Recent books

My apologies to the ten or so of you who stop by here every day. As you probably know I haven't been that interested in the blog lately. Don't worry; I'm not going to do anything rash like deleting it, but posts won't likely become less scarce in the forseeable future.

I do want to take the time to recommend a couple of books. The first is called Organic Housekeeping, by Ellen Sandbeck, and is exactly what the title indicates: how to keep your home clean and sanitary without the use of chemicals. She discusses all the different ways that chemicals and housekeeping practices can make your home toxic and then explains how to do it right. Interestingly enough, whereas going organic with food means spending more, organic housekeeping means spending a good deal less: virtually all cleaning tasks can be taken care of with baking soda, white vinegar, and hydrogen peroxide. And you won't be drenching your house in the known carcinogens that make up most household cleaning products.

One hint: skip the first chapter. It's all about organizing, and isn't nearly as funny, useful, or engaging as the rest of the book.

The other book is The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan. We've read a fair bit of his in the last year; I'm working on A Place of My own and Fanny has read both that and Second Nature. Dilemma is on a level of it's own, though. Subtitled "A Natural History of Four Meals," the book is an (successful) effort to figure out exactly what we eat. The first meal is a cheeseburger and fries from McDonald's, which leads to an investigation of corn and the modern food industry (corn, as it turns out, is the main ingredient in the majority of the food we eat). He goes to factory farms, to slaughter-houses, discusses the history and evolution of the corn plant. The second meal comes from Whole Foods, and the related discussion does a good job of robbing Big Organic of much of its luster (although it is still arguably a better and more healthy alternative to the mainstream food industry). He also spends time on a sustainable family farm in Virginia, which gives him his third meal (and a intruiging glimpse into other ways that we might feed ourselves). Finally, he hunts and forages a meal in the forest, which provides a nice end to the book and some interesting reflections on the relationship between culture and food.

This is a book that cannot be read without a serious re-examination of the way one eats. It did not, however, strike me as particularly polemic or slanted--this is simply a journalistic inquiry into what exactly we eat. If the answers to that question are disturbing or offensive--well, all the more reason to ask the question.

(P.S. Michael Pollan is also an extremely readable stylist. Even if I had completely rejected the book's findings I would have enjoyed the reading of it. So go to the library already.)

# posted by Daniel at 12:29 PM.

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