Jan. 27 -- Lisa's Musings on Every Day Life

I was watching Oprah today because she had on one of my new favorite authors Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma, In Defense of Food) to talk about his favorite topic.

And mine.

Food.

I'm having a lot of fun and learning a lot while reading his books -- all part of the Great Diet of 2010.

And, yes, I do plan to review them soon for A2 Journal when I'm done reading them.

A lot of what he says really makes sense. Especially for someone trying to eat better.

He sums up his ideas with seven words. Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants.

But what was even better, and I'm sure I just haven't gotten to it yet in my reading, is that each one of us has the opportunity to vote three times a day. With our forks.

The power. I'm just heady with it.

So with those words, the light bulb went off in my little noggin. He's right.

I chose what I eat. I pay for what I eat and since I'm eating less, it's important that what crosses my lips is good for me.

And tastes good, too.

Real food that doesn't have a huge advertising budget. Or boast that it's healthy.

All of us have a vote in beginning a healthy food revolution by refusing to buy the cheap stuff that's filled with chemicals and preservatives.

We have the ability to know where our food comes from by buying from local farmers whenever possible, and when in the grocery store, by sticking to the outside of the store and avoiding the inside aisles where most of the unhealthy stuff is.

He recommends not eating anything that your great grandmother wouldn't recognize as food, or has more than five ingredients.

Have you looked past the calorie counts of some products and tried reading the ingredients?

Oh yeah, and if a third-grader can't pronounce any of them, Pollan says, don't buy it.

For those of you old enough to remember "Silent Spring," by Rachael Carson, Pollan is doing something similar.

But different.

He's not trying to scare the bejeebers out of us like Carson did.

I wouldn't eat peanut butter, fish, lettuce, or hot dogs for a long, long time after reading that book.

And Pollan isn't trying to be trendy using cute terms like "Locovore," (at least not in what I've read so far) or suggesting we eat some moss, twig, and bark only "diet."

In fact, he says it's OK to eat junk food if you're willing to make it from scratch but once you've made fried chicken or french fries or a cake from scratch, you won't want to do it very often.

But what Pollan has done is make me really think about all those preservatives and chemicals that I've regularly been putting in my body.

Because when it comes down to it, my dogs eat better than I do.

I don't feed them kibble from a bag that's packed with grains and preservatives and chemicals. They eat a raw diet complimented with fresh vegetables and fruit.

Although I admit, there are days when I wish there was human kibble that I could just dump in a bowl that had all the stuff I needed to sustain me.

So here's to eating real food, and not "food products" as Pollan calls them.

Look out vegetable and fruit aisle, here I come.

And this time it won't be just for the dogs.