Wear clothes. Not too many. Mostly plant fiber, animal hair, or pounded bark.

Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto (Penguin, 2008) urges us, with humor and good sense, to "eat food, not too much, mostly plants."

Put that together with headlines like


Nalgene to nix BPA bottles due to consumer concern
(Houston Chronicle, April 18, 2008, 10:38AM)
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/5712126.html

and you have to wonder what's next....

Containers your great-grandmother would've recognized as containers.

Clothing your grandmother would've recognized as clothing.

Music your parents would've recognized as music....


What Michael Pollan writes about is hard to dislike - and encourages a simpler way of consuming food, simpler in the 'common sense' way, but not simpler in terms of obtaining foodstuffs. It requires intentionality, care and attention. And may pay off in better health, for you and the planet.

One enjoyable suggestion is to purchase food at local farmers markets and 'shake the hand that feeds you'. In Sonoma County, California, you can, for example, buy at farmers markets (in places like Healdsburg) organic potatoes from the farmer - the same potatoes you would be served at the French Laundry or John Ash restaurants.

Buying containers from the potter, purchasing coffee from the growers' collective, buying cheese at the dairy, etc., -- both a pleasure and good sense. Could living good also mean living well?