Has the move toward eating more locally grown and/or organic food, along with recent books like Ominvore's Dilemma and Fast Food Nation, made you change your eating habits or way of living in any way?

The movie “Super Size Me” definitely makes me think twice about McDonalds now. Not that I ever ate there much before, but now I hesitate before even buying the little fruit/nut cup from them.
Also, I have become much more of a recycling fiend now that I’m living on my own. Because of different media that I’ve been expose to, I definitely think more about what I’m putting into my body and into the environment.

Nope. I’ve been doing this for years, already. I grew up understanding that the best tasting vegetables were picked fresh; that variety matters; that the land the vegies are grown in matters. I was brought up to see that fast food really doesn’t taste very good, and is pretty unhealthy. We never went to McDonalds or any other fast food place much.

I’ve been going to my local farmer’s market for as long as it’s been here. I’ve seen it grow from a poorly attended seasonal thing, to a year-round market that is absolutely mobbed. I generally cook at home. The family always sits down together. It also seems to take a pretty special restaurant to make tastier food than I make.

It’s all good, as they say.

I was ridiculously excited about my local farmer’s market when I moved here – fresh foods at decent prices and right across the street! All organic? Bonus! (Actually, not a bonus anymore – it means that the local dairy can’t sell their chocolate milk there which sucks because I really want some.)

However, I got into the movement through my own natural shopping habits and tendencies, then I started reading the books. My organic/non-processed leanings started with frozen food and cookie dough in early high school. I started making my own of things we regularly had and began to swear you could taste the preservatives in the frozen stuff. And they were gross. (I now realize I was probably making lower fat versions or something but at the time you would not have been able to convince me it was anything other than that.) Since then I’ve had a really strong aversion to processed. I just use books like that to back me up and make me feel good about my eating habits.

Those books definitely had some impact on my diet, but, more importantly, I think, they had a big impact on my uncle, a small Pennsylvania fruit and veggie farmer. He started reading Michael Pollan, and he got serious about the movement. He adjusted a bunch of practices (he does still spray a tiny bit every once in a while, but he admits it, and wants to figure out a way to cut it out), and he started talking to his customers about it. It’s feedback gathering and marketing for him, but it’s also education. When people go to his stand now, not only do they get responsibly grown produce, but they also learn about why it’s important. Thanks, in large part, to Michael Pollan.

Definitely. I have become a serious farmer’s market snob.

I started to write a response on how it has changed my eating habits, but on second thought, I don’t think I’ve changed much. Recent books/etc have served as periodic confirmations of what I’ve already been doing, but my temperamental tummy pushed me down the path I’m on before all of the recent popular literature came along. WIthout my tummy to guide me, though, I suspect this literature would have been a driving force for change in my life.

Well, I always was a lover of vegetables and fruits, but books like ‘The Omnivore’s Dilemma’ and Barbara Kingsolver’s ‘Animal, Vegetable, Miracle’ have certainly energized me. I’m so glad to see more people paying attention to nutrition and to buying local.

Oh yea! I have been a pescatarian for 9 months, I recycle more, don’t use paper towels and paper napkins, started a compost pile, buy locally as much as possible, have a 1/2 share in a CSA, hang my clothes to dry and go to farmer’s markets. I have to say it has been much easier to accomplish much of my changes with my move to NY.

in july, i went to personal fitness training with cooper’s training institute based in dallas, texas. after that week, i was enlightened and since then have lost at least 7 pounds due in part to diet changes. i’ve always known what’s wrong to eat and right, but the seminar was so deep in detail i could not help but make even more changes to my diet. just today, i visited a “whole foods market.” i was like a kid in a candy store and it will probably be where i will shop for organic foods from now on.

My wife has done that for me. she is non-processed flower sugar everything natural etc.

Recent movement has not had an impact. I changed long ago and have been a devotee of local foods for years.

I heard Pollan speak today on NPR, as I was driving to take my mother for yet another doctor’s appointment.

Pollan has changed his mantra slightly – today he was talking about the same issues but he ended it by chanting; eat locally, eat organically, don’t be cruel to animals. He has some powerful statistics on what the overproduction of corn is doing to the animals, the farmers, the diet and the energy consumption issue (all bad.)

I really became aware of it and changed my tune a little over a year ago when I started working (as a graphic designer) for a family run, IPM/organic farm.

Now I’m converting my wife who is our resident chef.

lol half way through watching Supersize Me i took a break at work to go pick up a couple of double cheeseburgers.

Although I worked at a hollywood video at that point and mcdonald’s was like the only thing in the parking lot that I could afford. haha

@arconea; and that is funny because?

(Sorry I misspelled your name, arcoarena; you might want to read the book and take pity on your arteries.)

I can see the temptation, arco.

@GailCalled – What show on NPR did you hear Pollan? I would like to hear it. Many thanks!

Nope. Nothing these people are saying now is substantially different from information available for (at least) the last three decades. Besides, McDonald’s is gross.

Pollan is giving a talk here in a few weeks. Thanks to this question, I’ve put him in my calendar (although I have to move something around for that to happen).

I just thought it was ironic haha.

but I don’t think 2 double cheesburgers are gonna kill me. :)
I really am not the biggest fan of fast food

Nope. I’m for convenience.

I go to Mickey’s D’s, Burger King, Taco Bell etc. Not regularly, but I do go. Everything in moderation, is my motto.

I would not, myself, choose moderately clogged arteries. But that’s just me. Since deaddolly seems to have already joined the undead, it may not be an issue for her.

That’s correct! btw, my cholestral level is perfect!

It’s hard being a poor college student. Organic / local food is always so expensive.

No, I have never been a junk food junky. I was raised in an agricultural area where everyone had a veggie garden, and the grownups froze or canned the produce. We had a root cellar. We raised chickens for meat and for eggs. Now I live in the middle of a metropolis, but found that leaving one flower bed empty for a veggie garden works just as well. A garage in a cold climate works for a root cellar, and I stil love to can. If you grow it youself you don’t have to worry about pesticides, which I guess is what “organic” means. I mean, otherwise how can a veggie NOT be organic?

no
I’m poor so I eat fast food
AND use coupons
:D

Actually, I had to reciently read FFN for my ENG class, and it pushed me further along the path of hating fast food, as I’ve been made sick several times prior to that, and I’ve been watching what I eat as of late.

No. What about the people who cheat the system and say their food is organic, even though it isn’t? How are those people dealt with? How can you know for sure you’re being told the truth? I rarely ever buy food from fast food restaurants to start with anyway. That being said, I also think that a lot of places that sell fast food are more healthy than they are given credit for.