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Health & Fitness

Important Books and Documentaries about Ethical Eating

I love fresh, healthy food! Understanding what's healthy and safe is getting increasingly difficult. Food poisoning and food contamination are too common.

I love food – fresh, healthy food!  But understanding what’s healthy and safe is getting increasingly difficult. Food poisoning and food contamination are too common.  Do you buy organic?  Local? All natural? Sustainably grown? Free range?  Grass fed?  Lowfat?   Whoa……….

Fish is loaded with heart, brain, and skin-healthy omega 3.  But not all fish.  Many types are also contaminated with mercury, overfished, or farmed, which has its problems.  Chicken is a healthy, lean protein, but not if it’s injected with growth hormones and antibiotics and raised in filthy, inhumane environments. Soy is an excellent source of plant protein, but along with corn, a major GMO (genetically modified organisms) crop. GMO crops are linked to allergies and many other health issues, and what’s worse they aren’t labeled.  (There is a bill before Congress now requiring GMO foods to be labeled.)

It’s ironic that berries are a powerhouse of cancer-fighting anti-oxidants, but one of the most heavily sprayed crops with cancer-causing pesticides.  Apples are considered a super food, but they are #1 on the list of the most heavily sprayed crops.  Additionally, it seems like everyday we get conflicting advice about what is good for you and what isn’t.

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It’s all too complicated.  There are several eye-opening books and documentaries however, that help make the issue of food more understandable.  Here are some of the most important.

Books

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Michael Pollan is the expert about sensible, ethical eating and has written several fascinating books on the subject.  His book The Omnivore’s Dilemma is a must read;  Food Rules is a short manual of simple food rules.  One example, don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.

Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation is the intriguing history of the fast food movement and how it has changed our diet, culture, economy and health!

Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, a history making bestseller published in 1962, launched the modern environmental movement.

Documentaries

Food, Inc., an astonishing, if not frightening film about what’s wrong in America’s industrialized food system.

Super Size Me: A fit man embarks on a 30-day challenge to eat only McDonald’s fast food.

Forks Over Knives investigates the lifestyle diseases that can be controlled or reversed by avoiding meat and processed food.  You’ll never eat meat again!

The Future of Food: A look into genetically modified food (GMOs) and the destructive path of the Monsanto Corporation.

Get informed – the future of our food supply depends on it!

Email me with questions…..

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