Re: Seconds, Anyone? - article from Time magazine

[Guest guest]

--YES!!!! I am going back to the land...within my own body. I am an

old hippy...the drug-free treehugger type lol and have reconnected

with my organic temple. My favorite way to eat is macrobiotics, it's

the best live-it (not DIE-it) I've ever experienced. Clear mind,

lots of energy. Try it in Alberta, though..Ha..Ha..beef country!

HELP!! I have taken a vow of anti-fanaticism because I went in both

directions in my life from Vegan to Carnivore and now I'm in the

middle. The stress from being self-righteous can certainly take it's

toll!

- In , Rogene S <saxony01@...> wrote:

>

> http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1177012,00.html

>

> From the Magazine | Arts

>

> Seconds, Anyone?

>

> A new book suggests we need to look closer--much

> closer--at what we eat

>

> By RICHARD LACAYO

>

> Posted Sunday, Mar. 26, 2006

>

> Consider the Chicken McNugget. What's in it exactly?

> There's some chicken, of course. Salt, no doubt. And

> then there's all that mysterious stuff identified in

> the ingredients brochure. Sodium aluminum

> phosphate--what is that, and where does it come from?

> For that matter, where does the chicken come from?

>

> Right there, Pollan tells us, is the problem

> with the way we eat now. We're clueless. In The

> Omnivore's Dilemma (Penguin Press; 450 pages), he

> tries to cut through this fog of unknowing. The title

> refers to the predicament of animals, including rats

> and humans, that can eat just about anything, whether

> it's bad for them or not. He has no doubt that much of

> what we eat is bad for us, for the animals we feed on

> and for the environment. The author of Second Nature

> and The Botany of Desire, Pollan is willing to go to

> some lengths to reconnect with what he eats, even if

> that means putting in a hard week on an organic farm

> and slitting the throats of chickens. He's not Paris

> Hilton on The Simple Life.

>

> Pollan divides our food sources into four categories.

> One is industrial, meaning giant agribusiness. Then

> there are the two kinds of organic, large and small

> scale. Finally there's anything hunted and foraged. He

> goes on an adventure down each food chain, fattening a

> beef calf for market or following the path of

> industrial corn all around the country. Each trip ends

> in a meal made of foods from that category.

>

> Modern agriculture leaves him deeply troubled. He

> marvels at how massive surpluses of corn, made

> possible by the use of noxious chemical fertilizers

> and pesticides, have led to the rise of huge feedlots

> where cattle are pumped full of antibiotics and

> corn-based feed to hasten them to their fate as

> cheeseburgers. Organic farming? It has its virtues,

> but he discovers that our visions of contented cows

> and free-range chickens don't always match the

> realities. In a final lunge toward authenticity, he

> forages for mushrooms in a burned-over pine forest and

> shoots a wild pig, a primal confrontation that briefly

> reduces Pollan, an inexperienced hunter, to a state of

> near panic as he pulls the trigger while the pigs

> madly scatter. But in this clearheaded and sometimes

> heartbroken book, that would be the only time he gets

> seriously confused.

>

> From the Apr. 03, 2006 issue of TIME magazine

>