By Cainon Leeds
Editor-in-Chief
Last week, I had the opportunity to make ranch dressing and stir fry for Anna-Kate Bruns and her roommates as part of my Honors project for English Comp. II. As Michael Pollan brought up in his book “In Defense of Food,” the modern Western diet has devalued shared meals, replacing them with solitary snacking; so I wanted to examine Pollan’s statements from Anna-Kate’s perspective as well as my own.
In chapter four, part three of “In Defense of Food,” Pollan explains how he believes we are to eat: “If food is more than the sum of its nutrients and a diet is more than the sum of its foods, it follows that a food culture is more than the sum of its menus - it embraces as well the set of manners, eating habits, and unspoken rules that together govern people’s relationship to food and eating. How a culture eats may have just as much of a bearing on health as what a culture eats.”
He blames much of the modern Western diet’s problems on how cheap our food is in more ways than just one. Food, if you can still call it that, has become so inexpensive that we can afford to overeat.
“In 1960 Americans spent 17.5 percent of their income on food and 5.2 percent of national income on health care. Since then, those numbers have flipped: Spending on food fallen to 9.9 percent, while spending on health care has climbed to 16 percent of national income,” said Pollan.
Secondly, Pollan argues that food has become too cheap with regards to time. He exposes how little actual experience we have with food and those who make it with studies and examples of families eating microwave dinners in separate rooms.
I was brought up eating every meal with my parents, brothers and sisters. It was our way of life. We would pitch in and help make meals, get the table set, eat at the same time, talk about anything that interested us, and clean up afterward. Sometimes it was fun, sometimes it was not so fun, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Now that one of my brothers and I are going to college, we don’t don’t get the chance to eat dinner as a family every night, but we still make it a goal to sit down and eat at least one meal per day together. Until I read Pollan’s book, I took eating with others for granted. I came to see eating with my family as just another fact of life. I didn’t eat with a lot of other people growing up, so I didn’t get to see anything different from a family sitting down to eat dinner together every night.
So when I decided on this part of my Honors project, I knew I’d have to do more than just interview Anna-Kate Bruns again to understand how she ate. This time, I decided to make a meal for her and her roommates and observe how they ate together as well as get an interview in.
Editor-in-Chief
Last week, I had the opportunity to make ranch dressing and stir fry for Anna-Kate Bruns and her roommates as part of my Honors project for English Comp. II. As Michael Pollan brought up in his book “In Defense of Food,” the modern Western diet has devalued shared meals, replacing them with solitary snacking; so I wanted to examine Pollan’s statements from Anna-Kate’s perspective as well as my own.
In chapter four, part three of “In Defense of Food,” Pollan explains how he believes we are to eat: “If food is more than the sum of its nutrients and a diet is more than the sum of its foods, it follows that a food culture is more than the sum of its menus - it embraces as well the set of manners, eating habits, and unspoken rules that together govern people’s relationship to food and eating. How a culture eats may have just as much of a bearing on health as what a culture eats.”
He blames much of the modern Western diet’s problems on how cheap our food is in more ways than just one. Food, if you can still call it that, has become so inexpensive that we can afford to overeat.
“In 1960 Americans spent 17.5 percent of their income on food and 5.2 percent of national income on health care. Since then, those numbers have flipped: Spending on food fallen to 9.9 percent, while spending on health care has climbed to 16 percent of national income,” said Pollan.
Secondly, Pollan argues that food has become too cheap with regards to time. He exposes how little actual experience we have with food and those who make it with studies and examples of families eating microwave dinners in separate rooms.
I was brought up eating every meal with my parents, brothers and sisters. It was our way of life. We would pitch in and help make meals, get the table set, eat at the same time, talk about anything that interested us, and clean up afterward. Sometimes it was fun, sometimes it was not so fun, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Now that one of my brothers and I are going to college, we don’t don’t get the chance to eat dinner as a family every night, but we still make it a goal to sit down and eat at least one meal per day together. Until I read Pollan’s book, I took eating with others for granted. I came to see eating with my family as just another fact of life. I didn’t eat with a lot of other people growing up, so I didn’t get to see anything different from a family sitting down to eat dinner together every night.
So when I decided on this part of my Honors project, I knew I’d have to do more than just interview Anna-Kate Bruns again to understand how she ate. This time, I decided to make a meal for her and her roommates and observe how they ate together as well as get an interview in.
In the process of preparing to make a meal for part of DMACC’s cross country team, I discovered how little work I actually did in the kitchen. Sure, I knew how to cut up chunks of chicken, make ranch dressing from its basic ingredients and boil spaghetti noodles, but I never took the time to learn the whole process of making stir fry with my parents in the kitchen. The recipes for the stir fry and ranch dressing are included on this page. It took a few tries, an easy-to-follow recipe and some overdone chicken bits, but eventually I overcame some of my struggles in the kitchen and gained a new appreciation for the food I eat.
Bruns shared with me that she and a couple of her roommates eat at least one meal together daily.
“Usually, the three of us eat together,” Bruns said, referring to herself, Brooke Schweikert, and Alissa Van Klootwyk.
When I arrived at their apartment, Bruns and Schweikert were the only two at home. I prepared the ranch dressing and the stir fry with chicken, vegetables and spaghetti noodles while they worked on homework and watched television. As I finished making the stir fry, Kirstin Angus, a roommate of Bruns’ and fellow DMACC cross country runner, got home and joined the rest of us.
We sat down at the table and ate. Bruns and I had previously talked about her dislike of Chinese food and agreed that if, for any reason, she didn’t enjoy the stir fry, she could opt out and have something else. As it turned out, she didn’t like the taste of the soy sauce, so she had something else. Angus asked about the project and talked about her plan to transfer after she graduates. Angus and Schweikert asked what kinds of vegetables were in the stir fry and wanted to know the recipes for the stir fry and the ranch dressing. Van Klootwyk returned home from a shopping trip and had a bowl of stir fry. The girls said they enjoyed it and invited me to make dinner for them again.
Although the television was still on and the girls occasionally pulled their cell phones out to share a funny picture or read a text message, I saw Pollan’s point about the dinner table being the foundation of society. There was interaction. There was at least some concern for the food they were eating.
Afterward, I spoke with Bruns about her thoughts on what affects eating meals together has on culture and if she believed that the current trend against eating together has been a good or bad thing for society.
She explained that she doesn’t think eating with others is realistic in this day and age. She said that, like most of the people I know, she has a tight schedule and doesn’t enjoy eating out with others. For the most part, she eats with her roommates, but she said she doesn’t eat meals with other people often.
“I tend to eat less healthily when I eat with other people,” said Bruns.
She weighed the benefits of eating together with time commitments. Productivity, according to Bruns, won out over community.
She also shared that whenever she eats with people who don’t eat the way she eats, they tend to give her a hard time about eating healthily.
When I shared Pollan’s perspective on traditional food cultures like France and Italy with Bruns, she pointed to the industrial productivity of modern Western culture as proof of the modern Western lifestyle’s success.
“You want to get the most out of every day in America,” she said.
Editor’s Note: This column is part of an ongoing honors project for English Composition II. The focus of the project is to examine the food choices made by others and make suggestions for improvements based on the findings of author Michael Pollan and supplemental materials. The first installment of the series appeared in the Oct. 10 edition of Banner News.
Bruns shared with me that she and a couple of her roommates eat at least one meal together daily.
“Usually, the three of us eat together,” Bruns said, referring to herself, Brooke Schweikert, and Alissa Van Klootwyk.
When I arrived at their apartment, Bruns and Schweikert were the only two at home. I prepared the ranch dressing and the stir fry with chicken, vegetables and spaghetti noodles while they worked on homework and watched television. As I finished making the stir fry, Kirstin Angus, a roommate of Bruns’ and fellow DMACC cross country runner, got home and joined the rest of us.
We sat down at the table and ate. Bruns and I had previously talked about her dislike of Chinese food and agreed that if, for any reason, she didn’t enjoy the stir fry, she could opt out and have something else. As it turned out, she didn’t like the taste of the soy sauce, so she had something else. Angus asked about the project and talked about her plan to transfer after she graduates. Angus and Schweikert asked what kinds of vegetables were in the stir fry and wanted to know the recipes for the stir fry and the ranch dressing. Van Klootwyk returned home from a shopping trip and had a bowl of stir fry. The girls said they enjoyed it and invited me to make dinner for them again.
Although the television was still on and the girls occasionally pulled their cell phones out to share a funny picture or read a text message, I saw Pollan’s point about the dinner table being the foundation of society. There was interaction. There was at least some concern for the food they were eating.
Afterward, I spoke with Bruns about her thoughts on what affects eating meals together has on culture and if she believed that the current trend against eating together has been a good or bad thing for society.
She explained that she doesn’t think eating with others is realistic in this day and age. She said that, like most of the people I know, she has a tight schedule and doesn’t enjoy eating out with others. For the most part, she eats with her roommates, but she said she doesn’t eat meals with other people often.
“I tend to eat less healthily when I eat with other people,” said Bruns.
She weighed the benefits of eating together with time commitments. Productivity, according to Bruns, won out over community.
She also shared that whenever she eats with people who don’t eat the way she eats, they tend to give her a hard time about eating healthily.
When I shared Pollan’s perspective on traditional food cultures like France and Italy with Bruns, she pointed to the industrial productivity of modern Western culture as proof of the modern Western lifestyle’s success.
“You want to get the most out of every day in America,” she said.
Editor’s Note: This column is part of an ongoing honors project for English Composition II. The focus of the project is to examine the food choices made by others and make suggestions for improvements based on the findings of author Michael Pollan and supplemental materials. The first installment of the series appeared in the Oct. 10 edition of Banner News.
Stir Fry Recipe
Ingredients:
6 cups of frozen stir fry vegetables ( 1 ½ 16 oz. bags)
1 lb. chicken breast-cut into strips
1/2 cup liquid aminos (soy sauce substitute, can be found at Fareway)
1/2 cup olive oil
2 Tbsp. honey
1 Tbsp. cornstarch in ¼ cup water
1/2 tsp. ginger
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
10 oz. spaghetti noodles
Directions:
Cook chicken breast in a little water about 20 minutes or until no longer pink. Add spaghetti noodles to 4-6 cups boiling water and cook uncovered 8-10 minutes or until done. Drain.
In medium saucepan mix sauce of oil, liquid aminos, honey, cornstarch in water, ginger, garlic powder. Bring to a boil and cook on high for 1 minute stirring constantly with a whisk. Set aside
Add vegetables and ¼ cup sauce to chicken in skillet and cook on medium high to high for 5 minutes. Add rest of sauce and stir in.
Serve over noodles.
Serves 5.
6 cups of frozen stir fry vegetables ( 1 ½ 16 oz. bags)
1 lb. chicken breast-cut into strips
1/2 cup liquid aminos (soy sauce substitute, can be found at Fareway)
1/2 cup olive oil
2 Tbsp. honey
1 Tbsp. cornstarch in ¼ cup water
1/2 tsp. ginger
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
10 oz. spaghetti noodles
Directions:
Cook chicken breast in a little water about 20 minutes or until no longer pink. Add spaghetti noodles to 4-6 cups boiling water and cook uncovered 8-10 minutes or until done. Drain.
In medium saucepan mix sauce of oil, liquid aminos, honey, cornstarch in water, ginger, garlic powder. Bring to a boil and cook on high for 1 minute stirring constantly with a whisk. Set aside
Add vegetables and ¼ cup sauce to chicken in skillet and cook on medium high to high for 5 minutes. Add rest of sauce and stir in.
Serve over noodles.
Serves 5.
Yummly Ranch Dressing Recipe from yummly.com
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups low-fat plain greek yogurt
1 tsp parsley flakes
1 tsp chives (dried)
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp dill weed (dried)
1 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/2 cup almond milk
Directions:
Stir until creamy. Keep refrigerated.
1 1/2 cups low-fat plain greek yogurt
1 tsp parsley flakes
1 tsp chives (dried)
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp dill weed (dried)
1 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/2 cup almond milk
Directions:
Stir until creamy. Keep refrigerated.