Food for thought

What's your food philosophy? How do you connect your personal values the practical question of what to make for dinner?

Others have asked this question and come to a variety of answers. For one example, in his recent mini-book "Food Rules," journalist Michael Pollan outlines a series of quippy pieces of advice about what (and mostly, what not) to eat that expands upon his earlier advice to“Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much." Similarly, New York Times columnist Mark Bittman’s Food Matters , offers recipes and menus (perhaps more useful than sloganeering) to achieve similar ends. But these authors have already taken a first, more fundamental step most of us have not: considering how food choices we make are connected to the various social, moral, economic, and cultural values and goals we hold more generally. No matter what values you hold, it is this first step that is most essential.

To that end, I propose this broader food philosophy: Think before you eat.

What does this mean? (More after the jump) 

Thinking before eating means considering the environmental impact of one’s food choices, be that impact of the carbon emissions produced by food sourced nearby or far away, or the impact on the sustainability of wild fish populations, or impact of the production of greenhouse gases produced by livestock. To that end, this blog will document my attempt to green my diet by eating less meat and fish, although this should not be construed as an move towards 100% vegetarianism or veganism.

Thinking before eating further means knowing where your food comes from. This year, I am becoming a member of a local organic farm through its community supported agriculture (CSA) program. A substantial portion of this blog will be devoted to figuring out how to best use – and preserve for later months – the agricultural bounty from that farm. Living in Princeton, New Jersey, also means I am 20 minutes away from both a free range poultry farm and a certified organic cattle, lamb, and pig farmer. I am also within a comfortable drive from a variety of local wine producers and others reaping the bounty of the garden state.

Thinking before eating means considering the health consequences of one's diet. Often, unhealthy eating seems to come from convenience, which is to say the absence of thought. But we as humans seem to be inescapably creatures of habit. Therefore, this blog will also document the search for healthier patterns of eating -- not so much a restrictive diet that lists prohibitions, but collection of pathways to a healthier diet generally characterized by whole grains, many vegetables, and smaller quantities of meats, poultry, and fish, and fewer processed foods. This isn't to say I'm always successful -- I for one have a regular Diet Coke habit -- but as with all of the goals outlined here the point is not about dogmatic purity, but about the process of self-examination and self-improvement.

At a more abstract level, thinking before eating involves the restoration of personal connections to what makes us uniquely human. Cooked food has long been a central aspect of the human experience, so much so that some anthropologists think that the invention of cooking is what enabled our species to evolve into our current form. But in a modern era of fast, packaged, and convenience food, we are too often alienated from the processes of food production, from what made -- and makes -- us human. Considering the sources and consequences of our diet, whether or not we cook that food ourselves, works to counteract this alienation.

Thinking before eating also means considering the impact of food choices on health, considering the cultural origin and significance of food, and considering what it means to be in a position to eat conscientiously when we are never distant from those whose primary concern is eating anything at all. In short, thinking before eating means considering the origins, the impact, and the implications of food choices to ensure that those decisions are fully informed and are consistent with personal values.

To be sure, the maxim "think before you eat" does say what to put on your plate, but it does provide a path to get one to that answer. Figuring out how to turn this philosophy into practice -- and into dinner -- is the primary purpose of this blog.

This blog will serve to document an attempt to restore the fundamental connection to food, to think carefully about what I eat, and to practice patterns of cooking that lets me live out my values in my particular geographic and agricultural context. So for those who live in a similar place or climate, I hope that the successes and failures described here will serve as a useful guide. While many locavore cookbook authors seem to live in warmer climates, you will find very few recipes for Meyer lemon sorbet or home-cured olives in the posts that follow.

What you will find in future entries are recipes and documentation of successes and failures in the kitchen; written and photographic accounts of visits to farms, markets, wineries, restaurants; and of course my  thoughts on food and its relationship to culture, politics and public policy, the media, the environment, the economy, and everyday life. So I hope that no matter where you find yourself, this digital foray into these topics provides fodder for your own consideration of how your food choices fit your values.

So how about you -- what’s your food philosophy?