All Posts Tagged With: "Wendell Berry"

I had the luxury while on our sailing trip to read an entire book, start to finish. I didn’t just read it – I DEVOURED it. Fitting, then, that it was a book about food and eating: In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan.

I’ve been a Michael Pollan devotee forever. I still remember where I was sitting when I read his brilliant essay, "Weeds Are Us," in the NYTimes Sunday Magazine. That wonderful meditation on the push-pull of nature and culture is in his book, Second Nature: A Gardener’s Education . But I digress. We’re talking food here.

This book is so full of great observations, factoids for those of us who are info-obsessed, philosophy, and downright good sense. All packaged in Pollan’s signature intelligent, pleasure-to-read prose. It’s conversational, but not condescending. Among the MANY gems, three themes particularly spoke to me.

1. Good for us = good for the earth

Right off the bat, he makes the observation that good personal choices are usually good ecologically. I completely agree! It’s at the heart of our EcoBlueprint program; right down to my example showing how Thanksgiving dinner meets multiple needs beyond simple sustenance: family connection, aesthetics in choice and arrangement of the food, expressing love, giving care, pleasure, support of local economies, participation in the great cycle of life. I LOVE that he defends the pleasure of eating, and I’m just so glad that he’s not the only one singing that song lately.

2. All about relationships

Another great theme is that of food relationships. In nature, food is all about relationships among species: we call them food chains. Pollan takes a clear-eyed look at our place in this chain. Who better to guide us than the man who has spent much of his writing life on the topic of the intertwining of nature and culture? Culture, he says, has played a critical role in helping to mediate people’s relationship to nature. Eating is one of the most important manifestations of that relationship.

This is likely why, in the ever-growing sustainability movement, food is often a first entry point. We all have to eat! Buying our food directly from farmers is an excellent way to experience this connection . Pollan’s advice is to shake the hand that feeds you: meet the people who grow and raise the food you eat.

3. Traditional + now = a way forward

In another brilliantly creative passage, he likens traditional diets to vernacular architecture . Continued

Dear Friends,

There are moments in a nation’s—and a planet’s—history when it may be necessary for some to break the law in order to bear witness to an evil, bring it to wider attention, and push for its correction. We think such a time has arrived, and we are writing to say that we hope some of you will join us in Washington D.C. on Monday March 2 in order to take part in a civil act of civil disobedience outside a coal-fired power plant near Capitol Hill.

We will be there to make several points:
#Coal-fired power is driving climate change. Our foremost climatologist, NASA’s James Hansen, has demonstrated that our only hope of getting our atmosphere back to a safe level—below 350 parts per million co2—lies in stopping the use of coal to generate electricity.
# Even if climate change were not the urgent crisis that it is, we would still be burning our fossil fuels too fast, wasting too much energy and releasing too much poison into the air and water. We would still need to slow down, and to restore thrift to its old place as an economic virtue.
#Coal is filthy at its source. Much of the coal used in this country comes from West Virginia and Kentucky, where companies engage in "mountaintop removal" to get at the stuff; they leave behind a leveled wasteland, and impoverished human communities. No technology better exemplifies the out-of-control relationship between humans and the rest of creation.
#Coal smoke makes children sick. Asthma rates in urban areas near coal-fired power plants are high. Air pollution from burning coal is harmful to the health of grown-ups too, and to the health of everything that breathes, including forests.

Continued