Julia and Michael

Recently at Lakeside's Orchestra Hall (only movie theater in Ottawa County) I enjoyed Julie and Julia, which is not just about cooking, but also marriage and blogging. It's rare you'll ever see a movie about happily married people, but this be one! So it also launched Michael Pollan, who wants the government in your kitchen, pantry and shopping list, to comment on what overstuffed pigs we all are and why after Obama takes over 1/6 of the economy with his healthcare grab he should start in on the food industry. His book was also featured in the Public Library of Cincinnati moving slide feature (which moves way too fast for my reading level).

"The imminent release of Julie & Julia has so far launched about 5,000 articles, and this weekend, Michael Pollan will bring us one more. The film has inspired Pollan to pen over 8,000 words in The New York Times Magazine about, among other thing, the rise of cooking as a spectator sport, the decline of home-cooked meals, the evils of the processed food industry, and the brilliance of Meryl Streep.

As for whether Americans can reverse the trend that's taken us away from the kitchen and towards permanent posterior indentations on the couch, one food-marketing researcher Pollan interviews isn't optimistic: "We're all looking for someone else to cook for us. The next American cook is going to be the supermarket. Takeout from the supermarket, that's the future. All we need now is the drive-through supermarket."" The village voice

I just love being able to walk two blocks at Lakeside to the Farmer's Market, but I've read enough of 19th and early 20th c. women's magazines to know that eventually the greenies and the feminists are going to be butting heads. No one embraced the processed food industry more than the women who had sweated in the sun digging potatoes, drowning bugs, canning tomatoes and meat from the butchered stock, (I gag even remembering the texture and taste of home canned meat) and selling their eggs to put junior through school. Yes, we certainly don't need 14 versions of the Ritz cracker, nor do we need the federal government telling us what to eat.

The health care bill is just the first step says Pollan who lives and performs in Berkeley. You can expect more government control after this one is done.

"All of which suggests that passing a health care reform bill, no matter how ambitious, is only the first step in solving our health care crisis. To keep from bankrupting ourselves, we will then have to get to work on improving our health — which means going to work on the American way of eating." His NYT op ed

It is always the dream of the liberal to find that next big thing--like purifying water which totally changed life expectancy in this country, or spraying mosquitoes with DDT which rid us of the scourge of malaria, or small pox vaccines, or the polio vaccine (needed because we cleaned up the water supply), or TB screening tests. I don't think changing our diets will be that, but they'll try any way, some in good faith, others for the power over our lives.