the photine blog

In Defense of Food

I want everyone to go out and buy this book, In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan.  Or if you aren't ready to buy after reading this blog post at least promise that you will read the article or watch the video linked at the end.  It is eye opening and you will not look at the supermarket, magazines, TV ads or the things you eat the same way again.  

This is from the back cover:

Food.  There's plenty of it around, and we all love to eat it.  So why should anyone need to defend it?  Because in the so-called Western diet, food has been replaced by nutrients, and common sense by confusion - most of what we're consuming today is no longer the product of nature but of food science.  The result is what Michael Pollan calls the American paradox: The more we worry about nutrition, the less healthy we seem to become.

The book is broken into three parts.  The first section talks about the rise of nutritionism. The fact that we don't talk about food anymore, but the science of food.  Trans-fat, low-fat, omega-3, vitamins, etc.  Just look at any food package near you and it probably has something similar splattered across the front.  And when food science finds another miracle vitamin or fat that is essential to our health?  It suddenly magically appears in all of those products.  Pollan calls them food-like substances because they are engineered to follow the current food trends.

The second section talks about the Western diet.  I'm sure you have heard it all before.  How people in far flung areas eat differently than we do and have less incidence of the diseases that are killing us in greater numbers.  And instead of looking at the diet as a whole, the scientists try to focus in on that one element (olive oil, red wine, b12!).  The difference is that a lot of those cultures eat food: unprocessed, fresh from the source food.  Pollan goes through the history of the Western diet and how we got where we are today (refining flour, changing from quality to an emphasis on quantity, moving from leaves to seeds).

The final section deals with how to escape the western diet.  Nothing extreme like moving to a tropical island and living off the land.  More common sense things.  Here are just a few:

Don't eat anything your great grandmother wouldn't recognize as food. (his example: GoGurt)

Avoid food products containing ingredients that are a.) unfamiliar, b.) unpronounceable, c.) more than five in number or that include d.) high-fructose corn syrup (I looked at the ingredient list on a loaf of bread and was surprised... it had 30+ things listed).

Avoid Food Products that Make Health Claims (the healthy food is sitting there quietly in the produce section without labels)

Shop the Peripheries of the Supermarket and stay out of the middle

Get out of the supermarket whenever possible (i.e. find your local farmer's markets and take advantage of them)

Eat Meals (no snacking)

Do all your eating at a table (the car is not a table and we are all guilty)

Cook!

Now I am not normally one to read and endorse these type of books.  I tend to stay out of the lifestyle change section of the bookstore because I am cynical.  My eyes roll just by reading most of the titles.  This is different.  It feels more like common sense advice than some kind of manifesto (although manifesto is right there in the title).  I don't know how much I'm going to be able to change.  Vegetables have never been high on my list of favorites.  The thing is that I had already started little changes.  I had already recognized that I needed to slow down and think about what I was eating and how I was eating it in my New Year's Resolution post.  And of course there is the Cooking post.  For me I think this book just came along at the right time as an encouragement to keep going on the path that I had already tentatively started out on.  I imagine I will read it more than once and I encourage all of you to read it as well.  

If your interest is piqued start with the article that led to the book.  It is a long read, but definitely worth it. Or if you are a more visual/auditory person you can watch this video of the author speaking from CSPAN.

Rededication

Remember this?  Well I've totally fallen down on the job.  I'm right back in that random clicking around the internet pattern.  In fact I've spent every night this week, just randomly hanging around on the internet, letting things slide, even while in the back of my mind I'm screaming at myself to do something more productive.  

So far my reading list for 2009 is pathetic.  I've started several different books, but haven't finished any of them.  I can't seem to focus on just one thing.  I jump from activity to activity and then can't remember what I wanted to do five minutes later.  I'm losing something.  Intelligence, patience, memory, focus.  I'm not sure what it is but I can feel it slipping away.  I need to get it back.  Time to rededicate  myself to eliminating the random, wasteful moments and start doing things with a little more meaning.

Series

I finished the Twilight series this evening. Or I guess I should say this morning. I really love finding books that so completely engulf me. Books that are page turners and sweep me away with their story. Books where I look up and realize that three, four, five hours have passed since I started reading. This doesn't happen to me as often as I would like and it doesn't happen to me with every book I read. I am always on the search for the books that will pull me in this way. As I look over the list of books that have drawn me in, I see some similar characteristics. They all are very easy reads. They allow me to escape my world and be pulled into their rushing torrent of narrative. They are light hearted and not heavy. They do not have long endless passages of description, paragraphs of angst filled prose, heavy sex scenes or heavy violence. I'm sure that says something about me, I'm just not sure what (prude, boring, square, shallow).

The interesting thing to me is that all the books that have pulled me in, except for one, are series. And the one exception is actually a series too, but I just haven't read any of the follow ups. I have been thinking about this lately with my constant re-reading of Nero Wolfe and my absolute love for television as opposed to movies. I think that I like the familiar. When you read a book series or watch a television series you get to the know the characters, the world, the environment. There is a sense of familiar which the stories then build from. I am drawn to that. I like getting to know characters and then read about their different adventures. I'm not sure what that says about me either, but I'm sure it is just as fascinating (or confirms my boringness).

I have bookcases in my living room as well as my bedroom and of course more books stashed in storage. I just realized while writing this post that most of the books in my living room are my books that are series. I always put my favorites in the living room, but it is funny that they have that connection. For the curious some of my favorites are:

Harry Potter
The Belgariad / The Malloreon,
Myth Adventures
The Aborhosen
Nero Wolfe
The Twilight Saga
Dave Barry (non fiction)

None of them are earth shattering, nothing deep and philosophical. No nobel prizes among them. Half are young adult series, probably because they focus on pushing the story forward without all that pesky introspection and complication that "grown up" books are required to contain. Just my personal escapes from the every day world. The saddest part about finishing a good series is knowing that you won't be able to spend time in that world with those characters any more. Now on to reading this and that until I discover my next great series.

Fairy Tales

Well I finished book three of the Twilight Series, Eclipse. I am really enjoying it, but another part of me wonders if I should ever have started reading it in the first place. I knew that I would have this reaction from the little bits that I heard about the book and that is why I hesitated for so long to read it, but what else was there to do for a week with no internet or TV.

The problem is that Edward, the main love interest, is a perfect realization of my ideal man. Well except that whole vampire thing. Gentle, protective, passionate, and here is one you don't run across too often, old fashioned. I roll my eyes sometimes at his pronouncements of love, but a.) what can you expect from a book targeted at teenage girls and b.) I can't deny that those kind of phrases haven't floated across my daydreams. And that's the problem isn't it? No man exists in the real world that is like Edward, yet my heart longs for that. I want the dream, the fairy tale, the prince charming, but he isn't out there and that makes me sad this evening. I'll get over it as I always do when I come face to face with reality.

Tomorrow I will buy the last book in the series. I hope I like the way it wraps up.

Pick up the Pace

I started keeping track of the new books I was reading for 2008. After hanging out with the bibliophile I really wanted to make a concerted effort to not re-read as much and to read more new books. Halfway through 2008 I can say my efforts have been..... lackluster. I still re-read books, especially when I'm stressed or upset. That will probably never change, but I haven't been reading that many new books either. In fact I'm on the track of about one new book a month which is pitiful. I always thought of myself as a reader, but the kind of reader I picture reads way more than one book a month.

Enter Put Things Off. Today the website had this post: The Challenge: Read One Book A Week. It is a really great article and I highly recommend it. But this is what really stood out to me.

How many hours a week do you currently spend online? Scary, isn’t it? Are you actively working and playing in that time, or just screwing around? My guess is that we could all swap a little online time for some hours offline with a good book.

It’s time to phase-out idle mouse clicking, passive TV watching, and mindless game playing for something that’s genuinely worth doing.

This IS me. I'm very bad about the idle mouse clicking and I've gotten worse this summer. Constantly checking email, circling back to the same two or three websites (Twitter, Flickr), the TV playing in the background. I don't want to be so tied to the computer. I know that part of it is a need to connect to people, to be part of a community, but I don't like becoming dependent on it. I'm never really part of the community anyway, more standing on the outskirts, and I don't want my self worth or image to be wrapped up in whether people email me, leave me comments or reply to me.

Wow that took a left turn. All this to say that this is an excellent article and I'm really going to try to pick up the pace on my reading while at the same time breaking myself of the mouse click habit. Hopefully new books will start going up on my list at a quicker rate. Luckily I have a trip to Half Price Books planned for tomorrow!

Robert Aspirin

It has been a busy day. First a full work day, followed by a meet-up at Discovery Green for the Flickr group, followed by dinner at Frank's with the Flickr group, and a long conversation outside the restaurant with one of the photographers. 20 minutes at home to drop off my camera then back out to the River Oaks Theater and the midnight showing of Grease, the sing a long version. Friday turns to Saturday.

Yet the thing that has been in the back of my mind the whole day is the death of Robert Aspirin. It makes me very sad. The Myth Adventure books rate as one of my very favorite series of books, especially the first 5 or 6. I have read them over and over and over again and will probably be heading to bed with them again tonight to spend a little more time with Mr. Aspirin.

I'm not even sure how it came up in conversation, but I know that I was guided to these books by my mother, an avid sci-fi and fantasy reader. It seems to me that this was the first real break I made from my teeny bopper book series like Sweet Valley High. Looking back it may have had a big part in shaping the style of writing that I enjoy today. The Myth books are fast paced, funny, witty, snarky and have more dialogue than long boring pages of exposition that a lot of books have. That is exactly the writing style I like.

Cheers to you Robert Aspirin for your delightful world, for Skeeve, Aahz, and the gang and for creating such a wonderful place. Your world has helped me through sad times, through breakups, through stress and helped me escape from my world numerous times. Rest in peace.

Bibliophile

I hung out with an honest to goodness bibliophile today. I don't think I'll ever meet another person more passionate about reading and books. That makes for a good day because is there anything more wonderful than reading a book?

I don't read as often as I should, spending most of my free time in front of the computer, but my life would be empty without books. Seeing stacks of books makes me happy and seeing bookshelf after bookshelf of beautiful hard cover books, like I did today, makes me very happy. Even if I don't buy anything I love to browse in a bookstore. I love seeing books piled up on the night stand. There is nothing like losing yourself in a good book; getting caught up in the story, excited to turn the page and see what happens next.

One thing that I did discover today, suggested of course by the lovely book collector, is that I may be attracted to a certain style of writing. I have a hard time finding books that I really enjoy. I bounce around a lot of the genres and find one or two authors I like in each one. The exception is Fantasy where I do most of my reading, but even then I have barely scratched the surface considering the number of offerings in that category. I like to have something that helps me take my mind off the day and doesn't require too much thinking (can't believe I just admitted that .... makes me feel like an airhead). It was interesting to think that I am drawn to a certain style instead of a certain genre. Definitely something for me to think about in the future.

So let's take a peek at what has been added to my stack. Three books borrowed from the collector, because I don't think you can leave her house without a book in hand, Inkspell, The Conch Bearer, and The Island of Lost Maps (can't wait to read this one!) and two from the bookstore, Kitchen Confidential and Texian Iliad. Of course I already have a stack by the night stand, but no matter. This just makes my house a happier place to be.

Ender's Game

I love when a book jumps up and grabs my attention. It's even more surprising when it is a book that has been sitting on my shelf for almost a year. Thus is the case with Ender's Game. I can't even remember how long ago I bought it. I know that I looked at the first few pages once, but I just couldn't get into it. But for some reason last night it grabbed a hold of me and did not let go. The book was kind of like a one night stand. It was amazing and explosive, it was over far too soon and it leaves me wanting more (yeah my romantic life is still stalled just in case you couldn't tell....).

I haven't read a good book in a while. I love that feeling that only a good and engaging book can bring. It's interesting that some of my favorite books lately have been young adult books. I think they have a way of focusing on the story, sparking the imagination and not bringing in all kinds of adult baggage that gets in my way. In the YA category, along with Ender's Game, I also highly recommend the Abhorsen series and of course Harry Potter.

In other Saturday news, even though it was an absolutely gorgeous day I stayed in. I slept in although sleeping in apparently means 9 am as I'm getting older. I read, cleaned out the email box, watched TV and processed pictures. My Lightroom trial is about to run out and I probably won't have the money from the gallery for the photos that I sold for another week or so. Hopefully it won't be longer than that.

And I so wish I could say what I'm really thinking about tomorrow, but I'm not sure exactly who reads this blog so I'll just leave it. Sigh. These are the things that make me want to pick up and move somewhere new. Start over completely. How freeing that would be (but I'd miss Houston and my family.)

As I read...

Deathly Hallows. The sort of live blogging version. No spoilers.

One funny story to relate first. I was in my car at the bookstore and decided to flip through the book. I looked at chapter titles and then flipped to the end. I caught sight of a name that I was very surprised to see and at that point I decided then to stop looking ahead. I looked up and a woman was looking in my window. She grinned and me and shook her head in a "shame on you for peeking" sort of a way. It was funny.

I started at 12:51 am. I am now an hour into the book and have hit the first death. My cat who was sound asleep was awoken by my exclamation of "NO." I didn't say it very loud, but it must have been the way I said it. And I said it over and over and over again, it getting higher pitched each time. And then I cried. And now I'm writing this. Too much information to Twitter so I decided to update this post with my thoughts as I read. The death just happened and I almost don't want to go back and read, but I will. I just need a few moments. Maybe this would be a good time to get some water. NO NO NO NO NO!!!!!. Ok. Back to the book.

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Ok. What the hell? I'm hitting my second death and I'm only in the next chapter.

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It's 3 am and I'm heading to bed. I think I'll probably read another hour at the most. I *am* looking forward to the Twitter meet-up, but man ya'll had to pick this weekend? I'm going to be getting out of bed with not much sleep and it's going to cut into my reading time. :-)

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Morning. I ended up staying awake until 4:45 and then I forced myself to close the book. Even then I had a hard time falling asleep. Before I closed the book I flipped through again and the more names I saw the more excited I got. I think this is going to be an EXCELLENT book (it is already) and I can't wait to see how everything unfolds. I had a hard time falling asleep, my brain whirling on the possibilities and complete inanities like what kind of patronus I would have. I don't know how I'm awake now, but I am. I am in chapter 12 and probably won't touch it again until after the Twitter meet-up.

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Had a nice time at the Twitter Meet Up. I stopped by the grocery store after to get some supplies for the apartment. My aunt stays and looks after my cat while I am gone. I started reading again around 4:00 or so and now I'm taking a break. It's 7:00 pm. I'm in Chapter 22: The Deathly Hallows. I seem to be reading slower than normal. I guess I don't want to miss any clue or maybe its just my old age. :-P

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7:40 I barely picked the book back up when I had to put it back down to check something. I marvel at the little clues that Rowling has left scattered in the previous six books. I just ran across a reference and sure enough there it is. That's one of the things that makes these books so enjoyable for me. The little treasures you find when read and read again. Ok. Back to the story.

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Death number three. I know she said two, but I can't really discuss it without giving away more. I only cried at the first one although in a fit of anticipation of what might happen for this one, I flipped ahead two or three pages and saw what happened. No... no... #####. Yes, I guess I do look ahead. But I never peek at my Christmas presents if that gives you any consolation.

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9:30. I think I'm going to stop for the night. This is the first time I've ever stretched out the reading, but I think it is because it is the last time. I think it is also why I'm reading more slowly. Stretching and savoring my last moments in this universe. Going to grab something to eat and then work on my Harry Potter pictures! Never far from my thoughts.

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Sunday 1:15 pm. I woke up late this morning, worked on photos, watched TV, ate lunch. Now I'm going to pick the book back up and I will probably not stop until it is finished. My last moments with Harry Potter. It's a little bittersweet. Don't expect to hear from me again until I'm finished unless something shocking happens. In the meantime check out my photos from the release event.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/laanba/sets/72157600948801208/

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Death #4, or should I say death that I care about. FOUR!!!! I didn't see this one coming either. I think I was lulled into thinking that I had run across all the big ones.

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Five.

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4:30. I'm done. There were deaths SIX and SEVEN, but I didn't want to stop. I don't know how she could ever say two deaths except maybe that she only described two deaths in detail (actually three). But the other ones are just as important because those characters are just as important.

I cried right at the end. I really, really, REALLY, didn't think I would. The only real crying that I did was one the very first death happened in what seems so long ago and started this extremely long post. But in the Epilogue a first and especially MIDDLE name got me. I cried. What a great book and what a great series. It is going to take some time for all of this to sink in.

This post is officially finished. I hear your immense relief.

Mischief managed.

Noooo.......

Waaa..... I had a great post about reading and books and I lost it because I accidentally killed Camino instead of Twitterific.

It's too late for my brain to reassemble everything so I'll just tell you that I found this super cool book The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World and I can't wait to get to it.

Dang, I can't believe I lost that whole post. Grrr.

Tomorrow 6th grade competition and Friday 6th grade field trip. 6th grade is hard to deal with so I'll be glad when the next two days are over.

Off to read my book.

Still mad about my post.