My story of food - IV

Tonight was the lecture with Michael Pollan, Author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and most recently In Defense of Food; the lecture was great, but more on that to come later. In the spirit of this I decided Monday to take a look at my own "Story of Food" throughout the week; to illustrate how I was influenced and how I have changed and grown.

Renaissance

So I had decided to get myself healthier, but what did that mean? I didn't want to get caught up in the diet cycle that so many people have, but if the food was what had made me gain weight then what choice did I have? Well what if it wasn't necessarily the food? What if it was me? What if my outlook on food was the problem? I had to come to terms with what my way of looking at food meant and how I could change it to affect the change that I was looking for.
For so long a period while I was on my own my diet was one of fast food or at best processed and refined foods, with few quality, healthy, home cooked meals, that when I started getting these delicious meals daily, I just stuffed myself. It was the first time since I was an adult that I had regular, complete and tasty meals and I made the best of it. That was my outlook on food, if it's good, eat as much as I can. I had not yet read Michael Pollans books, but I had accomplished the first of his three instructions to a healthy diet; "Eat Food". It was indeed food, but the next instruction is "Not too Much", that one needed a little work.

Armed with this insight to my diet, I decided to train myself to eat until I was full. But what do I mean? I thought I was going to try to eat less right? I did. I ate until I was full and not until I was satisfied, there's a big difference. I enjoyed the delicious meal, but just because there was some left, didn't mean I needed to eat it. Instruction two, learned.

Over the last few years, one of the other things that I have been working on, was learning to garden. I love to grow things, and growing a small garden for some extra veggies just seemed like a no-brainer. Well now I decided to ramp it up to true food production levels. It gave me the opportunity to begin eating more plant foods like salads, greens, zucchinis and tomatoes. Then A~ surprised me yet again. It seems that the heavy stuff like gravies and fried food wasn't all there was to her food traditions at all. As our garden matured and the harvests came in, she taught me how to put up food for the winter. Pickling and preserving, we put up beans and cucumbers and she showed me a relish-like mix called chow chow. We've also made plum and blackberry jam and baked and frozen zucchini bread to name a few others.
As the year progressed and my awareness of my diet and my connection to food grew, it seemed like for every step I made, A~ was right on pace with me as well. Somewhere along the road she began making even more of our foods right at home. She began a traditional sourdough start, made all of our breads, and has utterly spoiled us for desserts.

Today my story of food is a love story. I love to explore it and enjoy it with my kids and my wife, I love to share my passion for it with my friends and neighbors and most of all I love the connection and traditions that it brings to our home.

I have no misconceptions that my story of food is nowhere near completed, I hope you'll keep joining me as I discover it.

Happy eating

P~

"Eat food, not too much, mostly plants"

~Michael Pollan