Baltimore Eats - OUR COMMON TABLE - April 2007

Congratulations to everyone at baltimore eats magazine on its 1st Anniversary! And what a fitting topic to dedicate this anniversary issue to - real food. It seems to be a concept that we, collectively as a society, have lost sight of. But I believe it is a concept that needs to be our primary focus as we venture forth in rebuilding and re-imagining our local food economy.

Food used to be such a simple, beautiful thing. It is absolutely amazing how we have messed it up so completely. Our thinking, buying, growing, eating, and relationship with food in general, are best described as mildly schizophrenic. We want the latest, greatest, and most fashionable and exotic of foods -and we want them whenever we want them, disregarding seasonality.

We eat gigantic portions -the likes of which have never been experienced in the course of human history -and in this country, the large majority of adults are overweight or obese. We have more food than ever before, yet experience food-related illnesses at epidemic proportions.

And we seem perplexed at how this has happened!

There are thousands of food related books and magazines, food websites, food television, food experts, food scientists, food diet gurus that explain that we need: low-fat, high fat, all protein, no protein, all carbs, no carbs, special vitamins, special minerals, antioxidants, fiber, no fiber, oat bran, flax seed, omega-6's, omega-3's, totally pureed or totally raw...

Michael Pollan, the author of the highly acclaimed book, The Omnivores Dilemma (Penguin Press, 2006) refers to all of this as a great "Conspiracy of Confusion." To counter all these so called food "experts" at our disposal, and the giant food companies that produce the "enriched," processed foods that permeate the food markets, Michael Pollan suggests a good rule of thumb: "If you're concerned about your health, you should probably avoid food products that make health claims."

To get a comprehensive, yet accessible and thought provoking overview of how the national agriculture model has gone from a collection of small, regional farms to the multinational "free-trade" food system we now have, I highly recommend you read The Omnivore's Dilemma.

Michael has initiated a much-needed national dialogue about how our food is produced, how the food system operates, how it traditionally worked, and what this ultimately means to us as a society.

In the New York Times Magazine, January 28, 2007, Pollan wrote an essay entitled, "Unhappy Meals." Here he comes up with this simple formula for eating well: "Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

He also asks us: "What would happen if we were to start thinking about food as less than a thing and more of a relationship?"

I believe that relationship should foster all the principles we've been considering for the past year right here in this column:
-Buying food at farmers' markets -food grown locally by people we know.
-Buying most of our food in the fruits and vegetables sections of the grocery store.
-Growing food ourselves.
-Limiting meat and fish consumption to, as Thomas Jefferson suggested, "condiments (flavorings) to our meal" -eating a truly balanced meal with less of a focus on the protein-dense "Main Course."
-Buying our meat, poultry and fish locally --or learning to raise, hunt, and catch your own!
-Returning food to its place at the center of conviviality, community and sharing.
-Relearning the traditional ways of preparing and preserving our food.

At the end of his New York Times essay Michael leaves us with nine suggestions, or principles for us to consider and work towards in helping us regain a mutually beneficial relationship with "real" food.
Check it out on Michael Pollan's website: www.michaelpollen.com.

Let's get busy making our food once again "Real" in every sense. It's important work.