Michael Pollan to Compile Another 'Food Rules' Book

This time, with more rules and illustrations! Yay! Check out the open call (full text below) for new rules for the 2nd Edition of 'Food Rules' that Michael Pollan wrote for Grist.org (and possibly other publications/sites):

Last year I published Food Rules, a short book offering 64 rules for eating well. Food Rules struck a chord with many people, who found that it helped them navigate what has become a treacherous food environment, whether in the supermarket or restaurant. Many of the rules were submitted by readers, and since publication I have received a number of excellent new ones. So I've decided to publish an expanded edition, with additional rules and also illustrations, which the painter Maira Kalman has agreed to create. The premise of Food Rules is that culture has much to teach us about how to choose, prepare, and eat food and that this wisdom is worth collecting and preserving before it disappears.

In recent years, we've deferred to the voices of science and industry when it comes to eating, yet often their advice has served us poorly, or has merely confirmed the wisdom of our grandmothers after the fact. "Eat your colors," an Australian reader's grandmother used to tell her; now we hear the same advice from nutritionists, citing the value of including in the diet as many different phytochemicals as possible.I've also found that many ethnic traditions have their own memorable expressions for what amounts to the same recommendation.

Many cultures, for examples, have grappled with the problem of food abundance and come up with different ways of proposing we stop eating before we're completely full: the Japanese say "hara hachi bu" ("Eat until you are 4/5 full"); Germans advise eaters to "tie off the sack before it's full." And the prophet Mohammed recommended that a full belly should contain one-third food, one-third drink, and one-third air. My own Russian-Jewish grandfather used to say at the end of every meal, "I always like to leave the table a little bit hungry." Many rules reach across cultures and also time, but some of the ones readers have submitted are specifically about navigating the modern food landscape: "It's not food if it comes to you through the window of a car." "Don't eat at any restaurant of which there is more than just one." "A snack is not the same thing as treat." "If a bug won't eat it, why would you?" and so on.

Will you send me a food rule you have found memorable and useful? Perhaps one passed down by your parents or grandparents? Or something you've come up with to tell your children -- or your self.

Please send your suggestions to pollan.foodrules@gmail.com. Thanks in advance for your attention and help.

As you all know, 'Food Rules' is very close to this blogger's heart because she contributed rule number 21 to the first edition. I hope that you all will join me in contributing ideas for the next edition. I will include the best ones in the next edition of Food Rules, which will be published next fall and will be pleased to acknowledge your contribution if you so wish.

Updates

Hello readers.

Lots of important things have happened while yours truly has been trying to master some techniques for deciphering rye from barley from oats from... lions and tigers and bears, oh my! Here are a few updates:

• Congratulations to Sarah Backhouse and Planet 100 on their 200th episode milestone! To celebrate we've added the automatic Planet 100 feed to JustSaying. Find it over on the right. Yay!!
• A new book about food localisation came out. MEAT: A Benign Extravagance by Simon Fairlie. Read Permaculture's take here and some other discussions here. 
• Nicholas Kristof wrote a strong column on the egg recall.
• Mark Bittman posted about the new study linking obesity and school lunches.
• Chez Panisse celebrated 39 years.

Second Nature: On Composting

Having only recently discovered an early, critically acclaimed gardening book by none-other-than Michael Pollan, I feel compelled to share interesting and educational passages from it as I encounter them. The book is called Second Nature: A Gardener's Education and the following is MP's take on composting circa 1991:

"Some gardeners, and even some garden writers, talk about compost as if it were fertilizer, but that is only part of the story, and it is somewhat misleading. It is true that compost contains nitrogen, phosphorus, and potash (the principal ingredient of fertilizer), but not in terribly impressive quantities. The real benefits of compost lie in what humus - its main constituent - does to the soil. Consider:

1.) Compost improves the soil's "structure." Soil is made up of clay, sand, silt, and organic matter, in varying proportions. Too much clay or silt, and the soil tends to become compacted, making it difficult for air, water, and roots to penetrate. Too much sand, and the soil's ability to retain water and nutrients is compromised. An ideal, friable garden soil consists of airy crumbs in which particles of sand, clay and silt are held together by humic acid. Compost helps these particles form. 
2.) Compost increases the soil's water-holding capacity. One experiment I read about found that 100 pounds of sand will hold 25 pounds of water, 100 pounds of clay will hold 50 pounds, and 100 pounds of humus will hold 190 pounds. A soil rich in compost will need less watering, and the plants growing in it will better withstand drought.
3.) Because it is so dark in color, compost absorbs the sun's rays and warms the soil.
4.) Compost teems with microorganisms, which break down the organic matter in soil into the basic elements plants need.
5.) Because it is made up of decaying vegetable matter, compost contains nearly every chemical plants need to grow, including such trace elements as boron, manganese, iron, copper, and zinc, not often found in commercial fertilizer. Compost thus returns to the soil a high proportion of the things agriculture takes out of it."

The book is fantastic, folks. Everyone who has ever worked on, played on, owned, tilled, raked, fertilized (**cringe**), seeded, mowed, plowed and otherwise enjoyed or despised any piece of land will appreciate Pollan's insights and reflections.

Insectopedia!

How great does this book sound?! Learn more here.

Love Little Green Books

I had the pleasure of gifting and reading The Adventures of a Plastic Bottle to my little niece over the weekend and let me tell you, folks: it is adorably educational. The story about recycling follows the bottle from his beginnings as a blob of crude oil, through polymerization, construction, use, reuse, recycling and to his final form (spoiler alert) as a fleece sweatshirt. I mean, seriously... what's cuter than a spirited plastic bottle with googley eyes teaching our littlest generation important lessons about the processes that have become a huge part of our existence?

As you would expect, the books are printed on recycled paper and The Adventures of a Plastic Bottle is one of many in Simon & Schuster's Little Green Books series.

Other titles include:

I Can Save the Ocean: The Little Green Monster Cleans Up the Beach

This is Our World: A Story About Taking Care of the Earth

Don't Throw That Away: A Lift-the-Flap Book About Recycling and Reusing

What Do You See? A Lift-the-Flap Book abuot Endangered Species

The Adventures of an Aluminum Can: A Story About Recycling

Easy to be Green: Simple Activities You Can Do to Save the Earth

My First Garden

I Can Save the Earth: One Little Monster Learns to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle

The Polar Bears' Home: A Story About Global Warming

Little Panda

Little Monkey

Simon & Schuster have even created the Little Green Blog: Where Your Green Ideas Grow. The most current post of theirs talks about Earth Hour 2010 which is only a few short days away and another great, green activity to do with the kiddies!

Hmph.

I can't decide whether I think this window display at Borders is a good thing or a bad thing. I suppose the good news is that people are interested in changing their diets, right? But on the other hand these books are taking the top spots among best sellers (over some incredible literature) yet obesity and related health consequences continue to be the number one cause of death in America. Not to mention diets are transient and only a temporary solution to a bigger problem. Ugh.

nine books for 2009

Treehugger just released their list of nine must read books on eating well.


The 100 Mile Diet, Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon
Food Security for the Faint, Robin Wheeler
How to Cook Everything, Mark Bittman
The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan
In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan
The Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson
No Nonsense Guide to World Food, Wayne Roberts
Stuffed and Starved, Raj Patel
Where Our Food Comes From, Gary Paul Nathan

For summaries of the books, click here.