So what should our priority be on the food we eat? It should be tasty and nutritious. But as Michael Pollan says in his latest book, In Defense of Food, we should:
Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
That, more or less, is the short answer to the supposedly incredibly complicated and confusing question of what we humans should eat in order to be maximally healthy.
I started to think we hear all these terms: organic, fair trade, food miles, and sustainable. What do we make of it? It’s unfortunate that most Americans obsess on food as medicine. I know I do. We know obesity is a growing problem and has created many many health problems. The lead culprit is high fructose corn syrup along with the over-processed foods that we eat everyday.
What should our food source priority be? I’ll rank them. sustainable, local, fair trade, and organic. Our food source should be sustainable. It shouldn’t deplete the land for this generation or the next. Our food should be local. This reduces the food miles and thus reducing the amount of fossil fuels that contribute to global warming. It should be fair trade. The food we buy should be mutually beneficial for both the farmer and consumer. The farmer and those in their employ should be able to make an living wage. Finally, the food should be organic. Produced with the least amount of artificial pesticides and fertilizers.
Some food cannot be produced locally: chocolate and coffee for two examples. By reducing the miles that our other foods have to travel we can make sure that what fossil fuels are used are to a minimum. Because I really really don’t want to do without my coffee and chocolate.