Thus begins the very important, must-read article published by Michael Pollan in the January 28, 2007 New York Times Magazine. He starts at the simple conclusion stated above, and than walks us back through "the story of how the most basic questions about what to eat ever got so complicated..." in the first place. By the end of the piece, we will have much more information and understanding about how we arrived "at our present state of nutritional confusion and anxiety." And we will also have a map to guide us as we turn around and head in a better, healthier, smarter direction.

In my last month's Message, one of the New Year resolutions I suggested was:

In this new article, Pollan gives us a clear and helpful list of further actions we can take to move ourselves (and hopefully our families, friends, and communities) toward a healthier, happier, more sustainable, more real, way of eating. Here's an excerpted version of that list. For the entire article (which I strongly recommend that you read, re-read, and share), click here.

Michal Pollan's List (Excerpted and Abbreviated from the New York Times Magazine):

1. Eat food... There are a great many foodlike items in the supermarket your ancestors wouldn't recognize as food (Go-Gurt? Breakfast-cereal bars? Nondairy creamer?); stay away from these.
2. Avoid even those food products that come bearing health claims. They're apt to be heavily processed, and the claims are often dubious at best.
3. Especially avoid food products containing ingredients that are a) unfamiliar, b) unpronounceable c) more than five in number - or that contain high-fructose corn syrup.
4. Get out of the supermarket whenever possible. You won't find any high-fructose corn syrup at the farmer's market; you also won't find food harvested long ago and far away. What you will find are fresh whole foods picked at the peak of nutritional quality. Precisely the kind of food your great-great-grandmother would have recognized as food.
5. Pay more, eat less. The American food system has for a century devoted its energies and policies to increasing quantity and reducing price, not to improving quality. There's no escaping the fact that better food - measured by taste or nutritional quality (which often correspond) - costs more, because it has been grown or raised less intensively and with more care. Not everyone can afford to eat well in America, which is shameful, but most of us can...
   
   "Eat less" is the most unwelcome advice of all, but in fact the scientific case for eating a lot less than we currently do is compelling.
6. Eat mostly plants, especially leaves. Scientists may disagree on what's so good about plants -- the antioxidants? Fiber? Omega-3s? -- but they do agree that they're probably really good for you and certainly can't hurt.
7. Eat more like the French. Or the Japanese. Or the Italians. Or the Greeks. Confounding factors aside, people who eat according to the rules of a traditional food culture are generally healthier than we are. Any traditional diet will do: if it weren't a healthy diet, the people who follow it wouldn't still be around... Let culture be your guide, not science.
8. Cook. And if you can, plant a garden. To take part in the intricate and endlessly interesting processes of providing for our sustenance is the surest way to escape the culture of fast food and the values implicit in it: that food should be cheap and easy; that food is fuel and not communion. The culture of the kitchen, as embodied in those enduring traditions we call cuisines, contains more wisdom about diet and health than you are apt to find in any nutrition journal or journalism. Plus, the food you grow yourself contributes to your health long before you sit down to eat it. So you might want to think about putting down this article now and picking up a spatula or hoe.
9. Eat like an omnivore. Try to add new species, not just new foods, to your diet. The greater the diversity of species you eat, the more likely you are to cover all your nutritional bases.

Once again, please go to the full text and spend some time with it: click here.

Yours in Health, Joy, Intelligence, Love, and Vitality,
Mollie