Food for Thought

An original title, I know...

As I sat down to a lazy Saturday morning breakfast this morning (nearly afternoon) I reflected on my decadent meal: a homemade buttermilk Belgian waffle, topped with butter, chopped walnuts, apple and maple syrup, coffee on the side. Not thirty minutes earlier my meal had been a collection of 'raw' ingredients: flour, salt, buttermilk, butter, baking soda, maple syrup, coffee beans, egg, apple and walnuts - not a pre-packaged* item among them. What's more, now that I thought about it, all I had eaten for the past week had been prepared by myself (and/or Brooke) from other such raw ingredients. This was a satisfying thought, especially in light of some of recent reading and thinking I've been doing.

I won't pretend to be an expert - or even very knowledgeable - on the subjects of food, the food industry or nutrition. In fact, much of what I have been musing over has come from only one source - an interesting piece of journalism by Michael Pollan titled The Omnivore's Dilemma. Still, the distilled version of what I've gleaned from this book** is this: Corn (as well as number of other crops) has become a commodity in our economy, a process fueled in part by government subsidies. More and more corn is produced on an increasingly larger scale and the end result (aside from the detrimental environmental effects of mono-cropping: erosion, chemical runoff, reduction of genetic diversity in crops, etc.) is lower corn prices (= bad for domestic AND foreign farmers) and a market saturated with cheap corn.

And just what does a nation do with millions of bushels of cheap commodity corn??? One answer is to add value by turning it into an expensive product, say a corn-based breakfast cereal sweetened with corn syrup, fortified with vitamins derived from corn... And behold: a nation that has gone from general stores and open markets selling predominantly raw goods to chain grocery stores that sell meals (frozen or boxed and LOADED with corn-derived ingredients) ready - or "ready in minutes!" - to eat. (Not to mention that most of the meat we eat is fed on a diet primarily comprised of... CORN!)

From here we could go to the realm of nutrition and the purported negative effects of processed food (i.e. high fructose corn syrup) on American health, but already I've written much more than I intended. I'll save the soapbox for a less-lazy day, that is not filled with snow, sun and a promise to teach my housemate how to Nordic ski.

A bit more reflection, to wrap things up: I'm pleased with my recent cooking endeavors. I feel like I'm eating food that is healthier and furthermore, the menu has been varied and delicious: homemade ravioli with cheese and meat filling and homemade tomato sauce, ham and white bean soup, barley and mushroom casserole, baked macaroni and cheese, baked polenta with roasted vegetables. Hopefully this is a trend I can continue. And, future salary increases pending, I also hope to replace more and more of these store-bought raw ingredients with ones that I grow, make, preserve, forage, brew and kill myself - partially in the name of improving my ecological/economic impact and also partially just for the fun of it.

And tomorrow, we're making refried beans and tortillas. This will be my first attempt using lard as a main ingredient. I've long heard of it's deliciousness in all things Mexican, as well as pie crusts and other things, but I've still never tried using it. We'll see how it goes.

Oh, and I would highly recommend The Omnivore's Dilemma to any curious or socially/ecologically/economically-conscious mind.

*I almost said "processed," but I'm not quite that naive. All of these ingredients have been through many machines, been introduced to plenty of additives...

** Actually, this is just what I learned from merely one part of the book. The rest is equally informative and fascinating.