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NY Times on Eating Better Food, Organic or Not

My friend Chris recently pointed me to a terrific NY Times article by Mark Bittman from thnytimes-organicis past weekend. The article talks about the value of eating organic food as well as the numbers of people who are starting to buy and eat "at least some" organic food (30%, according to the article). So many interesting points are raised in the article, including the benefits and the perceived benefits of eating organic food. Turns out "organic junk food is still junk food" (shocking!), and that the real deal is chemical free, nutrient rich "real", local, sustainable food. In many cases, food from smaller, local farms is grown organically (or in similar ways). Here's an excerpt from the article:

To eat well, says Michael Pollan, the author of “In Defense of Food,” means avoiding “edible food-like substances” and sticking to real ingredients, increasingly from the plant kingdom. (Americans each consume an average of nearly two pounds a day of animal products.) There’s plenty of evidence that both a person’s health — as well as the environment’s — will improve with a simple shift in eating habits away from animal products and highly processed foods to plant products and what might be called “real food.” (With all due respect to people in the “food movement,” the food need not be “slow,” either.) nytimes-organic1

From these changes, Americans would reduce the amount of land, water and chemicals used to produce the food we eat, as well as the incidence of lifestyle diseases linked to unhealthy diets, and greenhouse gases from industrial meat production. All without legislation.

Did you know that:

  • Typical Americans get 7% of our calories from soft drinks?
  • The top food group by caloric intake is “sweets”?
  • 1/3 of US adults are considered obese?

Bittman's consistently good; his writing about food (including Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating, released last year), is well worth digging in to. This article itself has much to absorb.