Posted on October 26th, 2008 by Holly
If you haven’t read Michael Pollan’s October 9th Open Letter to the Next President in the New York Times, I can’t recommend it more highly. This champion of food writers, a man who has been one of the great heroes of illuminating the unfortunate realities of our food supply through his book The Omnivore’s Dilemma (and many other books and articles) will actually be in Maine tomorrow night, speaking at Bates College. (I’m gutted I can’t be there. I found out about it too late.)
Michael Pollan finally says it outright: “Food is a National Security issue.” He notes that more than 30 nations have experienced food riots because of shortages in the past several months, and one government (Haiti) has fallen. He makes the point so clearly as to be unmistakable, that our policies up to now which have encouraged massive flows of cheap, subsidized commodity grain to flow unencumbered across global free-trade zones, has been a mistake. The results of this oil-dependent, unsustainable, non-local food supply system is that the poorest on our planet are starving right now. Read more »
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Posted on September 30th, 2008 by Holly
In 1944, in the wake of World War II, our government issued an appeal to American citizens to grow their own food. 20 million Americans did it! People who had no experience with gardening planted up their front yards with vegetables and took over derelict urban lots in order to alleviate pressure on our agricultural industry which was trying to fed the troops and to help to feed hungry Europeans. Amazingly, almost 40% of America’s vegetables were provided by these Victory Gardens! To learn more, click here.
The coolest thing about this was that our government asked people to sacrifice, to chip in and to cooperate by making these gardens a group, family or community effort. In an era when our government tells us “to go shopping or the terrorists have won,” this kind of call to action seems hard to imagine. Read more »
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Posted on September 30th, 2008 by Holly
Ireland Rocked
We got back from 2 weeks in Ireland this past weekend. Snapshot of my impressions:
1) Boiled cabbage and carrots; no wonder people think they don’t like vegetables!
2) I had heard that Irish people have a higher incidence of celiac disease. Well, in St. Nicolas’ cathedral in Galway, there was a sign that read “Coeliac Communion Line Starts Here.”
3) We ate a lot of meals in pubs. “The Gift of the Gab” is a publican’s provenance. It helps you digest your meal when you’re smiling.
4) While almost all meat and dairy products seemed to be from Irish grass-fed animals, I discovered a pretty minimal local food economy otherwise. Tiny to non-existent farmers markets, where some of those farmers sold produce from abroad. Strawberries came from Wales or Scotland, but most other produce in Marks and Spencer’s seems to come from North Africa, and had caveats on the labels like “Not to be eaten raw! Needs to be washed!” Read more »
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Posted on August 27th, 2008 by Holly
I’ve lived in parts of the world that didn’t have clear seasons. In Nepal the “seasons” were basically whatever altitude you happened to be at. (high was “winter”, low was “summer”.) Southern California is just disorienting to me with the unrelenting sunshine. Australia was similar. Gum trees are all evergreens, and the odd, confused imported deciduous trees would lose their leaves in the July “winter,” winter being a season during which you could still plant pansies.
I don’t know if it’s because I grew up in the northeast, or perhaps because my genes are mostly from Ireland, but I’m partial to the summer rains and crystalline winters where I live. (but ok, I would not wish for more this year, we are getting plenty of both.) To be clear, the thing that I like is the CHANGE. The difference, the counterpoint, the sharp contrast. If it were always overcast, that would be as boring to me as if it were always sunny. Read more »
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Posted on July 20th, 2008 by Holly
Solitude. Do you get enough of it? I have to wrestle with my life to get enough solitude. If you are a mom, and it’s summertime, you are at risk for solitude deficiency. Talk to your spouse and parents about how to get more. :o)
Seriously, summer is fun, but do you know any moms of younger children who are not a little twisted and frazzled by now? The unrelenting SUMMER FUN can be exhausting. We WERE looking forward to it in the throes of that intense winter, but now we’re looking forward to school starting so that we can have two minutes to sit and ignore the to-do list, have a cup of tea and stare out the window. I’m here to say that that is important to do NOW. Read more »
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Posted on June 23rd, 2008 by Holly
What’s Your Dog Eating?
Have you ever noticed that dogs tend to develop growths after a decade or so of eating commercial pet food? My sister’s dog has a couple of growths on his leg that are developing their own personalities and arguing with each other. It’s fascinating in a grotesque sort of way. And did you hear about “Gus, the World’s Ugliest Dog?” He must be seen to be believed. He had some tough competition, too. Poor Gus is missing one eye and one leg and will be spending his prize money on cancer treatment.
OK I’m getting predictable in my refrain “It’s all about the food,” but doesn’t that make a heap of sense? Modern industrial commodity pet food is literally the garbagey by-products of our industrial meat system, which isn’t that clean or palateable to start with. Read more »
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Posted on June 1st, 2008 by Holly
I’ve been noodling this around for quite a while and just now feel like writing it down. It’s not a formal business plan so much as a declaration of intention that I’m sending out to the universe. I could write a business plan, but frankly my life-long challenge has been to harness the intensity of my momentum enough to LISTEN. My intention now is not to steamroll obstacles that might be in my way, but rather to slipstream the unfolding demand for the services I provide and therefore become one of the ways in which the universe actually expresses itself. (Does that sound a little too spiritual for a business plan? I confess, I just listened to the 10 podcasts between Oprah and Eckhart Tollé on “The New Earth”, and it articulated what I had been aiming at.)
I’m not the only one who sees the current health care crisis culminating in a catastrophic implosion of our health care system. Listen to Dr. Andrew Weil’s opinion. Read more »
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Posted on May 15th, 2008 by Holly
In 1700, the average American consumed four pounds of sugar a year. Prior to this for all of human history, with few exceptions, there was absolutely no refined cane sugar in the typical human diet. Although people had access honey and maple syrup for thousands of years, it was available in extremely small amounts and then only seasonally. 100,000 years ago we had no sugar, 10,000 years ago we had no sugar, 1000 years ago, we had no sugar. Then about 600 years ago, the royalty of Europe discovered cane sugar, but only they could afford it. Read more »
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Posted on April 16th, 2008 by Holly
With regards to food, I am very familiar with the ebbs and flows of what, in retrospect, can be called “progress.” My intimate, decades-long dance with food has allowed me to get to this place where I am right now: A place where I absolutely never feel guilty about what I eat. I have come to a deep acceptance that my transgressions are part of my progress and I just don’t stress about it anymore. That said, I am not in a place of acceptance with regards to other aspects of my life, I have realized, even though they also have cycles of change. Were I to see them more clearly, I think I might feel less struggle and stress around them. Read more »
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Posted on March 17th, 2008 by Holly
While I really LOVE having my four-wheel drive Subaru during the (seemingly interminable) winter here, I lament the fuel inefficiency when the weather warms up. I get about 23 miles to the gallon. I had a car that got 40 mpg once, but it was no match for the frost heaves in spring (anyone else getting seasick just driving to town lately?) and it often couldn’t get me all the way home during a snow storm. I have been waiting for years for news of a Hybrid Subaru, but none has come. With rising gas prices, I find myself daydreaming about a more efficient car. Read more »
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Posted on March 3rd, 2008 by Holly
One of the most enjoyable parts of my job is introducing people to food and products they have never encountered before. Most of my favorite things are available locally.
Chocolate- Hands down, the best chocolate there is is LOCAL! It’s called power chocolates. http://www.powerchocolates.com/ In fact, I’m trying to keep my hands off my office stash of it right now. (I give food away to my clients and so I have stashes of many different things. It’s not so hard to keep my hands off the bags of grain, I must admit.) Power chocolates have flax seeds and sometimes coconut in them. They are most awesome. They are available at the Belfast and Rockland Co-ops, but NOT at Fresh Off the Farm (FOTF.) Read more »
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Posted on January 21st, 2008 by Holly
My son turned three in November. Pretty much ever since he started on solid food, he’d had a mild rash, just around his mouth at times. I knew that I if a child is exposed too much to a food he is sensitive to, then it could develop into an allergy, so I had to be a little careful. Without over-exposure, the sensitivity would eventually fade as the immune system strengthened. This was my thinking. Read more »
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Posted on December 27th, 2007 by Holly
It’s a new year. And “another chance for us to get it right,” says Oprah Winfrey. But change is hard. Our habits seem to be wicked entrenched and they seem to have this infuriating magnetism that pulls us back into the same old patterns when our resolve to eat differently, exercise more, meditate, whatever, — has worn off. Read more »
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Posted on December 5th, 2007 by Holly
My blogs are often long and researched, but I’m in the mood to be more bloggish and just write because I have a wild hair about something.
My husband and I just got back from a weekend at Kripalu Center. The food is just awesome and, for me, it’s one of the best parts of the experience of going there. What’s so good about it? It’s all whole, fresh, seasonal and organic food and the variety includes meal options for vegans, and those with food allergies. Read more »
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Posted on November 18th, 2007 by Holly
In part 1 of this series I interviewed “CC,” a local 69-year-old woman who is quite healthy. There’s nothing really extraordinary about her health, except that despite having a hormone disorder, she’s healthier than many 40-year olds. Well that IS extraordinary, then, isn’t it?
I hope to convey that the really extraordinary thing is that our concept of “normal aging” has steadily grown to assume that disease and disability are “normal.” CC is aging like most Americans used to age before our food supply came to include mostly industrialized-commodity food. Read more »
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Posted on October 26th, 2007 by Holly
The following is the first of two articles on healthy aging and contains an August 2007 interview with a healthy 69 year old woman from midcoast Maine whom I will call “CC.” I wanted to interview her because of what a role model she is for me. She started addressing health concerns through changing her diet 25 years ago and has alighted upon an eating style that suits her unique constitution. Medicare is her health insurance, but she never uses Medicare or the seniors’ prescription drug program. Is it just her good genes? Actually she may well have inherited a genetic hormone disorder and it was this that spurred her to take control of her own health. Read more »
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Posted on July 25th, 2007 by Holly
I listened to Marion Nestle– a leading nutrition researcher and author of Food Politics– give a speech that was very compelling. She was tackling the issue of personal responsibility versus collective responsibility when it comes to food choices. This is a sticky topic in the land of the free. Nobody wants the US government telling them what to eat, yet, she argued, if a restaurant was putting arsenic into a recipe, there would be outrage if nothing was done about it. Where issues of public health and safety are concerned, people WOULD like the government to be protective of them. So transferring that analogy to transfats, where the latest scientific research tabulates that between 72,000 to 228,000 Americans die prematurely due solely to the effect of transfats in their diet, it’s kind of astounding that the US government would prefer to let the “free market” deal with it. That seems out of alignment with how much people were freaking out after 3 people died from an E coli outbreak in spinach last year. Read more »
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Posted on June 20th, 2007 by Holly
What’s the deal with flax oil? And why exactly is a deep fried seafood basket bad for my body when it seems so good to my mouth? Also, what’s the problem with frying something at high heat in an oil labeled only “for medium heat?”
I have been wondering why some oils are good for you while others are bad so much that I ordered a book by a biochemist named Udo Erasmus called “Fats that Heal, Fats that Kill.” It sounds dry, doesn’t it? Indeed it must not sound very interesting to most people since you can buy a used copy for 5 bucks when the cover price is $23. The copy I bought had a sticker on it that said “50¢” and it doesn’t look like a well-used copy. Read more »
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Posted on April 26th, 2007 by Holly
A friend asked me yesterday, “What do you think people envision when they think of a nutrition counselor?” Without batting an eyelid, I said “They probably think we eat sprouts for breakfast, have a holier than thou attitude and will want to take their favorite food away from them.”
That may or may not ring a bell for you, but it did illustrate the need for me to get right down to Earth and fess up that I didn’t start out eating sprouts. (Yes I do eat them, but not for breakfast.) There’s a quote on my website by Neitsche– “It is by being wounded that power grows, and can become tremendous.” — and that rings a bell with me. Read more »
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Posted on April 9th, 2007 by Holly
Why is it that celebrating Easter, Valentine’s Day, Halloween, Christmas and birthdays usually involves eating staggering amounts of refined sugar? Why do people we love celebrate us by giving us boxes of chocolates, chocolate bunnies and birthday cakes? It’s not hard to come to the conclusion that they want life’s “sweetness” for us. It really is a genuine expression of love and symbolic generosity. And the holiday treats are tradition, right? Well, sort of. Read more »
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