Chew on This

From this months Harper's Index:

Percentage of Gardeners who say the recession has figured in their planting: 62

Percentage rate of U.S. obesity that the US Health and Human Services says it hopes to reach by 2011: 15

Number of states where less then 20 percent of the population is obese: 1

Number of states where the obesity rate declined last year: 0

Average number of calories by which an American underestimates the total in a hamburger and fries: 463


In a recent Grist article where Michael Pollan and Tom Philpott discuss the state of food at a conference in San Francisco, Mr. Philpott points out:

that still only 3 to 4 percent of food consumed in the U.S. is organic or local. And in the infamous words of Amanda Wingfield (the mother character from Tennessee William's classic play The Glass Menagerie):

Honey, don’t push with your fingers. If you have to push with something, the thing to push with is a crust of bread. And chew—chew! Animals have sections in their stomachs which enable them to digest food without mastication, but human beings are supposed to chew their food before they swallow it down. Eat food leisurely, son, and really enjoy it. A well-cooked meal has lots of delicate flavors that have to be held in the mouth for appreciation. So chew your food and give your salivary glands a chance to function!

Masticate this!