STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

I know I should technically be posting this in Beauty and Health or something, but I think this far surpasses the everyday American's common concerns (not that you girls are common - or all American for that matter! - but this book deals with the American system)
Ok, the book is called The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan.  This is NOT an animal cruelty activisit type read, or an argument for veganism, it is about the state of food in the USA (and I'm not sure where all else right now)
It deals with agricultural economics, corn farm subsidies, USDA regulations, the politics of processed food, "organic" food, alternative farming, and even offers a chapter on hunting and gathering, just for the sake of it.
Anyway, if that all sounds boring, it's my fault, not the books - I have not been able to put it down since I checked it out of the library - It's really informative about what we're eating, where it comes from, why it was made that way -
It doesn't have the gross out factor that turns me off of so many books/ films, but DOES let you know things that everyone should know!
A farmer in the book made an interesting point - he says "Why is it that everyone puts so much more effort into finding a painter or plumber than who grows their food?"
Well, I can think of a few reasons for that, but at the same time, think about it - that is something we are putting into our body, which could affect it in any number of ways - we should know about it, right?
I decided to put a little more effort into it and found an alternative farm not too far from where I live - I'm going to visit it next weekend and check it out - they practice pasture farming and rotation - it's so refreshing to me to see animals raised like animals!

Someone in this forum said somewhere that regular/ processed foods are artificially cheap because we've already paid for them - that point is very much reinforced in this book - our taxes fund corn farmers to over produce, and our processed food and many other things are a direct result of figuring out what to do with all that corn.  Every American should know about this so they can tell the government they don't want to fund overproduction anymore!

Unfortunately, they JUST passed the farm bill for 2008, and it won't come up for another five years.  But when it does, you can bet I'll have something to say about it!

www.michaelpollan.com
you can read the first chapter or so online - check it out!!!