{"id":4461,"date":"2007-10-17T15:53:13","date_gmt":"2007-10-17T22:53:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/phpstack-562680-2277615.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=77"},"modified":"2007-10-17T15:53:13","modified_gmt":"2007-10-17T22:53:13","slug":"eat-food-not-too-much-mostly-plants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/phpstack-562680-2277615.cloudwaysapps.com\/2007\/10\/eat-food-not-too-much-mostly-plants\/","title":{"rendered":"Eat Food, Not Too Much, Mostly Plants"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A few weeks ago, I shared a Shabbat meal with mostly strangers \u2013 a last minute invitation, friend-of-a-friend sort of thing. Like so many other Shabbat dinners I\u2019ve attended, the beautiful food on the table inspired conversation as, \u201cMmm, this is so good,\u201d turned into a larger discussion about foods we eat and don\u2019t eat. I waxed poetic about kale (as I tend to do), and other people around the table compared their own food-preference notes.<\/p>\n

Then, one woman from \u201cout of town\u201d (meaning Manhattan to my borough of Brooklyn) mentioned that she and her fianc\u00e9 were on a diet and had joined Jenny Craig to shed weight before their wedding. \u201cI love it,\u201d she gushed. \u201cThey deliver all my meals, and I can just pop them in the microwave and there\u2019s dinner. I don\u2019t even have to clean up afterwards – I just throw away the container.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gulp. As she spoke, the progressive-foodie Brooklyn bubble in which I exist deflated with an audible hiss. Was it really possible that someone preferred shrink-wrapped, disposable, industrial food to delicious, lovingly prepared real food? I focused on the meal in front of me and didn\u2019t say anything. Honestly, I didn\u2019t even know where to start.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until later that I was able to unpack why her comments bothered me so much, aside from my own initial knee-jerk food snobbery.<\/p>\n

Part of the problem was that she was on a diet in the first place. This girl was beautiful \u2013 neither gauntly skinny nor overweight. Jenny Craig has undoubtedly been successful for many people struggling with obesity, but in a society (American) and culture (Jewish) that are both obsessed with being thin to the point of sickness, it saddened me that she felt unnecessary pressure to mold herself to some unrealistic svelte ideal for her wedding.<\/p>\n

Another distressing aspect was her reliance on the Jenny Craig system. What happens after her wedding if she stops Jenny Craig and does not have the resources to create her own healthy food? Of course, cooking does not bring joy to everyone. Just as I glibly say I \u201chate math,\u201d there are people who \u201chate to cook,\u201d which this woman freely admitted during dinner. But I can\u2019t help but think that part of people\u2019s aversion to cooking is simply due to never being taught how to do it.<\/p>\n

Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore\u2019s Dilemma<\/em>, offers these guidelines to healthy (in all senses of the word) eating: \u201cEat food, not too much, mostly plants.\u201d The second two pieces of this mantra make immediate sense \u2013 don\u2019t overstuff yourself, and eat more vegetables, beans, and grains than meat, eggs, and dairy.<\/p>\n

\u201cEat food\u201d is a little less straightforward. Doesn\u2019t everybody eat food? That depends on whether you consider convenience products like \u201cGogurt\u201d<\/a> and Pizza Hut Pizza Bites<\/a> food.<\/p>\n

Pollan suggests that we should focus on eating \u201creal,\u201d whole foods as opposed to the pre-made, shrink-wrapped stuff that often comes loaded with preservatives and salt.<\/p>\n

Understandably, this woman is a busy law student with an equally busy lawyer fianc\u00e9. But learn how to make delicious, nourishing foods like basic grains (wild rice, quinoa, cous cous, millet etc), greens (kale, spinach, broccoli, collards, etc.), and proteins (tofu, salmon, chicken, beans etc.), is neither difficult, time consuming, nor expensive. And once one starts eating these satisfying foods, the pre-packaged stuff quickly becomes less appetizing. In the long run, I think the money my dinner mate and her fianc\u00e9 spend on Jenny Craig would be better spent on a trip to a nutritionist or a short series of weekend cooking classes to teach her healthy, sustainable eating for life.<\/p>\n

–Leah Koenig<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few weeks ago, I shared a Shabbat meal with mostly strangers \u2013 a last minute invitation, friend-of-a-friend sort of thing. Like so many other Shabbat dinners I\u2019ve attended, the… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[13],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdW3k2-19X","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/phpstack-562680-2277615.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4461"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/phpstack-562680-2277615.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/phpstack-562680-2277615.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phpstack-562680-2277615.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phpstack-562680-2277615.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/phpstack-562680-2277615.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4461\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/phpstack-562680-2277615.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phpstack-562680-2277615.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phpstack-562680-2277615.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}