Holistic Eating for Beginners
Dear Karlo,
After years of shopping in the frozen food aisle, I’ve finally made the switch
to better eating. Now I shop mostly in the produce department and am feeling the
better for it, but would like to learn more about my food choices and their
impact on my health and the world. Can you recommend any good websites on
healthy eating?
Carrot-Chomper
Dear CC,
Healthy eating is no longer just a matter of avoiding artificial preservatives,
it is a consumption choice that has political, environmental, and societal
ramifications. This makes “right eating” all the more important—and all the more
satisfying and healthful. Here’s an eclectic list (in no particular order) of
ten great websites which I feel shed useful light on these many dimensions of
healthy eating:
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is a group of “doctors and
laypersons working together for compassionate and effective medical practice,
research and health promotion”. Not shy of controversy, the group has
highlighted links between meat consumption and cancer, and has questioned the
health claims of the dairy industry. Their website at
www.pcrm.org contains helpful medical information on the health value of
vegetarian diets and the role of proper nutrition in preventing disease.
If you are interested in learning more about how specific foods can heal, there
are two websites I recommend. Whole Health MD’s Healing Kitchen resource at
www.wholehealthmd.com organizes food remedies by ailments, spelling out
clearly what you should eat and why, and suggests recipes to make it happen. The
World’s Healthiest Foods website at
www.whfoods.com is the brainchild of Health Valley founder George Mateljan
and the esteemed naturopathic doctor Joseph Pizzorno, Jr. The site highlights
over 100 “nutrient-dense” foods, and explains how they help the body, which
foods might be particularly useful for you to add to your diet, and how to
prepare them in a variety of recipes.
“Have your heard of the Meatrix? Do you want to know what it is? Take the red
pill and learn the truth,” says Moopheus the cow to Leo the pig in the Webby
Award-winning online animated cartoon, The Meatrix, which can be found at
www.themeatrix.com. This humorous yet serious spoof satirizing the Hollywood
blockbuster The Matrix entertains while at the same time doesn’t flinch from
pointing out the ugly truths of factory farming—which makes it all the more
convincing. This is a great consciousness-raising tool I recommend you email to
your friends and relatives. Once they have entered the Meatrix, they may
reconsider eating factory-farmed products and instead choose healthier meat
(ethically and otherwise) from organic, sustainable farms.
You may have seen or heard of the 2004 hit documentary Super Size Me, in which
film director Morgan Spurlock places himself on a 30-day McDonalds-only diet
and—no surprise here—gets violently ill. But you may not know that Spurlock’s
fiancée, Alexandra Jamieson, who nursed him back to health after he put his
stomach and veins through such punishment, is a gourmet natural foods chef with
a delightful website, Healthy Chef Alex, at
www.healthychefalex.com. I’m eager to try out her simple, appealing recipes
for Morning Glory Oatmeal Porridge, Stewed Winter Veggies, and Carolina Kale—and
I’m not even a vegetarian. Moreover, her reading list and links pages are among
the best I have seen on this subject. Bravo!
If you want to learn from chefs who see their mission as broader than just
filling our stomachs, I encourage you to visit the website of the Chef’s
Collaborative at
www.chefscollaborative.org. The Collaborative sees itself as “a national
network of more than 1,000 members of the food community who promote sustainable
cuisine by celebrating the joys of local, seasonal, and artisanal cooking.”
Although the website is geared primarily toward chefs and others in the food
industry, their online Member Library showcases some first-class food books by
talented cookers and writers. And the menus to be found via this website’s
Member Restaurants listings are mouth-watering.
Those of us who do not wish to be super-sized and who support the Chef’s
Collaborative’s mission to rehumanize mealtimes might want to join the
international Slow Food Movement, which aims to “protect the pleasures of the
table from the homogenization of modern fast food and life”. Slow Food USA, the
movement’s national arm at
www.slowfoodusa.org, can connect you to the many “convivia” across the
United States which hold gastronomic events that support the enjoyment of
seasonal and local foods.
If you are a seafood fan, it is important to remember that certain fish are
being dangerously overharvested, threatening these species with extinction. To
get clear on which fish are the best to land on your plate, I recommend the
Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood WATCH website at
www.mbayaq.org/cr/seafoodwatch.asp. This resource is comprehensive, yet it
also plainly indicates which seafood to eat, which to avoid, and why.
Of course, you don’t have to go to a restaurant, supermarket, corner store, or
even a farmstand or pier to eat naturally. Few in America know that better than
“Wildman” Steve Brill, naturalist, expert forager, and author of The Wild
Vegetarian Cookbook. His website at
www.wildmanstevebrill.com contains information on how you can find and
identify useful medicinal and edible plants and mushrooms. From berries to
burdock, from persimmon to Poor Man’s Pepper, the Wildman will show you how to
identify wild food that’s fresh and free for the taking.
Personally, I’m more likely to find myself in a back yard next to a juicy tomato
stalk when it comes to foraging, so it with great interest that I came across
the website of the non-profit group Kitchen Gardeners International, at
www.kitchengardeners.org. I knew they were kindred spirits when they write
“Kitchen Gardeners love food, both product and process. They do not dream of
eating a good tomato, but a true tomato, picked warm and juicy from the vine at
the peak of its ripeness.” Ahh, heaven! Their resource pages contain essays such
as “In Praise of Dandelions” and “Gardening in Tight Spaces: Small Can Be
Beautiful”. Plus, their free monthly e-newsletter contains gardening tips,
recipes, and “nourishing thoughts on sustainable eating and living the Good
Life”. Worth a visit.
Carrot-Chomper, as you digest these many helpful resources, notice the
centrality of food in our lives. How we eat in years to come will determine the
kind of world we live in. Do we want to live in a Fast Food Nation or on a
Veggie Planet? The answer is on our plates.
First published in Boston Natural Awakenings magazine's November 2005 "Ask
Karlo" column. Thanks to Healthy Chef Alex for the useful links page.
2009 Karlo Berger. Some rights reserved. Website Design by Solid Uncoated.
Thanks to Hannah Burr, Kristin Granli, and Jim Kelly.