How to eat to save the planet (and live longer, too)

Every now and then I read a book that simply and elegantly explains something basic, something we should all know but might not focus on. Michael Pollan's new book, "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto" is one of those.

In 200 pages of non-technical prose, he explains what everyone should know about modern food. First and foremost, he says that most Americans eat way too much processed food -- too much, because it contains too many empty calories and not enough good nutrition.

Food manufacturers are constantly adding vitamins and fiber (or whatever the most recent health craze suggests) or substituting one fat for another until consumers just give up, read the big print saying "Heart Healthy" or "Lower Fat!" and buy edible food-like substances that are less healthy than the food your ancestors cooked before the advent of the "nutritional science" that guides the food industry.

Pollan cites studies showing that many of western man's diseases may be linked to a diet of highly processed grains, fat, high-fructose corn syrup and preservatives. Worried about diabetes, cancer, hypertension, stroke? Eat better, and you will probably live longer.

I agree.

I met Pollan when he visited Dartmouth College a few years ago, so I called him at his office in Berkeley, Calif., to talk about his book, and the benefits of gardening.

"Gardening can be a big part of solving the food-health crisis," he told me. He believes that growing some of your own food helps you to recognize the value -- and superior flavor -- of food grown by you, or by farmers close to home. You don't have to grow it all.

"People get discouraged gardening, and give up," he told me. "They go on vacation, the weeds take over and they quit."

We agreed that regularly weeding and judicious use of mulch will keep most gardens under control.

Even a few hours a week is sufficient for people to grow much of their own food. In his book, Pollan writes, "My own vegetable garden is modest in scale -- a densely planted patch in the front yard only about 20 feet by 10 -- but it yields an astonishing cornucopia of produce"

Pollan is not one of those preachy types that try to tell us what we should eat. But he offers some suggestions for establishing your own rules for eating, some of which are very clever.

"Don't get your fuel (your food) from the same place your car does," for example. He notes that roughly one-fifth of eating is done in a car, but that eating home-cooked meals with the family encourages better eating decisions.

He suggests that if you could go to the grocery store with your grandmother, you should only buy food that she would recognize as food.

He suggests reading labels. If there are ingredients you can't pronounce in a food product, you may want to avoid it. Or that if a food product contains more than five ingredients, leave it on the shelf. He is a big fan of cooking and starting with raw ingredients.

According to the U.S Department of Agriculture, all food is created equal -- organic or conventional. "But that is political, of course," Pollan told me. His book cites research showing that organic food is better for you.

Most conventional farmers grow the same two or three crops, year after year. Farmers use the same chemical fertilizers, year after year. Those fertilizers provide just nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, year after year. The micronutrients get used up, and food quality suffers.

Organic farmers and gardeners use compost and natural fertilizers to enrich the soil with all the ingredients needed to sustain life -- yours, and the plants'.

Pollan is a big fan of freezers. Freezing allows gardeners to save fresh produce -- home grown or bought at the farmers market -- when it is at the peak of its nutritional value, not after it has traveled for days in a refrigerated truck.

And freezing, he told me, is less likely to contribute to the diminished nutritional value of foods, as compared to canning. I have read elsewhere that many vitamins begin to breakdown at temperatures over 125 degrees. So the tomatoes that I freeze whole may be better for me than the tomato sauce I process in jars in a boiling-water bath for 45 minutes.

When I dehydrate veggies I set the thermostat on my Nesco American Harvest food dehydrator at 120 degrees to minimize vitamin losses. But any way you look at it, my home-preserved foods are better for me because they have no preservatives.

After you read Pollan's book, I predict you will want a small vegetable garden. Here's what I recommend if you have not had one in recent years: First, start small. Remove the sod in the sunniest part of your lawn, creating a plot that is just 10 feet by 8 feet. Plan on working in the garden half an hour every day, even if it means getting up earlier in the morning. You need to establish a regular routine.

Once you have removed the grass, (roots and all) add 4 inches of compost on top, and work it into the soil. That's hard work, so you can skip going to the gym for a few days. Use an old fashioned garden fork to turn in the compost. Then, when the time is right, plant a few vegetables that you really love.

Me? It would be three tomato plants (one Sun Gold cherry, one Jet Star, one Brandywine heirloom), some lettuce, three basil plants, dill plant, 1 parsley plant, a row of carrots, a few beets. Maybe a cuke and/or a zucchini. Mulch the garden well to keep down weeds. Water only after planting, or in drought. Harvest, enjoy! Being a gardener is not only fun, it's healthy.

Henry Homeyer is the author of three gardening books. His Web site is www.gardening-guy.com.