“You eat your values – don’t let them be fast, cheap and easy” says Alice Waters, the revolutionary chef and cookbook author. Maybe it’s my age but I’ve started to think seriously about what I eat; junk food has never been a sin of mine but Waters and Dr. Oz have pushed me to eat better.
I’ve been too lazy to go to Farmer’s markets up to a few months ago but I am hoping that my health is worth a little more money and a little inconvenience. Cooking becomes a pleasure again when you use fresh ingredients like in this simple Thai chicken and mint dish.
Alice Waters has started the “Slow Food” program that teaches children to make the right decision about how and what they eat.
This doesn’t mean of course that great food shouldn’t be appreciated just because it’s not green enough. I was at a friend of mine‘s today for a fabulous sunday brunch that ended with these great cakes made by her talented sister, Mona; The chocolate mousse and the baby kiwi cakes were divine.
I took a tour of the kitchen and w o w…
Just look at these pastry molds:
it’s true that a beautiful kitchen like this one makes you want to cook but I have had very delicious food coming out of small/dark/chaotic kitchens in my life (just dare to go to almost any parisian café’s kitchen)…
Today’ s food crisis makes us forget that good food like flowers should be affordable to everyone. As Jeffrey Sacks says “you can’t tell people who are dying of hunger in Africa to tighten their belts, as if they had belts”!
I would like to finish the post with these pictures instead of some starving kids in Africa which is approaching a meltdown with the crazy Mugabe and the criminal Janjawids.
How did she go from chocolate mousse to Darfur? I bet that you didn’t see it coming…
Interesting subject, My brother in law just got back from a business trip to Vietnam. He has given us different Vietnamese packaged spices and sauces.The packaging, production facilities and taste of food stuff of Vietnam does make me forget the far cries of 1960S war.
میشل عزیز پست جالبت را خواندم با توجه به اینکه از زمینه شغلی من هم به نوعی پیشگیری از بیماریهای قلبی عروقی است برایم خیلی جالب بود البته تعدادی از عکسهای زیبایت را برای تهیه اسلاید های سخنرانی برداشتم
با تشکر
Wow, Michelle! How come I don’t have friends who’re so talented and hospitable? I tend find myself in front of a bowl of M&M’s! ; )
It doesn’t seem to get more basic than what we eat. It’s the one thing we do that’s on the level with all our essential needs (breathing, drinking, and shelter). But once the essential nutrients for maintaining a functioning metabolism are consumed (e.g. vitamins, minerals, essential oils and amino acids) the only other thing the body needs is water and sheer calories! So, why do we call fast food junk food? If we take a multivitamin on daily basis and drink enough water, a slice of cheese pizza is definitely healthier than a Kobe beef steak with butter and mashed potatoes (even though we pay $2 for one and $100 for the other!) It’s funny; we call some gourmet foods “rich” and some fast foods “junk!” It’s food elitism I tell you!! A gourmet Fettuccini Alfredo with chicken and herbs is far more junk than a grilled chicken sandwich at Micky D’s! If you don’t believe me read the Consumer Report. The only item worse than Fettuccini Alfredo is a box of Ramen Noodles, a food item with enough sodium to turn your blood into brine!
So, it appears that all we need for a healthy body is to curtail our total caloric intake and just take supplements for other essential nutrients! Oh, and some roughage! Don’t forget the roughage! I don’t know if anyone saw the recent 60minutes program on aging and longevity. But it’s been long known in animals that if the total caloric intake is reduced, the lifespan is extended! Research in the 1960’s on rats showed that when total caloric intake was cut by half, the animals lived 30% longer! In human terms, it means living to 104 instead of 80! This has been shown with virtually every other species too, including tape worms! Human studies are now under way. Unfortunately, it’s tough finding folks who are willing to live on a diet of less than a thousand calories per day for the rest of their lives! (Imagine if the results showed no difference! I would go ape shit if I was an experimental subject!) These people look indeed anorexic except that because they get the essentials oils, minerals, and amino acids, they’re actually healthier and more energetic than normal folks (anorexia’s lethality is due to electrolyte imbalances and not lack of calories).
Anyway. So, here’s a recommendation: eating healthy could be easy if we pop a multi vitamin pill in the morning, take some essential oils and amino acids and wash them down with 8 glasses of water laced with Metamucil! Ouch! If there was astronaut food that would give us everything we needed from a paste tube it would even be better, or would it?! Apparently, we haven’t decided yet why we eat. Is food is fuel for the body or the soul, or both? Meanwhile, the Boston Marathon is taking place right now outside my window. The marching of thousands of athletes for a grueling 26 miles is a feat of human will. I look down my living room window while sipping Pome pomegranate juice from a frosty glass. The smell of apple pie baking in the oven is now saturating the air! This reminds me, I did not take my multivitamin today!!!!
In the land of the Super Size Me mentality, it’s refreshing to hear of people who realize how important food is to health. We are literally made of our food, but we tend to forget it. In the computer industry they say “Garbage in garbage out.”; this also applies to our food and bodies.
One of the biggest problems we have today, is that we can’t see the true quality of so many of our products.
All the boxes of cereal and junk food are screaming in bright colors about how healthy they are, while carrots, spinach and other real health foods are sitting quietly in a corner of the vegetable section. Other examples are the shinier children’s toys that had lead in the paint. Or those plastic baby bottles that contain a chemical called BPA, which has been shown to have bad effects on sexual development in mice.
So when are our engineers to finish building those tricorders that we’ve all been waiting 30 years for?
Food is not just what we eat.It is an expression of who we are , how we live and the world we inhabit.
unfortunately, in the face of globalization and urbanization, we are abandoning our traditional foods & diet and embracing factory made processed, packaged plastic food…
Pl refer this web link and explore ..
http://www.slowfood.com/
Mouth Watering Photographs & delicious post
Thanks for sharing
F. Kashani fowarded your site to me and I have been a fan ever since. Thank you for another delicious post.