"A little butter never hurt anyone"

In the Summer of 2008, I read The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan. For those of you not familiar with this title, this book examines the American diet and the industries that have structured it for much of the last century. It spends a good chunk of its 400+ pages detailing the problems with the corn industry and the meat industry and even though Pollan never expressly calls for people to embrace vegetarianism, some of the anecdotes will make you think twice the next time you order a burger.

Overall, I found the book to be well written, informative, and thought-provoking, though I ended up skipping the last 30 pages because I had had enough of Pollan’s discourse on his adventures trying to find, cook, and eat wild mushrooms. After I had “finished” it, my boyfriend at the time, who had read the book some time before me, asked me what I thought about it. “It really made me think about what I eat,” I said. “Though, of course, that doesn’t mean I’m actually going to change the way I eat.”

“That was my reaction to it,” he said.

This is the idea I wanted to explore in this post because, since reading that book, I’ve thought a lot about what I ingest. I think living in New York has something to do with it,too. Here, everyone seems incredibly concerned with living a better life, though, admittedly, this phrase means different things for different people. But one way this concept manifests itself is through food. In Manhattan, the only decent grocery stores are wildly overpriced gourmet and/or organic outfits like Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, The Food Emporium, and Dean and Deluca. All of these places are, despite their prices, always crowded. It might be one of those chicken-egg arguments: are these stores so popular because they’re the only decent grocery stores in Manhattan or did they become the only decent stores in Manhattan because people preferred to shop there over other, less high-end stores?

Hard to tell, but regardless, the fact that so many New Yorkers are willing to pay more for these products indicates at the very least a desire to cook their own food instead of relying on what would probably be a cheaper diet of take-out Chinese every day. At most, it indicates a real, concrete desire among this population to monitor what goes into their mouths and their bodies. They will pay more for something and wait in a longer line to buy it if they know it’s organic, free-range, fair trade, all-natural, and preservative-free. And they’ll lug all of their goodies home in reusable bags. Bully for them!

I can’t afford to do all of my grocery shopping at Whole Foods. Plus, there isn’t one close to my apartment. For me, it’s more important to eat a balanced, steady diet without going broke, though, I confess, I am more inclined to buy something made from actual food rather than a bunch of chemically altered compounds I can’t pronounce. To be fair, every time I pick up eggs, I think long and hard about what kind I should buy. I know, deep within my conscience, that I should buy the free-range, cage-free, organic brown eggs that cost $3 more a dozen, but frankly, I know that my omelette is going to taste just fine if I settle on the cheaper variety and those pour cooped-up chickens aren’t going to be liberated because I did the “right” thing.

Earlier this year, I was confronted with the issue of my diet even more while I dated a guy who monitored the foods he ate more closely than he monitored the time of day. Though this guy was not expressly allergic to any foods, he had chosen to give up both gluten and dairy because he said he noticed a major improvement in his health once he did so—despite the fact that his doctors had repeatedly told him that changing his diet would not affect his health. He told me this on our first date and because I am, apparently, superficial, my first thought was, “Oh shit. That means he doesn’t drink beer. What are going to do if he doesn’t drink beer?”

“But I do drink beer,” he said, as if reading my mind.

Oh, thank goodness. It turns out this guy, Claudio, wasn’t completely strict about his diet. In fact, that night, after dinner and a couple hours of beer consumption, we stopped at Artichoke for a slice of pizza. Delicious gluten- and dairy-ridden pizza.

For the next few months, as we dated, Claudio and I had several discussions about nutrition. He had studied it quite a bit and had even worked in the nutrition department at Whole Foods for a few years. He seemed incredibly well-informed and introduced me to the idea that undistilled apple cider vinegar is the cure-all for everything (in the six and a half months we dated, I used ACV—his Rachel Ray-esque term for the stuff—to cure an upset stomach and open my sinuses when I had a cold). The first time he came over to my apartment, he laughed at the Target-brand vitamins I had on my dresser and said I might as well not take anything. The first gift he ever gave me was, you guessed it, a nice big bottle of apple cider vinegar.

Over the course of those few months, I learned a lot about supplements, Claudio’s favorite being trace minerals—a compound found in salt water. I once watched him add several drops of the stuff to a glass or orange juice and down the mixture in a couple of pained gulps. “This stuff is great for you,” he said, grimacing. “But it tastes awful.”

But I had fun with Claudio. It generally wasn’t hard for him to find something to eat no matter where we went, and I began to think maybe I should try revamping my diet. I had met other people who had eliminated certain foods from their menus—at least temporarily—and they reported that they’d never felt better. What did I have to lose?

Well, in my case, a lot. I have a roommate, Bridget, whom I love dearly. I especially love it when she cooks, though, and Bridget is a big fan of pasta…and cheese…and butter…and milk, and frankly I wasn’t about to sacrifice her delicious home-cooked meals. One night, soon after we moved in together, I cam home from work to find that Bridget had made pasta. When I asked her about the sauce she had used she said it was from a jar but “I added butter to it.” There was absolutely no need for her to add butter to this sauce, but she had, and it was good. Claudio cooked me dinner once, and while it was pretty good, and I felt pretty satisfied afterward, I wasn’t about to trade Bridget’s butter sauce for tofu, sweet potatoes, and broccoli.

For a while—a couple of weeks maybe—I decided instead to “reduce” the amount of dairy in my diet. I did this by trying to eliminate dairy when possible when I cooked for myself and when I ate out. Admittedly, I held to a very loose definition of the word “reduced” so that substituting soy milk for regular milk in my cup of coffee counted as an improvement. That’s another thing. I took to purchasing soy milk to add to my coffee and cereal instead of regular milk, but then someone told me you shouldn’t drink too much soy because of high estrogen levels or something. Well, what the hell am I supposed to do?

I know, it was a lame attempt, and to be fair, it was pretty easy to keep dairy out of the apartment at that time because our refrigerator was broken and all of our food kept spoiling. But here’s the thing: I like eating dairy. I like eating gluten. I like eating things with salt, and sugar, and fat, and carbs. I like ice cream. Actually, I LOVE ice cream. I like cheese (all except the kind that’s blue). I like dunking my Oreos in real milk (and, yes, I know that eating Oreos dunked in anything is unhealthy, but if they’re in the house, I’m going to eat them). I like pizza. I like beer. I like the two together. I like food. I love food. In fact, I love food more than I love having regular bowel movements, hence, why eliminating dairy—or anything else—from my diet has never actually promised much of a payoff for me.

Dairy wasn’t the only thing I had been told was an enemy. The other was caffeine. Now, I’ve never been much of a caffeine addict. In fact, I can go for days without having any and still be completely functional. Bridget and I have a coffee pot in our house. We also have an espresso maker we haven’t used since we moved in together. But a few times a week, I’ll treat myself to a nice cup of coffee, unsweetened, with soy milk while I get ready for the day. And you know what? Those are the best mornings.

Coffee generally has a profound effect on me. Not only does it give me more energy but it also puts me in a really good mood. In college, I could get a small coffee from one of the campus food courts, drink it during a class, and be buzzing for 12 hours straight. I usually had grand dreams for my future during this time as well. One day, after a particular strong cup, I decided I wanted to take a new course in my life and apply to teach English at an international school after I ran into someone who told me he had done it for several years. I went home and filled out an online application. By the time I received a letter from a school in Shanghai asking for my resume, however, the caffeine had worn off and I snapped back to reality. Caffeine is a powerful drug.

So even though I’ve never been an addict, I realized that I didn’t like the idea of relying on any drug—no matter how sparingly—to get through the day, be happy, or be inspired. So, I decided to go without caffeine for two weeks.

Here’s the funny thing about sacrifice: when you go without something unconsciously, you generally don’t notice. I’m sure there are plenty of times in my life where I’ve gone for two weeks without any caffeine, or sex, or a glass of wine, and I’ve been just fine. The second I resolved to give up caffeine, however, I began to crave it incessantly.

But I was good, and I made it a whole 13 days without any caffeine. I would’ve made it 14 but I had a sore throat, and Bridget brought home some iced tea on day 13, and I drank some of it without thinking. Whatever, it barely counts.

But I was also pretty damn miserable during those two weeks. I was grumpy, had less energy, and I missed the comfort of having a nice hot coffee in the morning while I did my makeup and listened to NPR. The thing is, for me, a modest intake of caffeine didn’t have any negative side effects. Because I drank coffee in the morning, I never had trouble falling asleep that night. I drank it sparingly, so I never had stomach problems or got heartburn. I never started shaking uncontrollably. So why not just let myself have it when I want it as long as it doesn’t become a problem? I started drinking coffee again the following week, and I’ve been a lot happier. It also made feel better when I found out, through a book I’m editing at work, that moderate caffeine consumption has been shown to induce processes in the body that scientists believe are linked to longevity. Score one for the coffee drinkers of the world! You may actually live longer than your lower-strung comrades!

I just realized that all of this may sound bad. Maybe I sound like some lucky 24-year-old without any major health issues and a pretty awesome metabolism who doesn’t really care about the repercussions of what she puts in her body. Half of that is true. Yes, I’ve never had to worry that if I eat a peanut, my body will go into a state of shock. And I’ve never had to worry that if I let myself have that donut, I will gain back that pesky pound I've been trying to lose. But I do care about my health. My point is that food—real food—is not dangerous and you should not be frightened of it. Of course, I’m saying this as someone whose expertise comes from dating an amateur nutritionist and reading a couple Michael Pollan books. But even Michael Pollan advocates this message in his favorite “food rules.”

But I’m also saying this as someone who knows that Julia Child lived a long, healthy life even though she added butter to just about everything. I don’t claim to know the secret to Julia’s longevity (it was probably just good genes), but I do know she ate real food…real, delicious food that sustained both her body and her soul. So in honor of Julia and of food lovers everywhere, Bon appétit!