Eat Everything by Dawn Harris Sherling, MD
When Dr. Sherling first started practicing medicine she encountered a patient who was having gut related issues and was down to only being able to eat granola bars. After extensive testing, Dr. Sherling was no closer to a diagnosis for the patient than when they first started. Throughout her career she continued to see people with these type of gut issues that had no obvious diagnosis - then it started happening to her too. It was on a family vacation to Italy that helped open her eyes. In Italy Dr. Sherling could eat all the foods that caused her problems at home - dairy, wheat, etc. What she found was that in Italy food was almost exclusively made with local, whole ingredients. In the US most people consume a lot of ultra-processed foods full of additives and emulsifiers. These additives and emulsifiers can wreak havoc on our microbiome, the good bacteria and fungi in our digestive tracts. In this book Dr. Sherling shows us her journey and how she now tries to help her patients with a whole-food focused diet in addition to any medications they may need. The book is divided into 3 sections - the first section explores what is wrong with our food and why these additives are causing health problems, the second section looks at specific types of foods and how to source better quality ingredients/foods, and the third section is how this plays out in real life with tips for still eating out, managing weight, and dealing with or finding the right diagnosis. In the Appendixes she includes a list of additives and why they might be problematic, a sample weekly meal plan for focusing on whole foods, and 25 whole-food based recipes. Overall, while I didn't agree with EVERYTHING she said this is a pretty impressive book. Dr. Sherling explores yet another layer of our industrial food system that is bad for us and how we can do better.
I'm thankful that I don't have any gut/digestion issues, but even if like me you don't have these issues these additives are not good and it's much better to eat whole foods anyway. I would add to her suggestions sourcing locally grown/raised food from local farmers. Or even better grow some of your own food too with a vegetable garden. I've found that homegrown vegetables taste WAY better than store bought and you're much more likely to eat the stuff you took the time to grow. I'm already a big proponent of homemade, from-scratch cooking so this book was right up my alley.
Two quotes I disagree with:
"You may have a hard time finding unadulterated cream on store shelves (at least without a co-op market or dairy nearby) because without some kind of emulsifying agent, the pasteurization process causes the cream to separate as it sits in the store's refrigerator. So you either need fairly fresh pasteurized cream or really fresh unpasteurized cream to go additive-free. As a physician, I cannot recommend drinking unpasteurized cream. Pasteurization has prevented thousands of deaths and millions of illnesses. It isn't a bad thing. It just makes finding good cream a challenge. Listeria, the bacteria you can get from unpasteurized dairy, is worse than additives." (p. 83)
[I personally know people who had life-long gut/digestive issues that were cured with raw milk. Yes, getting Listeria is MUCH worse than additives. But, raw milk can often be consumed even by people who are lactose intolerant and has so many benefits that pasteurization removes. The problem with most food-born illnesses is the industrialization part. How did people drink milk in the pre-pasteurization time and not all die from Listeria? Small and local is how.]
"After the highly successful introduction of sugar, and later high-fructose corn syrup, the cereal additives just kept coming. With an emphasis on marketing and convenience, more traditional breakfast foods didn't stand a chance. And so today we have an entire aisle in the grocery store devoted to ultra-processed breakfast bits delivered in brightly colored cardboard boxes...But you will have to pry the cereal box out of my cold, sleepy hand. One kid won't get out of bed. The other can't find her shoes. And we all need to get going! Mornings are challenging in most homes, and cereal provides a cheap and quick solution - one that most kids over the age of six can handle getting for themselves." (p. 92)
[I was REALLY surprised to see a medical doctor advocate for breakfast cereal. Cereal is one of the absolute WORST things you can eat with almost no nutritional value. And as for cheap? It is $5-8 for a box of Cheerios ($3+ for the generic store brand). Compare that to a dozen eggs. Eggs are a MUCH better breakfast and only take about 5 minutes to cook. There are PLENTY of other breakfast options that are much better than cereal.]
Buttermilk Graffiti by Edward Lee - Books & Banter and Evening Edition book clubs, Community Read, re-read
Edward Lee spent two years traveling the US exploring immigrant food. Immigrants are what makes up America, so how do immigrants incorporate their food into their new culture and how does American food change with the influence of all this immigrant food? These are some of the questions Lee explores in this book. Each chapter focuses on a specific ethnic food in a small town in America. Often it's surprising as Lee claims the best Jewish Deli is in Indianapolis, or there is a huge Middle Eastern population and food culture in Dearborn, Michigan. Lee says, "The plate of food has never been the be-all and end-all for me. Quite the opposite: for me, good food is just the beginning of a trail that leads back to a person whose story is usually worth telling." (p. 32) and that is exactly what he does in this book he highlights not just ethnic food all over the US, but the specific people who are cooking this food and their stories. Definitely an interesting look at just how diverse the food culture is here in the US.
Notes on re-reading for Community Read 3/1 - 3/6/24:
I didn't enjoy this as much this time as I remember liking it the first time. I think it's just a case of bad reading timing. While I do like his writing and he is entertaining, this time reading it it just came across inauthentic to me. Like he would be irritated when strangers in a restaurant or bar didn't want to chat it up with him - dude, you're a stranger to them that's creepy. This time reading it I felt like he was trying to be like Anthony Bourdain on his TV shows - but those were obviously planned they didn't just film Bourdain trying to talk to strangers. I wasn't as impressed this time but I am looking forward to seeing him speak at our library event.
Some quotes I liked this time:
[I forgot that he mentioned Staunton, VA in the book which is now a place I go at least once a year thanks to Joel Salatin and Polyface Farm.]
[On talking about the longevity of Shapiro's deli in Indianapolis] "'All the chefs these days are artists, and that's fine, but then you have a restaurant linked to an individual, not a tradition. There will never be a restaurant that lasts one hundred years anymore. Chefs change their food depending on the trends. We don't.' 'So there is no chef here?' 'We don't call them chefs. It is family recipes that are made by everyone. It speaks to the culture of a group, not an individual. If we persist in making food that is an individual expression, our restaurants will only last as long as the artist's whim or the public's attention span. This...' he gestures to the room. 'This can go on forever.'" (p. 325)
"I hate it that these women, the true guardians of this tradition, are getting overlooked. They are the ones who kept this food alive while the culinary world was busy fawning over European or California cuisine. For Janice and Shirley Mae, food was never about a trend or a concept. It was, and is, their heritage. And because of women like them, we now have an actual flavor profile we can reference when we talk about dishes such as pork neck and turnip greens. It's a living thing, not just words in a historical text." (p. 356)
"Their two approaches to cornbread are not simply a variation in technique. They represent a rift in their upbringing: one rural and the other urban. I never would have made that distinction if I had not talked to them at length. I would simply have assumed that they made different cornbreads for reasons that random. It took me a long time to understand that their choices in their cornbread recipes tell an intimate story of their past." (p. 358-59)
Of Time and Turtles: mending the world, shell by shattered shell by Sy Montgomery
I love Sy Montgomery's writing and I ALWAYS learn something new when I read her books. Of Time and Turtles is no exception. Shortly before the COVID pandemic Sy and her friend Matt Patterson start volunteering with the Turtle Rescue League (or TRL for short). This New England rescue does a LOT for turtles - rescuing injured turtles and rehabilitating them, marking and protecting turtle nests, incubating rescued turtle eggs, even providing long term for turtles they've saved but for varying reason can't be released back into the wild. The book spans two years starting at the beginning of 2020 and going into 2022. While I could have done without some of the COVID related comments (death tolls, how the vaccine will save everyone, etc.) it wasn't super heavy handed. I was honestly amazed at the work TRL does for the turtle world in New England - driving all over to pick up injured or discarded turtles, spending a lot of time caring for seriously injured turtles, and much, much more. Turtles really are amazing animals and Montgomery does a great job of highlighting just how unique they are, as well as just how long they can live (up to 200 years!). I've always been someone who stops on the side of the road for a turtle and helps them across but after reading this book I will keep my eyes even more peeled for turtles.
The main thing I could have done without in the book was the chapter that revealed that Alexxia and Natasha (the couple who runs TRL) are both transgender women. That really added NOTHING to the story, their rescue work, anything. It just felt like it was mentioned because trans everything is such a focus right now. Honestly I was like why is she including this. If either of the women were writing a book about their rescue and how/why they started it that would make sense, but it felt unnecessary to add that into this book. Otherwise, the work they do is amazing and Montgomery's experience with their rescue made for an interesting book and anyone would look at turtles differently after reading this.
Some terrifying statistics and data:
"Turtles are a red-hot commodity in the ruthless world of the illegal wildlife trade. Like the underground market for guns, drugs, and sex, turtle trafficking is networked, clandestine, and lucrative. A single Yunnan box turtle could command $200,000 on the black market. A Chinese three-striped box turtle, whose powdered plastron is rumored (incorrectly) to cure cancer, can fetch as much as $25,000. In many parts of Asia - where most of the stolen turtles turn up in phony elixirs (often claimed, due to turtles' longevity, to preserve youthful beauty in women or sexual potency in men), as tortoiseshell accessories like pens and bracelets, or sold as prestigious pets - more than three quarters of the native species are either threatened with extinction or already gone from their natural homes. So many Asian turtles have been 'vacuumed from the wild,' as one TSA [Turtle Survival Alliance] video puts it, that now the reptiles are being snatched from ponds, woodlands, and seas of the United States to be illegally shipped to feed this malignant market." (p. 31-32)
"A survey by the State University of New York biologist James Gibbs estimated that in the Northeast, Great Lakes, and southeastern U.S., in areas crisscrossed by roads, up to twenty percent of the adult turtle population is killed by cars each year....Results of another study, concentrating on snappers living in an Ontario-area wetland bisected by a highway, were equally dire: Here, in the seventeen years between 1985 and 2002, the snapper population dropped from 941 to 177. The researchers predicted that things would only get worse. The snappers would soon be gone from the swamp." (p. 51)
"The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates that the odds of a sea turtle hatchling surviving to adulthood may range from an unlikely one in one thousand to an almost impossible one in ten thousand. Survival rates may be even more disheartening for the less-studied freshwater turtles and tortoises. Some researchers estimate that as many as ninety percent of snapping turtle eggs may be destroyed before the babies are even born. 'I used to find turtle eggshells outside the nest and think, Oh great, baby turtles hatched here,' Jeanne tells Matt and me. But because hatchlings leave their eggshells behind, in their underground nests, seeing scattered eggshells aboveground means that predators got them." (p. 84)
The Meth Lunches: food and longing in an American city by Kim Foster
I wasn't really sure what to expect with this book but it definitely delved into some things I wasn't expecting. The book starts out (and gets the title) when Foster's family moves from NYC to Las Vegas, Nevada and need some work done on their house. They go through an agency that matches out of work laborers with homeowners who need work done. The family meets Charlie who is semi-homeless due to his meth addiction. As his addiction progresses Foster starts referring to their meals with Charlie as The Meth Lunches. Next we get into the Foster family becoming foster parents and some of the CRAZY things that come along with that - including Foster finding the mother of one of their foster children in jail and bringing the kid to her for visits (I'm pretty sure she was NOT supposed to do that) and overall getting overly involved with the families of some of their foster kids. Then COVID hits and Foster starts up a food pantry to replace a little free library in their yard - this also devolves into craziness and drug addicts routinely stealing meat to sell for drugs and showing up at all hours demanding food supposedly for "several" families but again likely taking it to resell for drug money.
In all of these instances Foster seems to get WAY overly involved with all of these people. I think her intentions were good but I worried for her family and the amount of potential danger she was exposing them to every day. Her food pantry eventually gets shut down when it's reported by another food pantry operator (apparently there is a lot of rivalry and competition between food pantry operators - who knew?!). While there was a lot of interesting information, a lot of the stories seemed pretty far out there. It seemed like she was addicted to chaos and got very quickly invested in all these people's lives more than she should have possibly. It seemed a little over the top to me. There was also a weird dichotomy between her vivid descriptions of all the ethnic food she made her family and the homeless or poverty-level people she was interacting with throughout the book. Overall, it was interesting but definitely a wild ride I wasn't totally expecting.
Some quotes I liked:
"Food can be a weapon. Food can be a way to control. And punish. And abuse. And force people to conform. The Meth Lunches with Charlie get me thinking about the severely wounded people in our new community and what food means and doesn't mean to them. I think about hoarding food. And giving food. And accepting food. And having no food at all. Food is a litmus test, I think. It must be. What we are eating and how we are eating tells us something integral about how we are doing, what our lives are like." (p. 29-30)
"Because humans need food, consistently, multiple times a day, food is one of the first ways children gauge how safe they are. Food, how much they get, when they get it, and how their caregiver provides for them when they cry out, sends a fundamental message about their worth in the world. That message is hardwired into their brain's pathways. It stays with them, always. Being fed consistently is safety." (p. 74)
"McDonald's offers something substantial to the communities it inhabits. For my son and many kids in the system, fast-food restaurants offer comfort. They provide consistency and permanence in their unpredictable lives. The burger always tastes the same. The nuggets. The fries. They never change. And wherever you go, whatever family takes you in this time, no matter how many times you move, the Play Place rocks the same colors. The same netting. The same slides and tunnels...Starbucks calls itself 'the third place,' the space we inhabit outside of home, work, school. But McDonald's is American's third place for a much larger, if less privileged, population...For the unhoused, addicted, and the hardest-struggling people in our communities, McDonald's offers luxuries, like Wi-Fi. Cheap food. Bathrooms. Outlets for phone charging. And a lenient staff who often allow people to hang out in booths, sipping coffee. It's a place to connect with other people, where no one will shoo you away." (p. 102-3)
Own Your Past Change Your Future by Dr. John Delony
I recently found Dr. John Delony on Instagram and really liked the clips from his podcast and work with Dave Ramsey so I decided to check out this book. I wasn't sure what to expect but I liked it. Like the title says he discusses how to Own Your Past Change Your Future. The book is divided into two sections - The Stories are the Problem and The Stories are the Solution. The first section looks at all the stories in our lives - stories you're born into, stories others tell about you, stories about relationships, stories we tell ourselves, etc. In the second section he gives some concrete tips for changing your future by addressing those stories and putting down the ones that aren't helpful. While also encouraging us to get connected, change our thoughts, and then change our actions. Interspersed throughout the book are his personal stories and stories from people he's helped in various roles Dr. Delony has held over the years. Overall, I thought the book could be helpful and several chapters have questions at the end to help you work through some of the stuff he's talking about. I was also impressed that he had quotes from Andy Gullahorn and Andrew Peterson - two amazing musicians I enjoy and follow.
Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts by Crystal Wilkinson
This is a beautifully written memoir/family history highlighting all the women in Crystal Wilkinson's family line and how cooking was their legacy and way of showing love. Crystal became the family keeper of stories and family recipes. Looking back at five generations of Wilkinson women Crystal tells their family story through food. She is also telling the story of Black Appalachian history through cooking as well. Going from slavery days to the modern day this beautifully written collection of essays will make you want to get in the kitchen and make some of your own food memories. Each essay covers a food topic and is followed by a few recipes that are mentioned in that essay or Crystal's updated version. There is a struggle between keeping family recipes in the traditional way and creating more modern/updated versions. I thought Crystal did a great job illuminating that struggle. She was vegetarian off and on for 20 years and at times wouldn't eat her grandmother's food that was seasoned with pork and her grandmother never understood that. Today Crystal tries to keep her family's cooking legacy alive by making both the traditional recipes and her own updated/recreated versions. I just can't reiterate enough how beautifully written this book is. I wish it was twice as long so I could keep reading more. There are several recipes I'd like to try as well.
Some quotes I liked:
"I reach back in my memory. I can see us there on the hillside, but I have forgotten so much that I thought I'd never need. I am a child of plenty. I was never hungry. Food was never scarce. When I was a child, I thought this information was expendable...By the time I came along, my grandmother was already putting the harder days of her life behind her. Days of hunger pangs and worry about how she and my grandfather would feed their seven children were gone. She wanted to show me the family's old ways, but we weren't out at first light when the dew dried out of necessity." (p. 41)
"During slavery and even after manumission, not many Black people had the fortune of eating 'high on the hog' (loins, pork chops, ham). Instead they adapted with resilience and skill and made the offal 'low parts' into delicacies. My grandfather often recalled a recurring heartbreak he suffered as a young husband and father. A racist man he worked for refused even the offal to him. 'He would rather see the chitlins rot on the ground than see me take them home to feed my young'uns,' Grandaddy said. The resounding ancestral memory of my people doing without echoes loud in me still." (p. 194)
"It never dawned on me that my daughters wouldn't be exactly like me, staunch feminists who lean into their domesticated side. While Ron washes all the dishes, launders our clothes, keeps the house clean, I work outside our home as a writer and professor and I cook all the meals. I don't have to cook and sometimes I don't, but cooking is how I commune with our ancestors. I love cooking. It's one way that my family knows I care. Wouldn't my children follow in my footsteps? Perhaps it's my generation, but I've never seen cooking as an oppressive act, though it was for some of my foremothers." (p. 229-230)
"I have the privilege of education, of making a living from my mind and not my domestic labor in a white woman's kitchen. I cook out of homage, for pleasure, and not by bound duty. I am keenly aware that Black Appalachian foodways are a legacy to be treasured, to be passed on to the next and the next and the next. I'm thankful that my children and grandchildren will find their own ways to morph and change culinary traditions, to add to and subtract from their mother's mother's mother's ways, to honor the calling of the kitchen ghosts, however they see fit." (p. 233)
Secrets of the Octopus by Sy Montgomery
This is a book all about the octopus complete with tons of beautiful, color photos. If you're a fan/reader of Sy Montgomery then you probably are already familiar with her book The Soul of an Octopus about her time working directly with octopuses at the New England Aquarium and even learning to scuba dive so she could try to find octopuses in the wild. There is a little overlap in content, but this book is mainly just about octopuses and not her personal experiences with them. It's divided into 3 sections - Masters of Camouflage, Gelatinous Geniuses, and Octopus Kingdom. After the epilogue there is also a section of "octoprofiles" with profiles of 16 octopuses and cuttlefish. Pulling from cutting edge science, Montgomery shows just how incredibly smart, unique, and interesting octopuses are. There were several funny stories about octopuses from either aquariums or laboratories where they pulled pranks, escaped tanks, invaded other tanks to eat the fish inside, flooded rooms and even shorted out the electricity three days in a row (before the keepers figured out the octopus didn't like a nearby bright light). In short, everything we know about octopuses is constantly changing and they can be very hard to study in both captivity and the wild. But this book highlights some of their most unique characteristics and the included photographs completely make the book. Overall, if you're interested in octopuses this is a great book to check out.
A quote I liked:
"Keepers at SEA LIFE Kelly Tarlton's Aquarium in Auckland, New Zealand, taught their female giant Pacific octopus, named Rambo, to thread her arm down a tube to press an orange button to take photos of visitors with a waterproof digital camera - making her the world's first documented 'octographer.' Other institutions have encouraged their octopuses to exploit their artistic talent. Oregon State University's Hatfield Marine Science Center devised a system of levers that allowed its giant Pacific octopus to move a series of paint brushes against a canvas outside her tank. After their first octopus painter, Squirt, became a sensation, other aquariums in Tennessee and Florida trained more octopus artists." (p. 103-106) [I would TOTALLY buy an octopus photo or painting!]
