A Salami Sandwich for One

If I were hungry and looking to prepare a meal for myself, I think I would make a salami sandwich. I would make this meal for a couple of different reasons. One, it’s my favorite lunch meal and second, it is super easy to prepare. First, I would start by getting some white bread and salami out from the refrigerator. I would then toast my bread so it could be warm when I put the cold salami on and eat it. Then I would get the toast, put it on a plate, and start by putting pieces of salami on each one of the pieces of toast. When I had the right amount of salami on there, I would sprinkle some Lays chips on to the separate pieces. Finally, I would crush the two pieces of toast together, each one consisting of toast, salami, and potato chips. I would then check to see if I had made a mess or not, in order to make sure that I had cleaned up everything. After I put the bread, salami, and chips away, I would enjoy my sandwich.

Michael Pollan talks about how the American public has forgotten how to eat food for pleasure and instead, just eating and then moving on with their day. However, I can’t speak for the American public; I can only speak for myself. With that being said, I would have to disagree with Pollan’s claims. I savor every time I eat. I love food as bad as that may sound, but it’s true. With my salami sandwich I would definitely try to take in every flavor I can taste and appreciate what I have just made.

I haven’t just accepted low-fat processed food. Instead, I love home-made, fresh food. The “real” food that Michael Pollan talks about earlier in the book is still making up a huge part of the food that I consume. I would have to disagree with his statement then because I am the only evidence that I can go off of.

Real and Fake Food

One food that I use to eat in its “real” form but tend to eat in its “fake” form these days is fish. I would use to eat real, fresh fish that my parents would cook and make for my brothers and me, but now days, when I am eating fish, I am usually eating fish sticks from a fast food restaurant or from a box. The “fish” that I am now eating is fake, processed, and chemically enhanced.

Compared to real fish, the fake fish that comes in fish sticks that I get at McDonalds or a shopping market is crispy and crunchy. I can make fish sticks in a microwave while to make real fish I would need to grill it. However, some of the qualities are a little alike. The small of fish seems to stay the same for both products. I feel like there is a much more natural smell to a real fish that I would be eating, but in the end, the products hold a similar smell.

I believe this change in eating from the “real” thing to the “fake” thing was mainly because of convenience. When I was younger, I was more dependent on my parents for making my dinner for me. Fish just happened to appear on the menu every once in a while. However, while I got older, I started to fend for myself when it came to dinner. I could get something quick and easy to make from a shopping market, or I just went to a fast food restaurant because it was cheaper and faster. As I get older, I think that I will fade away from eating fast food and therefore, stop eating the “fake” kind of fish. I will grow up and start actually making fresh food, and if this happens, then I will start eating “real” fish again.

In Defense of Food

In this first blog, I will talk about the first couple of chapters in Michael Pollan's book, In Defense of Food. Within these chapters, Pollan talks about and attacks the food industry, nutritionists, the "Western Diet", and how food is made. Also, he gives away the whole point of the book and his whole reason for writing the book very early on. The main point of the book, Pollan says, is to eat food but not too much, and he says you should eat mostly vegetables. That right there is a very small general outline of the book and its main point. One thing that he tries to make very clear when he says “eat food”, is to eat real food. What he means by this is to eat the wholesome kinds of food that we have eaten for most of our existence. He attacks the new, processed, chemically induced food with all of its nutrients that have been believed to give us a healthier diet and way of living. He pronounces this as completely wrong. Pollan argues that our “food” has been replaced by “nutrients”. As I read more and more about this point that Pollan introduced about food and nutrients, I realized that I agreed with what he was saying. He talks about how food in our world today is all about things like lowering cholesterol, saturated fat, and having fiber but that it misses some essential points along the way. He says that people and scientists are almost starting to look too much into the idea of food and eating healthier and with this, food is becoming artificial. These things have started to take away from the old, wholesome foods that use to fill people’s lives. Pollan argues that when foods are just filled with chemicals and nutrients, they can at times lack any vitamins, essential fats, or amino acids that people need. This article that I found really supports the idea of eating more wholesome, "real" foods instead of the nutrient enhanced foods of today.http://www.foodrenegade.com/food-not-nutrients/