In Defense of Food

I recently read the book, In Defense of Food, by Michael Pollan. The basic overarching theme of the book is to, 'Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.'

I didn't like everything I read, as is the case with all health food books, but I did take some good notes on the parts I did like. From those notes, I gathered my favorite highlights and that's what this post is about. If you were curious about the book, but didn't want to read the whole thing, this post is for you. If you have no interest in health, stop here; this will just bore you.

When Pollan says 'eat food', he means that exactly. He says there are tons of food-like substances (processed foods with lots of different additives), but that we should eat real, whole foods. He gives some statistics and says Americans eat a lot more calories now than we did back in the 1980s. He says we eat by quantity not quality and that we manage to be "both overfed and undernourished, two characteristics seldom found in the same body in the long natural history of our species.”

Pollan says that the absence of nutrients in our bodies(that we get from plants) may counteract the normal feeling of satiety after enough calories are eaten.

In the third and last section of his book, Pollan gives some tips for choosing your foods. I copied the next few paragraphs word for word because I really liked it:

• "Don't eat anything your great grandmother wouldn't recognize.

  "Imagine your great grandmother at your side as you roll down the aisles. You're standing together in front of the dairy case. She picks up a package of Go-Gurt Portable Yogurt tubes- and has no idea what this could possibly be. Is it a food or a toothpaste?...You could tell her it's just yogurt in a squirtable form, yet if she read the ingredients label she would have every reason to doubt that that was in fact the case. Sure, there's some yogurt in there, but there are also a dozen other things that aren't remotely yogurt like, ingredients she would probably fail to recognize as foods of any kind, including high-fructose corn syrup, modified corn starch, kosher gelatin, carrageenana, tricalcium phosphate, natural and artificial flavors, vitamins, and so forth(and there's a whole other list of ingredients for the 'berry bubblegum bash' flavoring, containing everything but berries or bubblegum.) How did yogurt, which in your great grandmothers day consisted simply of milk inoculated with a bacterial culture, ever get to be so complicated?” pg 148-149

  “There are in fact hundreds of foodish products in the supermarket that your ancestors simply wouldn't recognize as food: breakfast cereal bars transected by bright white veins representing, but in reality having nothing to do with, milk; 'protein waters' and 'nondairy creamer'; cheeselike food stuffs equally innocent of any bovine contribution; cakelike cylinders (with creamlike fillings) called Twinkies that never grow stale. Don't eat anything incapable of rotting is another personal policy you might consider adopting.

  “One of the problems with the products of food science is that...they lie to your body; their artificial colors and flavors and synthetic sweeteners and novel fats confound the senses we rely on to assess new foods and prepare our bodies to deal with them. Foods that lie leave us with little choice but to eat by the numbers, consulting labels rather than our senses.

  It's true that foods have long been processed in order to preserve them, as when we pickle or ferment or smoke, but industrial processing aims to do much more than extend shelf life. Today foods are processed in ways specifically designed to sell us more food by pushing our evolutionary buttons- our inborn preferences for sweetness and fat and salt. These qualities are difficult to find in nature but cheap and easy for the food scientist to employ, with the result that processing induces us to consume much more of these ecological rarities than is good for us."
  

• "Avoid food products containing ingredients that are A)unfamiliar, B) unpronounceable, C) more than five in number, or that include D) high-fructose corn syrup."

And here's another short quote I liked which talks about the importance of eating meals together as a family.

“It is at the dinner table that we socialize and civilize our children, teaching them manners and the art of conversation. At the dinner table parents can determine portion sizes, model eating and drinking behavior, and enforce social norms about greed and gluttony and waste. Shared meals are about much more than fueling bodies; they are uniquely human institutions where our species developed language and this thing we call culture.” pg 189

Books read in 2010

Elisa read:
(The first eleven books were book club books; the ones with a star were books I reread)
1. Christmas on Millstreet
2. The Wee Free Men
3. Mockingjay
4. These Is My Words
5. The Guernsay Literary and Potato Peel Society
6. Walking Across Egypt
7. The Help
8. The Hidden Christ
9. Three Cups of Tea
10. The Scarlet Pimpernel
11. The Count of Monte Cristo
12. The Blue Enchantress
13. The Windswept Flame
14. Weathered Too Young
15. The Kind Diet
16. Saphyre Snow*
17. The Prairie Prince*
18. Wolves, Boys and Other Things That Might Kill Me
19. The Highwayman of Tanglewood*
20. ScreamFree Parenting
21. The Goose Girl*
22. Green Smoothies Diet

Scott read:
The Giver
Leadership and Self Deception
Three Cups of Tea
Who Moved My Cheese
Superfreakonomics
Bleak House
Holes
The Christmas Child

How to Train Your Dragon and Ramona

We've watched a couple of really good movies over the past little while. The first was How to Train Your Dragon. Elisabeth and Charles LOVED this movie. We got it from the Redbox and they watched it twice within 24 hours which is unusual for our family. Scott and I liked it too. Annabelle thought it was a little scary, but she sat and watched the whole thing. If anyone finds a coupon for this movie let me know. So far, it looks like the best deal will be on amazon.com.

Wednesdays at our local dollar theater, the movies are actually a dollar all day in comparison to the $1.50 day time showing and the $2 night time showing. So Wednesday I took all four kids to see Ramona and Beezus. Elisabeth just finished reading, Ramona the Brave and really enjoyed it. She is off track right now so it worked nicely to go during the day. We went with our neighbor and besides us, there was only one other family in the theater which was perfect! My friends little daughter was able to toddle around and our kids spread out taking up an entire middle row and enjoyed their space. Jane was a gem and sat on my lap (more like bounced on my lap)the whole time. Annabelle sat and watched for probably 2/3 of the movie and then walked back and forth in between our legs. Charlie thought it was boring at parts but Elisabeth and I loved it and I came home and told Scott all about it. I think he'd like it too. It's a good, fun family movie. I think parents with little children would especially enjoy it.

ScreamFree- taking care of yourself

This will be the last post of quotes from this book, though I've only posted about half of the notes that I typed up.

This section reminded me of a quote from the scriptures (found both in the Book of Mormon and Bible; D&C 81:5 and Hebrews 12:12) which reads, "succor the weak, lift up the hands which hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees." This would mean that you'd need to be on higher ground, already having helped or taken care of yourself, in order to then 'lift up' and help others.

And here are the quotes:
“...taking care of others necessarily means neglecting ourselves.....Other cultures have a very different take on self-care. The Hebrew Bible and, later, the Christian New Testament, seem to take self-love for granted. One of the great commandments in those scriptures is to 'Love thy neighbor as thyself.' Our culture would be in serious trouble if we put this into practice with our Western way of 'loving' ourselves. Think about it. What would it really look like to love your kids as little as you love yourself? Instead of packing a healthy food-pyramid lunch with a loving note tucked inside, you'd shove a half-eaten doughnut and a Thermos of stale coffee in their bookbags. What would it look like if you talked to your kids the way you talk to yourself after making a mistake? Most of us would berate them over and over, calling them names and finding it incredulous that they made the same mistake yet again.” pg. 189-190

“Think of how this approach might radically change your relationships with your kids. You seek your own validation from within yourself so that regardless of how your children feel, behave, talk, or think, you are okay and are still committed to them. Think of the power in saying with all your actions “I can take care of me so that you don't have to. I don't need you to appreciate me or validate me in order for me to still take care for you and of all of my responsibilities to you.'

“Loving yourself first is the only true way to be ScreamFree, because it is the only way to seek your own calm first. It is the only way to truly benefit your kids without burdening them with the need to benefit you. It is not their job- nor is it anyone else's- to meet your emotional and physical needs. As an adult, one who is responsible to so many others you love, it is up to you to pursue your own emotional fulfillment. This doesn't mean you don't ever need other people, not by a long shot. But it does mean that your life and your health are up to you. The sooner you embrace that truth and embrace the calling to love yourself first, the sooner you can truly serve all those around you, especially your kids.” pg.194-195

"I want you to think of it this way: What has to last is what has to come first. Your health. A broken body makes it extremely difficult to provide for and protect your children. Your health is not an 'extra' in your life, it is your first responsibility.” pg. 199-201

ScreamFree-discipline

“The more our children are exposed to the small consequences of their small infractions, the less they will have to commit large infractions and experience large consequences. The sooner we can expose our children to the universal law of sowing and reaping (at whatever age they happen to be right now), the less they will need to have the larger consequences teach them as they get older.” pg. 158

“Choose only those consequences that you are willing to enforce....What you do is not nearly as important as how and why you do it. What is your motivation for spanking? Look down deep, focus on yourself, and honestly answer the question. Why do you want to spank your child? If you say you do not want to but you believe it is needed, then you are not acting with integrity.

ScreamFree parents never do anything they don't want to do. You are an adult, and you make every choice. If you spank without wanting to, then you need to focus on yourself some more. Why would you choose a consequence for your child if you did not want to choose it? Because he needed it? For what? Behavior modification? To calm him down? To show him who's boss? In order for any enforced consequence to have its desired effect, it needs to come from the solid, principled decision of its enforcer. If you're wish-washy about spanking, that will get communicated very clearly. And here's what you'll communicate: I am at my wits' end here, and I do not know what else to do but resort to the most base-level power I have over you, my physical size and strength. (and I'd like to add that you're also teaching your kids that it's okay to hit)

As you've learned throughout this book, what that really communicates is that your anxiety is driving the boat. And if anxiety is driving the boat, then you are not really in charge. A relationship can only take so many anxiety-driven interactions before becoming an anxiety-driven relationship.

So which consequences do you actually, authentically, want to enforce? I want to put my kids in timeout because it teaches them the type of pause that I'm trying to practice myself. Timeout also creates the space we need from each other. I want to take privileges and material possessions away from my kids because that teaches them to value such gifts. And sometimes, the consequence I want to enforce is simply telling them, with clear honesty, how their actions or words have hurt me.” pg. 175-176

“Consistent enforcement of consequences is the single most effective application of authority in the parent-child relationship- but only if you can think through your decisions calmly before you make them. By doing so, you greatly increase the chances that those decisions will be sensible, realistic, and helpful in facilitating everyone's growth." pg. 177

ScreamFree Parenting

Some time ago, I read a friends blog who requested suggestions for good parenting books. Three books were mentioned multiple times: Parenting with Love and Logic, The Power of Positive Parenting, and ScreamFree Parenting.

I have read a lot of parenting and child development books partly because I enjoy them and they apply in our life, and because I majored in Marriage, Family and Human Development, and this was the kind of material we read (along with lots of books on marriage). I had already read the first two of the books I've just listed and decided to check out the third from our library. As a side note, once I had the book in my hands at the library, I was suddenly very self conscious of the title. I didn't want anyone to make any quick ill judgments on my character, so I held the book under my arm, against my body as I checked it out. :)

After reading this book, I have to say I agree with those who recommended it. It was very good. And the title is a little misleading because it's not necessarily for 'screamers', rather the author says we all have our own type of 'screaming' we do when we're feeling a lot of anxiety.

ScreamFree was different from many parenting books in that it doesn't tell you specific things to do in different areas of parenting. For example, there's no chapter about how to potty train your child, how to teach them to take care of money or do chores etc. Instead, the author focuses on principles of parenting. The phrase that was repeated most often was, "calm yourself down and grow yourself up." I typed up a lot of notes from this book that I want to post in here. But because I took so many, I'll break them up and do it over a few posts. Here are a couple quotes for today.

“...no one, not even your kids, can make you feel anything, think anything, or do anything. Period. Your children cannot push you over the edge, press your magic buttons, or bring you to the brink. They are simply not that powerful. Your emotional responses are up to you. You always have a choice....When we scream at our kids, when we get emotionally reactive, we communicate one single message: CALM ME DOWN! No matter what words are actually coming out of our mouths, no matter how long our tirade is, no matter how old our children are, when we scream, the message is always the same: CALM ME DOWN! Whenever we react to our children's behavior by screaming, we are actually begging them to help us calm our anxiety.” pg. 27 and 31

“No pain, no gain....First, let us reaffirm what you already know about being a parent: It's probably the most challenging thing you've ever done. Let us also reaffirm, however, what you hope about being a parent: It can be among the most rewarding experiences you've ever imagined...Parenting is painful at times, and you already know it's really difficult. But what you might not know is that parenting is supposed to be that way. Why? Parenting is a growth process, that's why. And nothing has ever grown without feeling some sort of growing pains."pg. 39

“...the entire goal of parenting is to launch our children into the world as self-directed adults. We want them to be capable of asserting their desires, making their own choices,and taking responsibility for their actions. We want them to be able to stand up for themselves and choose for themselves what they will and will not do. We just don't like it when they practice demonstrating that will on us....our goal is not to stifle our children's expressions of will, desire and emotion. Our goal is to help steer those expressions along the most productive paths. ” pg. 105

And, here's a cute quote I thought I should implement in my home:

“My mother's menu consisted of two choices: take it or leave it.” Buddy Hackett, comedian

Top three movies

Here are the top three movies I've seen this year. That doesn't necessarily mean they came out this year, but that I saw them for the first time in the past year.

1. Emma- the new BBC version starring Romola Garai. Loved it! It's 2 discs and 4 hours long and just wonderful! I love Jane Austen's stories. I like this one better than the Gwyenth Paltrow version. If you can't get a hold of this movie, you can watch it on youtube. That's how I first watched it. But, you have to watch it in parts. Once you're on You Tube, you'd need to search Emma 2009 episode 1 part 1. There are 4 episodes and 6 parts to each episode. I know that seems ridiculous, but it's SO worth it. Or you could just buy it off Amazon.com :).

2. When in Rome- a romantic comedy starring Kristen Bell (Veronica Mars). I don't watch very many PG-13 movies but I checked this one on screenit.com before hand and it seemed to be pretty clean, and it was. I thought this movie was hilarious and so cute. My mom thinks I like it so much because she thinks I relate well to Kristen Bell's character. I don't know if that's true or not(though I do seem to find myself in embarrassing situations fairly often, and many times I do get food stuck in my front teeth), but I do know that I laughed all throughout the movie and I loved the love story. I saw this movie 4 times in a couple of months, watching it with different family and friends. You can find it on Red Box. I would like to own it.

3. The Young Victoria- I guess you could call this one a historical romance. I love that it's based on true foundation and I think the love story is sweet. You should be able to find this one at a Red Box.

What can I say, I'm a complete sucker for entertaining, clean romances in both books and movies.

These Is My Words

I just finished reading, "These Is My Words," last night by Nancy E Turner. It's a historical fiction, 1880-1901, based on some true experiences about the authors great grandmother who lived in the Arizona territories. It is written in a journal format and it's cool to see how the main character, Sarah, grows and progresses throughout the years. You notice a big difference in language and education when you compare the beginning of the book with the end. I, of course, especially loved the story of her and her to-be husband, and I loved that it went further than just the marriage, but took you into years of a happy marriage with several children. How many books and movies do that these days? Not many, so that was fun.

I was glad to have known about the sad end before I even started the book because I was prepared for it and it didn't make me dislike the book, though if I were the author, I would've changed the end, maybe cut off the last 50 pages or so without all the sadness and sorrow. Anyway, I did very much so enjoy this book and like many good books I've read, I find myself going back and reading different passages; especially passages with fun conversations between Sarah and Captain Jack Elliot.

Mockingjay

It is now 1am and I just finished reading Mockingjay, the third book in the Hunger Game series. The book was a complete disappointment for me. I only stayed up this late reading because Scott is at work(I don't like it when he has to work late and I have a hard time sleeping when he's gone). I am so upset about the ending of this book. I guess I don't mean the end of this book, but the end of this series; rather, this entire last book. Seriously. She should have just added 20 more pages to the last book, Catching Fire, and ended with Peeta getting out and then taking down the capitol right then and there. Peeta was the strong point in the previous books: his steady goodness, loyalty and virtue. And the relationship he made with Katniss. That's why I liked the books. In this book, Peeta doesn't even make an appearance until 200 pages in or half way through the book, and then he's gone mad from being tortured! Hate, hate, hate! I'm sorry. It's late. I'm tired and I just needed to get that off my chest before I go to sleep. Phew! Goodnight!

The Scarlet Pimpernel

I read The Scarlet Pimpernel for book club this past month and loved it! It made me wonder why I'd never read it before in my life. It's a historical romance about the French Revolution. The Scarlet Pimpernel is a man of many disguises so that he can help save the aristocrats who are being beheaded. I won't say any more, but read it. It's fun and exciting and there's a little bit of mystery involved as well. Afterward, Scott and I rented the 1980 something adaptation with Jane Seymour, and we both really enjoyed it. And a favorite quote from the book:

They seek him here, they seek him there,
Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.
Is he in heaven, or is he in hell?
That demmed, elusive Pimpernel.

Where the Wild Things Are

Elisabeth is on a three week break right now, from year round school, so I've tried to plan some fun things to do while she's with us all day. Every Monday at a theater near by, they show a "Mom" movie which means whatever children's/family movie they have playing at their theater, on Monday during the first showing of the film for the day, they'll allow children 5 and under in for free. So today during Scott's lunch break(he took a long one so he could come with us), we went and saw Where the Wild Things Are.

We have this book and love it, and we read it just before the movie started, so the kids were pretty excited. In the beginning of the movie it was fun for them to see who Max and all the Wild Things were. But then the girls grew tired of it. And honestly, I really didn't care for the movie either. There are some movies I see where I think, 'wow, this is really good, I wish I could sit here all day and watch and that it would never end.' Now of course, if it really did never end, I wouldn't like it, but I think you know what I mean. This movie was not like that. And in fact, after sitting and watching for about 5 minutes I thought to myself, "oh boy, I hope this gets better, and I hope the camera man stops shaking the camera so much" But it didn't. On a positive note, it was fun to see the different parts in the movie that were similar to the book: the costumes for the wild things were great, they really did a fantastic job on them so that they looked like they came right out of the book. But the story was sad and everyone was so angry and it was a bit dark. I just really didn't enjoy it. And I know the wild things were supposed to represent the way children are and their behaviors etc., but I really didn't care much for it. And Max's family life was a little uncomfortable which wasn't what I imagined from the book. I imagined for one, Max being much younger, more like 3 and not 10 or however hold he was in this, and I imagined he had a very nice family life, but that he got sent to bed early one night because he was being a little too wild, but then his mom calmed down once she had a minute to herself and apologized for her quick reaction and brought him dinner. So anyways, not what I imagined, a bit disappointed, and I felt a little sick after sitting through it because they kept shaking the camera's around, maybe to make things look a little more wild and crazy? I don't know.

Charles sat and watched the entire movie and seemed pretty interested, but about half way through, both Elisabeth and Annabelle started to get bored and Elisabeth started moving around a lot more in her seat or on our aisle, and Annabelle got up completely and walked around the theater...good thing it was a 'Mom' showing and so there were several other kids doing the same thing and it felt okay. But I'm sure the kids didn't understand the message of the movie;The movie seemed like it was more for adults, but then, it's hard to say if adults would really care for all the monsters and childishness either. I've read mixed reviews on the movies as well, so I guess some will love it and support it and others will not. I'm just glad we didn't actually spend money on the kids to see the movie as well. Next time we want to see a movie in the theater, I think we'll wait for it to come to Red Box(unless it's a Twilight or Harry Potter movie, of course).

The Secret Journal of Brett Colton

My cousin recommended this book on her blog, so I picked up this 350 page book from the library this week and read it in just a few days. It was definitely a page turner. It's not action packed, but there were a couple of things I really liked about this book. One, it had a sweet love story(I'm a HUGE sap for clean love stories), two, I loved the relationship part of the book concerning family and three, it went over some really good, life changing, inspiring lessons on what life is all about. In short, it's about a boy who is diagnosed with leukemia at the age of 15, doesn't have religion in his life, but begins to want it in his life at this time, dies when he's 17, but leaves a journal he wrote while he was sick, to his baby sister to read when she's 16. Here's one excerpt from his journal:
"If I can leave you only one piece of advice, it would be to...seize every opportunity that comes....like telling someone 'I love you,' and 'thanks for being my friend.' Most of the time, those turn out to be the biggest moments and opportunities in your life."
The author of this book is Kay Lynn Mangum. Oh and by the way, I just noticed on goodreads there's a new book out by Shannon Hale(well it came out some time this year, not exactly sure when). I know some of you are fans of hers, so I thought I'd pass on the word.

Checkout goodreads.com

This week when I was on Goodreads.com, I noticed some pretty vulgar/sexual Calvin Klein ads on the side and bottom of the page, which bothered me. I found the contact information for Goodreads Support and sent them an email kindly expressing my frustration with that particular ad and then asked them to pull the ads. I also added that if they did I'd write a post on my blog and recommend the site to everyone. And they did! This was their response to my email:

Hi Elisa,

Thanks for the valuable feedback. Our advertising team pulled the ads.

Best,
Jessica

Short, but sweet. It was very cool to get that email. I have sent emails to other web pages in the past encouraging them to do the same sort of thing, but nothing came of it, so this was very cool.

Use goodreads! It's a great, fun website where you can share information and details with others about all different kinds of books. The book reviews are very helpful, and best of all, there are no bad advertisments!

Anne, Hunger Games, Hiding Place

These are the last four books I've read(or listened to).
1. The Hiding Place
Fantastic book about a Christian family in Holland who opens up their home to jews during WW2. This is a true story and it was uplifting and very interesting to read.

2 and 3. Anne of Green Gables and Anne of the Island (1st and 3rd books in the series)
I loved these! I knew I would because I LOVE the first Anne of Green Gables movie. The first movie was just like the first book, but the second movie only had a couple parts in the beginning and in the end that resembled the third book, Anne of the Island. Granted I haven't read the second book yet, but I know what it's about and it's not the second movie at all; if anything the second movie slightly resembles the third book more than any other, but still that was far reaching. Apparently the screenwriter just took a couple of ideas they liked from the second and third book, threw everything else away and made up their own story. Which, after reading the books, I cannot understand at all because the books were way better than that movie! And the third movie, Won't be anything like the latter books either, from what I've read. But anyways, the books are fantastic, so read them!

4. Catching Fire, which is the second book in the Hunger Games Trilogy.
I liked this book. It was very entertaining and mostly clean. But there were a couple of parts that were a little too violent and one part that mentioned a woman stripping down to bare nakedness which I thought was unnecessary and would be really bad if it were in a movie or if someone with a wild imagination were reading it(this woman took off her clothes as an off handed sort of thing because she hated the costume her designer made for her, but there were people around to see. It was just lame and I was mad at the author for putting it in there). But anyways, a pretty good book, and it leaves you excited at the end to see what will happen in the last book, which most likely won't be out for another year.

Hairspray

Saturday afternoon my nieces and I went and saw the movie Hairspray. I haven't seen the old one so I don't have that to compare it to, but this was pretty cute. I love corny cheesy movies where people are singing and dancing and having a good time, so this was right up my alley. John Travolta made me laugh every scene that he was in. Just looking at him was funny.

This movie is rated PG, which is a big reason I decided to see it, and I was hoping for something really really clean....it was clean for the most part though Zac Efron did use a swear word, and it was said very clear, for the word 'bottom' or 'backside' :), and there was a scene where some high schoolers were doing some dirty dancing, too bad they didn't just leave those two parts out.