"Eat food, not too much, mostly plants"

If you are not aware of the phenomenon that was Michael Pollan, then you might not know this phrase. It sounds like a really good philosophy, I guess. I personally think that his books describe a Utopian society(where everyone sends their compost to the farmers who then grow our produce) and if I want to dream about a food Utopia it would not be made of mostly veggies.

Something that was said in an article has renewed my interest in Pollan. Supposedly a few farmers in Wisconsin called Pollan out on his Utopian dream. One of them even wrote an article about the ridiculousity(totally not a word - don't you wish you could make up words too)of Pollan's views. He gave examples about why the compost idea wouldn't work, and even showed how it would actually hurt the environment instead of helping it.

Stage opens, Farmers come marching out looking rather intelligent and thought out. Pollan congratulates the farmers and says how encouraged he is by this debate. Head blogger of FairFoodFight Barth Anderson jumps onto the stage, disrupting the whole things and says, "until now I don't think that a lot of farmers paid attention." WOW. I hope you have realized that none of this happened on a stage. I just needed a little added drama to help you see what my semi-fogged up brain was seeing when I read the story. I am kind of curious if Kanye wasn't sitting around taking notes.(If you missed it at the VMA music awards Kanye West appeared out of nowhere when Taylor Swift was receiving an award to tell the crowd that he thought Beyonce should have gotten instead. All of facebook was a buzz with quizzes about when Kanye would interrupt you.)

Calling farmers stupid really isn't at all worthy of even a facebook quiz. It is just simply ignorant. I know this man might not have entirely meant for his statement to be twisted the way I just did, but assuming that farmers are uninterested in a book that claims they are doing things the wrong way, is so rude. It's 2009 people farmers can read.

I hope that farmers continue to stand up and tell the world their often untold story. My parents house is right near a dairy farm. We are close to the farmers, and when I was little I remember my mom talking to the farmer's wife. She told my mom that they never took a vacation. She never got a day off. Every day was the same. Even as a little girl I didn't think that was fair. Why should someone work all of the time when we got to take trips and go places? Everyone wants to go to Whole Foods and see local produce, but have you ever considered the farmer who does not get a day off so that produce can fill you up. These people are hard working and they all have a story. Oh and they do have opinions. If anyone knows how to make this world a better place, it would be a farmer.

I am sick. My nose isn't a faucet yet, but I feel achy and tired and just unsettled. Unfortunately I react strongly to cold meds, so I'm on a diet of tea and my mom told me to go out and buy some fruits and veggies. I barely made it to Trader Joe's and we all know(oryou will know from now on) that Trader Joe's is a fabulous place, but their produce is less than desirable. I am afraid I will have to wait on my fruits and veggies till tomorrow when I can go to Whole Foods or the Coop. I am just hoping that my dinner of banana bread pudding(I made it because I had a loaf of white bread that was just awful and needed to use it before it was moldy. It's kind of like French toast with bananas, so semi-healthy right?) will hold off the sneezies from getting worse.

Right now I am going to get back to my tea and my novel for my interdisciplinary class. And new goal of the week: try to have someone epically interrupt me with an ignorant statement.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily