Doing good by eating well
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Arlin Wasserman |
I have come to realize that I can improve my own health and the welfare of others simply by following one New Year’s resolution that I made at the start of the year: To do good by eating well.
My resolution is to take the time to eat well, to eat the foods that make holidays wonderful, to eat foods that embody the taste of someplace special.
It may seem a bit indulgent. But why shouldn’t my taste buds share what my eyes, ears and nose already enjoy? The search for things that evoke a sense of place have left my walls full of pictures of favorite landscapes and my house smelling like a forest, courtesy of homemade potpourri from my family’s ersatz Martha Stewart.
But can food really taste like somewhere? Champagne and caviar do the trick. But so can everyday foods. My neighbor’s home-smoked bacon captures the taste of the maple trees that cover the hillside between our homes. Whitefish, the local specialty hauled out of Lake Michigan, is as close as a meal can come to really drinking a glass of fresh water while standing on a sandy beach.
The French, who know something about good eating, have long recognized food’s ability to capture the taste of the place where it’s grown. They call it terroir (pronounced teh-whá).
Savvy marketers have introduced the concept to American grocery aisles and restaurant tables, though sometimes they can be a little vague about the place our food comes from. Orange juice now comes from entire states like Florida. "Homemade" frozen dinners originate in dozens of factories thousands of miles away.
But increasingly, we find foods that really connect place and plate. We know the river where our salmon used to swim. Supermarkets tout the names and location of the farms where the food was raised.
Seeking out foods from "somewhere," that have a taste that can’t be duplicated in another country or on factory floor, means getting the satisfying flavors we crave. Good taste, not surprisingly, is a top concern for American consumers, according to David Schmidt, vice president of the International Food Information Council, a leading source of consumer information.
When we eat foods with great flavor, we eat a healthier diet. We don’t heap on sugar, salt and fatty sauces to make up for the bland, disappointing flavors of foods from nowhere special.
Americans also are concerned about the health and safety of food in another obvious way, says Schmidt. No one wants food to make them sick.
We often hear about food safety recalls, forcing the return of millions of pounds of brand-name meat and poultry processed in a handful of packing plants and shipped thousands of miles. Besides accidental contamination, homeland security concerns highlight the need to protect our food supply against bioterrorism.
Foods grown someplace specific, preferably nearby, often change hands fewer times and travel fewer miles. Buying these foods reduces our dependence on the most vulnerable and risky parts of our food system.
Purchasing more foods from our own community and small growers proud of the place their foods are made also helps out family farmers by providing them with a good price for a product they call their own. Local foods avoid the costs of long distance transport and national advertising.
Good diet. Good health. Security. Solving the farming crisis. It all starts with a commitment to eating well from the wide array of foods that proudly come from and taste like someplace special.
It’s been one of the easiest resolutions for me to keep, and maybe one of the most important as well.
About the author
The Leopold Center helped sponsor a March visit by Wasserman to discuss economic development opportunities associated with markets for food based on “taste of place.” The French have followed this principle for years to market wine made from grapes grown in specific regions, and it also is used to distinguish coffee and cheese.
View Wasserman’s presentation
Prior to receiving the Food and Society Policy Fellowship from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Wasserman directed land use, transportation, agriculture and sustainable economic development programs for the Michigan Land Use Institute. He holds master's degrees in natural resources and in public health from the University of Michigan, and an undergraduate degree in political economics.