Ed. Note: This article focuses on the benefits of eating together for families with children. I believe that families come in all shapes and sizes; I just chose families with kids for today’s article. Thanks for reading Almost Fit - I really do appreciate it.

With the pace of life building at an ever increasing rate, for many of us, sharing meals at the dinner table is becoming a lost art. Often times if families eat together at all, it is in the car after having placed an order in front of an illuminated board of “value” options, yelling through a cheap microphone, trying to make it to the next activity only a few minutes late for once.

For a while we were sucked into this vortex of squeezing meals in between the “more important” things (as if meals were not critical to life!). Here’s an example. Read the rest of this entry »

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As part of our family experiment with sustainable living, we are putting our money where our mouth is and growing our own fruits, vegetables, and herbs. We supplement our crops with what’s in season at the Farmer’s Markets in our area, namely the Pacific Northwest. I hope this report doesn’t bore you to tears - we are having a blast with it, and wanted to share our progress. Thanks for reading Almost Fit.

The weather in Northwest Oregon has finally turned to hot summer days, with no end in sight. As a result, our garden is going crazy. Rather than a long and boring diatribe of the finite details, here’s a high level list of what’s been happening:

- We had our first harvest of strawberries in the children’s garden - And it was Rima, who harvested and “processed” them. She LOVES strawberries.
- Tomatoes have gone from blossom to the beginnings of fruit just in the last couple of days
- Radishes are reaching a nice edible size, and really pack a punch
- Celery stalks are in full regalia
- Garlic and onions are filling in
- Turnips are moving along nicely
- Corn is growing about an inch a day
- Spinach has gone to seed at 4 feet high or so
- We have our first cucumber on the vine, with squash blossoms soon to come
- Carrots and potatoes are taking off
- Raspberry bushes will not produce this year, but they are growing rapidly
- Blackberries surrounding our yard have berries all over them, waiting to ripen
- Mesclun is at it’s peak, as is the red leaf and romaine
- Swiss chard is nearly ready for the first harvest
- Sweet peas are bearing delicious fruit
- Green beans have sprouted
- Basil, mint, and a variety of herbs are all in full swing
- Roses are in full bloom, as are the lavender bushes

And that’s just what I can think of off the top of my head. With the heat and no rain in sight, we are watering about every other day, and shading some of the more tender plants during the peak sun hours.

Here are a handful of photos. Read the rest of this entry »

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Ed. Note: This is a reprint (with a few changes) of an article I wrote a while back as a guest post for the guys at GetFitSlowly - Mac and J.D. are some of my principle inspirations for writing about this process, and their site is highly recommended. I’ve had several requests to repost the article here, so I am doing so today. If you enjoy it, please give it a vote via your social networking tool of choice, such as Digg or StumbleUpon. Thanks. Oh, and if you’re new here, welcome to Almost Fit. Please leave a comment and introduce yourself.

When it comes to food, exercise, and our obsession with obesity, the French appear to break all of the rules of Western thought. By and large those who live a traditional French lifestyle eat for pleasure and satisfaction, they often smoke (arguably a stereotype), and they drink regularly. Despite a diet proportionally high in things like saturated fats, the French have remarkably low rates of heart disease and obesity. Welcome to the French Paradox.

On a visit to Paris with my wife and our 7-month old son, I experienced this firsthand. When you walk the streets of Paris, you are tempted with the most sensual culinary delights imaginable: Delicately handmade pastries, beautiful chocolates, freshly baked bread from ovens that have been used for sometimes hundreds of years, full fat, unpasteurized cheeses, and fresh crepes. And that’s just what you can see in the window displays. When you see overweight people in Paris, they are almost never Parisians; in fact, in my experience it was the easiest way to identify my fellow Americans!

Those who practice a traditional French lifestyle seem to break our most commonly accepted dietary notions. They typically:

• Consume 60% more saturated fats than we do in proportion to our overall intake, primarily through dairy. This includes rich cheeses, real butter, whole milk, and yogurt.
• Do not eat low fat products or use or chemically derived sugar substitutes.
• Eat fresh bread daily that is made from refined white flour.
• Regularly consume both lean and fatty meats including pork, duck, beef, chicken, and a few others (someone hide Mr. Ed), as well as fish.
• Drink alcohol with lunch and dinner, and the alcohol is often unregulated. Meaning, where we have a soda fountain, they may have a cask of wine available for refills.
• Smoke cigarettes. As I mentioned earlier, this is a bit of a stereotype since the French typically smoke less than several other European countries, and only a few percentage points more than Americans, on whole. That said, we found in Paris that the smell of cigarette smoke was abundant, yet for some reason we didn’t mind (neither of us are smokers).
• Eat late at night, much later than we do - Often eating heavier foods for supper at around 9 or 10, followed by a dessert course.
• Do not go to the gym or exercise much more than we do (the reasoning being why waste your life in such a way, when you could be enjoying it?).
• Do not obsess about the chemical composition of the foods they eat, and they do not rely on science and industry to tell them what is good or bad. That is what Mother is for.

With all of this dietary rule-breaking, the French simply should be dying off like flies from heart disease. I mean after all, high fat foods? Simple carbohydrates and sugar-filled deserts? Cigarettes and alcohol? No Stairmaster for 3 hours a day? According to our experience, our industrial and governmental science, and our gigantic devotion to every miracle-cure product and approach we can turn our eyes to, their collective hearts should all be congealed, seized up like French-made Peugeot diesel motors full of hardened, varnished sludge.

The truth is that the French typically live 3 years longer than we do, with only an 8.3% rate of heart disease, and a low occurrence of obesity (though sadly this is increasing as Western ways infiltrate French daily life).

So how do they do it?

According to folks like Dr. Will Clower, Michael Pollan, and Mirielle Guiliano (and place me squarely in this camp, by personal experience), it comes down to this: The French simply eat real food in moderation. They eat good food, just less of it (they eat until they’re full, and then they stop). They generally don’t eat the overly-processed, low fat, low carb, hydrogenated chemically substituted well-preserved food-based products that we do. Dr. Clower’s catchphrase: “If it’s not food, don’t eat it.” Michael Pollan? “Eat food. Not Too Much. Mostly plants.”

How to eat rich foods and not gain weight

How can you implement the French approach? What do the French do that allows them to eat what they want, when they want, and still not gain weight?

Here is a list based primarily on the writings of the three authors cited above. Of course, their books provide much more detail on the scientific (and anecdotal) evidence that supports the effectiveness of these ideas, and provide specific techniques on how to implement them. Here’s a sample of the guidance they provide:

• Identify honestly what you eat, think about it, and make changes very slightly and gradually. Remember that you are changing these dietary habits for the span of a lifetime, so they have to be simple, livable adjustments. From Mireille Guiliano, “The answer to weight gain is never dieting.”
• Eat only real food, not processed food alternatives, “faux foods”, or food-like products (particularly high fructose corn syrup).The good news is this means you get to eat butter, bread, and chocolate again.
• Eat for the pleasure of eating, rather than as a means of fuel. Treat your mouth more like a sensory tool and less like a Flux Capacitor.
• Eat at regular times. In France, they maintain a social stigma against between meal snacking. In fact, many of their cars do not have cupholders.
• Eat seasonally, locally, and shop several times a week. And as Michael Pollan says, don’t buy your fuel at the same place you buy it for your car.
• Don’t rely solely on “Nutritionism” to tell you what is good for you; use common sense, and eat real foods. If Great-Grandma wouldn’t recognize it, don’t eat it. This is a simplification here; read In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan for a much deeper explanation of the dangers of relying on science and industry alone to tell us what we should eat.
• Your dietary emphasis should be on green leafy vegetables, or animals who are fed those vegetables.
• Eat fat! Just the right kinds, particularly dairy and naturally occurring fats in plants (think avocados not corn oil). In fact, the lack of fat intake may actually be one of the root causes of many of our health problems like heart disease and diabetes.
• Quantity does not equal quality. Buy the best you can afford, and be willing to spend a little more (although I’ve found that the cost levels out when you’re eating less).
• Train yourself to eat less by enjoying your food more, eating slower, putting less in your mouth per bite, and eating for sensory pleasure. Realize that portion size has grown 3 times what it was 50 years ago!
• Don’t eat mindlessly or be distracted when you’re eating by things like television or the computer.
• Incorporate wine into your diet in moderation.
• Don’t stuff yourself. Learn the often forgotten feeling of fullness with practice and patience. For example, eat half of what you normally would, and wait for half an hour. If you’re starving, you know it wasn’t enough. If you feel physically good, that is the feeling of being full. Practice identifying that feeling, and it becomes second nature with time.
• Try to get all of your nutritional needs met through whole foods rather than supplements whenever possible (there is an ongoing, raging controversy as to whether supplements actually have much benefit out of the context of the whole food from which they were derived. [Update: After reading further, personally I believe that they DO have benefit, but only the right kinds. Industrially produced, synthetic supplements are not only worthless nutrition-wise, they can be dangerous. Whole food multivitamins, on the other hand, are a proven source of nutrition. For the “real” thing, and to gain a better understanding of the issues involved, see Robin’s blog, Whole Food and More.]).
• Learn to cook, and make time to do it. We often say that we don’t have time to cook, but in reality in the last 15 years most of us have somehow made 2-3 hours time for other things like surfing the Internet. It is ultimately a matter of choosing our health as a priority.
• Make ethical choices in what you eat. Develop a relationship with what you put in your body, understand how it affects you, and recognize that your choices impact the environment. This is an interpolation of the French diet in a sense since it is not a conscious concern of theirs, generally, but in a world of genetically modified foods and questionable shortsighted farming practices, it helps you to identify “real food.” The French concept of the Terroir reflects a profound respect for the land that provides the good things in life - it is a principle that helps when trying to make wise choices.
• Don’t view your weight or your choices as a pass/fail situation. View it as a commitment to improving your life over the long haul.

All of these steps, for me, boil down to this: Eating real food in moderation simply works. It may very well be the solution to the French Paradox.

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I’ve had a bit of an accident.

Somehow, I have stumbled into an exercise routine. It’s like a tripped on a crack in the sidewalk and fell into a state-of-the-art elliptical training machine. I would like to say that I’m exercising because my tremendous force of will has caused me to make changes for the better, but the truth is that it has kind of just happened.

There could be worse things.

I’ve also started annoying the muscles in my arms, catching them completely by surprise (you’ll find out how at the end of this post - but in case you didn’t notice, the picture might be a gigantic clue).

As regular readers of Almost Fit know, I spend an awful lot of time talking about how I want to exercise regularly. I have posted numerous questions on sites all over the place asking for methods of finding inspiration to get out the door, and for quite some time I would feel enthused for the evening, but for some reason I wasn’t making it out the door the next morning.

Eating my own Dog Food

In software (and many other industries, actually) we have this concept of “eating your own dog food”, or various politically incorrect flavors (pun intended) of that idea. Essentially it means that you use the things you create. Pretty soon you hate the broken bits so much that you feel absolutely compelled to fix the dang thing (unless you work for the Microsoft Office team - in that case you just assume it is a character flaw of everyone who doesn’t like the way it works, and return to your insular pedantic bubble).

In my recent article on 20 ways to kill the fast food habit (which had 375,000 page views on Fox News BTW!), the first tip was very simple: Start small. So small, in fact, that it is impossible to fail. Well apparently I need to start reading what I’m writing (or eating that dog food), because that little technique had eluded me for the one thing I know I need to do more than anything else right now - Exercise.

That appears to have changed.

My exercise routine, or, “Slowly he turned…step by step…”

While I wasn’t paying attention, it seems that I have started walking regularly - not for the fitness mind you, but with the goal of mental clarity. I am in a big transition right now with moving away from my day job to pursue online projects like Almost Fit, and I know that exercise has to be part of that picture. In the past, exercise has always opened my view of things in unexpected ways, and I need that right now.

For the last couple of weeks I’ve been walking every other morning, sometimes shorter, sometimes longer. My longest walk was 5 miles on a busy two-lane country road near our house that made me sense that for the love of my wife, kids, and all things sacred I ought to find a different route.

[RANT WARNING: At the risk of offending a few readers…A little sidenote to Oregon drivers? Despite your much publicized pride in your driving ability, everywhere else in the country, it is common courtesy to move over just a tad when you see a 250 lb. father of two walking on the shoulder of the road (with the exception of Texas, where I don’t think it is required to move over for anything, unless you’re actually trying to hit it (D’oh - there goes my Texas readership…)). In my entire walk, not a single Oregon driver even so much as moved a foot over to give me a little breathing room. Think of it this way: you do NOT want to run into a 250 lb. sack of anything, much less a disgruntled unemployed writer (oxymoron?). All you gain is a HUGE horseshoe-shaped dent in your front end, and an earful of whining from an annoyingly witty chatterbox. </RANT>]

Now I know that this is still in the “not quite enough” realm, but it is a start. I think the key is I’m viewing it as just the beginning of reaching for bigger goals. Rather than being in a big hurry to run a marathon, I’m starting small, and hoping to build on those successes.

I must be doing something right

In the midst of writing this post, along came this article in my inbox this morning:

How To Go From Sedentary to Running in 5 easy steps

This is yet another exceptional piece from Leo at ZenHabits.net, who is off this week enjoying a second honeymoon with his wife. The great thing? I am exactly in the middle of step 1, and I didn’t even know it until I read this post. This gives me a roadmap to follow, and that is what I intend to do.

The other thing that has happened with exercise is J.D. at Get Fit Slowly has started a revolution of sorts - the 100 Push-up Challenge, which has folks coming out of the woodwork to give it a shot. I’ve started this week as well, so we’ll see how things turn out. If you want to know more about the challenge, definitely check out the 100 push-ups site.

My arms are already irritated with me, but I’m ignoring them. It’s tough love.

–

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This is part three of the series, “How I quit eating fast food”. If you enjoy this post, please consider receiving AlmostFit articles in your inbox. Thanks.

In parts one and two of this series, I described how I’ve quit eating fast food using 3 basic steps: Educating myself, Deciding to quit, and Acting on my convictions. In this final part of the series I’m describing the actions I’ve used to successfully break the fast food habit.

20 tactics to kill the fast food habit

1. Start out with a ridiculously simple goal - So simple that you can’t fail. Leo Babauta’s book, Zen To Done, (an excellent book by the way), highlights this concept. If you start out excessively simple, you can build on that success to reach your goals over time. Here’s an example: I first realized that soda, regular or otherwise, is bad for me for one specific reason: in the end, even diet soda simply perpetuated my desire for the stuff. I realized that I could easily give up soda if I wanted to - it never tastes the same at a fast food place anyway, and I always drink too much of it. It was simple and attainable. And the more I did it, the more “power” to change that I felt.

2. Treat the decision to quit fast food as a habit, not a lifelong commitment. The idea is to make it your habit to seek out real food, at the expense of spending time and money on fast food. It doesn’t need to be a lifelong political position. You want healthful choices to become second nature. That way when you do give into that impulse desire, which you likely will at some point in the future, you will not have “failed”. Take it slow, and be proud of your many small accomplishments that will lead to a bigger success of building a healthy habit of eating.

3. Make yourself as publicly accountable as possible. Blog about it. Tell your friends that you are doing it. Use that concept of peer pressure to your advantage by putting pressure on yourself to stick to it. Everyone you know should be shocked if they see you walking out with a weighted paper sack with an ever-expanding grease spot on the bottom where the fries are trying to dig their way to freedom.

4. Don’t buy into the “healthy alternatives” concept that fast food is trying to sell to you. This is basic marketing 101, and is one of the greatest “dupes” since the famous Roman campaign for the healthfulness of lead cups (OK I made that up - but it sounds plausible). The basic idea is to find any way possible to get customers into the store. That is the hardest part. Once customers are in, add-ons are the name of the game. Want that salad? Bundle it with a cheaply sweetened fruit cup and a large diet soda.

“And ya know, since it’s better for you, well, it is going to cost a little more. But that is the price you’ll have to pay for a “healthy” choice. . .”

Sound Fishy? It should. It is malarkey.

Let me put it to you this way: Using basic common sense - If Add-ons and upselling didn’t work, no one would bother to do it.The truth is, IT WORKS. The answer? Don’t enter in the first place.

5. Don’t enter in the first place. This deserves repeating (See the previous tip to understand why). This is hard to do, without question. It may take a while before you can make that a habit, but think of it this way: If you suffered from an addiction to alcohol, does common sense say it’s your best move to buy your groceries at the liquor store? It is common sense, no matter how we try to rationalize it. Believe me - I’ve tried.

6. Reduce your exposure to fast food advertising. This is going to sound crazy, but if you watch less commercial TV, you will be less inclined to eat fast food. Why? Again, common sense. Big Industry pays hundreds of millions of dollars a year trying to find ways of convincing you in a 30-second spot that eating their new sandwich will change your life for good, forever. And their tactics simply work. If you are exposed less, you will be influenced less. Exposed to more - influenced more.

That said, does that mean I have to give up watching Top Chef? I don’t think so. If you want to see who gets voted off the island this week, go for it - but DVR it if you have the option, and then skip the commercials. Of course, if you want to go hardcore, just give up TV altogether. It’s almost guaranteed you will be less influenced if you reduce your exposure.

Want scientific proof? It’s simple: Corporations are all out for one thing: MONEY. If gigantic ad campaigns, which mean repeated exposure, didn’t actually work, do you think they would spend their money on it? Trust THEIR money-making science - they truly do know exactly what they’re doing.

7. Be a cheapskate. Don’t confuse quantity with value, throwing your money away because it is sold to you as a “good deal”. Fast food depends on the idea that you will be foolish enough to believe that a big pile of garbage has more value than a little pile of quality food. Stick with the quality food. Learn to cook. Make enough for leftovers. Lather, rinse, repeat.

One other thing on being cheap as a method of motivation: Remember that when you eat a pile of junk food for $5.00, the one thing you are NOT getting is decent nutrition. Nutritional deficit may be the single greatest cause of all classically Western diseases. So in the end, you’re going to pay for it anyway. And in the mean time, the fast food CEO will be using his $18,000,000 dollar salary to eat excessively well at your expense. Read the rest of this entry »

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Editor’s note: This post is this week’s Friday Fit recipe. The idea is to try “real food” recipes that can be prepared on the weekend. Of course, each recipe can also be prepared during the week (that’s when I’m trying it), but with the hectic schedules of most, a recipe might be easier to try on the weekend when work is generally less of a factor. If you enjoy this article, please consider subscribing to my feed. Thanks.

With the school year coming to a close, we had the end of the year picnic last weekend complete with a parachute, hula hoops, and a pot luck lunch spread. In addition to being a great time for the kids, one of the best things about such events is to see the variety in familial food culture. Our instructions were to bring a dish to share, and to bring our own plates, glasses, and utensils, so as to cut down on the waste. It was a great plan, and left very little to clean up.

In our case, we brought sandwiches using some of my freshly made loaves of bread (Can you make artisan bread like this? In only 5 minutes?). Other offerings included Asian noodles, enchiladas, and pizza, all of which quickly disappeared. There were simply too many good things to try, but by the end it was very clear that the quinoa salad in particular was a huge favorite.

Quinoa - the often forgotten grain

In a recent blog post by Lisa over at Iowa Avenue (What is Quinoa?), quinoa was featured as a great alternative to some of the grains most of us are more familiar with. Quinoa is a popular gluten-free alternative for folks that are sensitive to wheat, and has a better nutritional profile than many of the more common grains.

Here’s a quote from Lisa’s article that really got my attention:

“Health bonus: Unlike wheat or rice (which are low in lysine), quinoa contains a balanced set of essential amino acids for humans, making it an unusually complete food. This means it takes less quinoa protein to meet one’s needs than wheat protein. It is a good source of dietary fiber and phosphorus and is high in magnesium and iron. Quinoa is gluten free and considered easy to digest.”

Lisa’s post at Iowa Avenue is an excellent primer on the benefits of quinoa and it’s history. It also includes a great Minestrone recipe. Well worth a visit.

Friday Fit Recipe #10: Gluten-free Summer Quinoa Salad

This recipe is a customized version of the salad we had at the picnic. Thanks to our friends C. and W. for the great recipe - it went particularly well with a salad made with organic greens from our garden, a light vinaigrette, and a roasted free range chicken, which was our dinner last night. It was excellent.

Ingredients

1 cup uncooked red quinoa
2 cups water
2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved
2 avocados, diced
1 cup artichoke hearts
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
2 tablespoons of pine nuts, toasted
2 tablespoons of capers, to taste

Caramelized onions:
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 thinly sliced red onion

Basic vinaigrette dressing:
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons fresh lemon or lime juice, with zest
2 cloves minced garlic
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Serves 4-6 as a side dish

Preparation

Bring the quinoa and water to boil. When the water boils, reduce the heat to a simmer and cook until the water is absorbed, approximately 10 minutes. When cooked, quinoa has a texture similar to perfectly cooked pasta, or rice. Strain and rinse well under cold water.

While the quinoa is cooking, in a skillet heat olive oil over medium heat and saute the onions until transparent.

Prepare the vinaigrette by combining the ingredients and whisking.

In a large salad bowl, toss all of the ingredients together, including caramelized onions and the vinaigrette.

To Serve

Serve cold or at room temperature. With very little to spoil, this would make an excellent accompaniment on a picnic. Couple this salad with fresh greens, chicken or fish for protein, and your wine of choice, and you have an excellent, healthy meal.

Options

The original recipe did not include the artichoke hearts, but we found that it was a very flavorful addition.

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Life, these last couple of months, has been a gel-filled stress-ball’s squeeze-frenzied nightmare.

Here’s a little something about me: As I’ve said before, when the pressure is on, simple carbohydrates are my lifelong addiction buddies - the ones I hung out with when I was younger and more metabolically advantaged, and in whose company I dove head first into the shallow end of the dietary trouble pool. Simple carbs are the overly accepting old friends that I have to avoid if I want to “stay on the wagon” with real food.

Some people take a walk with Lassie to regain their center of gravity; I on the other hand, tend to take a drive to Taco Bell, hoping that they’ve finally figured out the Holy Grail of fast food: the lascivious matrimonial union of sugar, preservatives, hormones, antibiotics, and dirt-cheap meat.

Pulling around the finely crafted drive-thru arc of asphalt and concrete curb that says, enter dear friend, but know that there is but one way out, I think to myself: “What sweet and savory surprise awaits me on the shimmering ordering board this time, my old corn syrupy compadre? Is it a newly-conceived melding of steaming hot “cheese-ish” sauce, oddly and excessively chopped ground beef-like meat, and powdered jelly donuts? All wrapped in a freezer-burnt artificially-colored tortilla? Maybe I’ll be greeted by the hearty handshake of yet another Blast flavor of soda-lovin’-in-a-bucket, calling my name when I roll up to the crusty drive-thru microphone?”

I’ll go out on a limb here: If there is one place in the world that can stick just about anything into a tortilla and turn disgusting into sellable, it’s Taco Bell. Believe me.

So have I given up this whole real food thing? Am I now indulging in mystery beef bathed in succulent cheesy goo? Say it isn’t so! Read the rest of this entry »

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This article features this week’s Thursday’s Real Food resource. If you enjoy this article, please consider subscribing to Almost Fit - it’s free, as always. Thanks.

In general, my children refused to eat anything that hadn’t danced on TV.” - Erma Bombeck

The next time you go to the grocery store, take a moment to look around at the products that happily await you. Everything from paradoxically happy cows to odd, stuffed toy dough characters try to engage you in a repartee over their intrinsic value in your cart (”hmmhmm!!!”). When I look at these shiny, colorful little packages from a marketing standpoint, one big question comes to mind:

How in the world do you make your product stand out amidst tens of thousands of other products in a single 42,000 square-foot megastore?

Open the food marketer’s little black book and one big trick will come tumbling out like a fish: “Healthy!” claims are one of the most effective means of getting attention. And these days, that contentious health buzzword Organic is on just about everything that doesn’t move. I imagine someone will soon invent Organic Tires or Organic Jet Fuel. Then again, maybe I’m too late. Read the rest of this entry »

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Welcome to Almost Fit. If this is your first time here, Almost Fit is about losing weight and improving your health by doing one thing: Eating Real Food in Moderation. No low fat this or low carb that, just eating real food for health, pleasure, and satisfaction. If you enjoy this article, please consider subscribing - it’s free, as always. Thanks.

“Plant carrots in January and you’ll never have to eat carrots.” ~Author Unknown

When you start to look at common thought on organic produce, one argument repeats itself over and over again:

“I’d love to buy organic, but I can’t afford it.”

I obviously don’t know everyone’s circumstances, so I am sure that this is true for some. But I would argue that in general if you shop wisely, prioritize your money toward being mindful of the power of food as a means of preventative health care, and don’t buy a lot of processed, prepackaged foods (especially boxes of foods labeled “organic” or “heart healthy”), it can be done on the important things.

As I mentioned in the last article on the subject of organic vs. conventional produce, it is a matter of the choices you make, and in particular where you feel the risks of life are greater. Eat organic apples because you don’t trust big industry with what you feed your kids? Or buy a car with a higher payment because it has better side impact ratings? Ultimately, it’s up to you. Read the rest of this entry »

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“All sorrows are less with bread.” - Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote

Most of us indulge a daydream or two about leaving our job behind when work is especially frenzied. Between punching out the widgets, making the donuts (ah, pop culture metaphors), or writing about what happens when you click “OK”, I have developed my own little Proustian escape mechanism. In fact, so developed is my fantasy, that I already have the language of the company sign worked out:

Metroknow Artisan Breads - over 1 billion served.

Original, eh?

I will admit it: I am a self-described addict of truly well crafted breads. This addiction to warm, crispy, wheat flour freshness was never clearer to me than when we went to Paris, where we ate anything that smelled good (without gaining a pound, by the way)