that human beings have always, for millions of years, fed themselves perfectly well, and only in the last 50 years have they sought advice on the subject.

My sister tells a story from her drug-use days, in which, both hungry and not quite in her right mind, she ate half a box of Chikin-in-a-Biskit crackers with spray cheese, then fell asleep across the bed with her arms hanging off the side.

"When I woke up, my hands were HUGE!" she says.

It's like the perfect moral story about the dangers of drink, drugs, and MSG.