Yesterday whilst browsing trough New York's famous Strand Bookstore, Peeled Snacks founder and president (and my gorgeous wife) Noha Waibsnaider stumbled upon Real Food- What to Eat and Why by Nina Planck, a food thinker and enjoyer who actually is speaking tonight at the Strand.  Noha picked up Ms. Planck's book, plowed through it, and then passed it to me to peruse.

I'd be slightly understating it if I were to say that we agree with Ms. Planck.  If I may be so bold as to summarize her thesis, the way in which we grow, raise, and plan for the foodstuffs we eat greatly determines how healthy or unhealthy those foods turn out (much more so even than the actual preparation of a meal).  Today's food industry undercuts nutrition for the sake of a quick buck, but the long-term health and environmental costs of how most food is raised makes for a long-term disaster.

Check out her website: www.ninaplanck.com

She pays a great bit of attention to the science of farming, which we in our nice little Consumer-Packaged-Goods Society don't bother to mess with much.  In one juicy bit, she dissects the interplay between grass, flies, cows, and the chickens that peck at the cow patties.  It's a fascinating look through a microscope that we rarely tarry with, and I recommend her highly.

These days it feels like a lot of the sort of "Peeled Snacks Mission" is about consumer education- we're trying to impress upon potential customers why spending 3 dollars for 2.6 oz. of dried fruit and nuts is better than spending half that for twice as much weight in pringles.  So many people are trained to think that cheaper is better.  Since when did "Cheap" stand for American values?  Why is it so difficult for people to get past price to get to quality?

But I'll banter about that another time.  Poem for the Day:

The sun shines down onto dirt,

on the little clover seeds,

which grow into, you know, clover.

The gravely cow tongues pull up the grass,

and all those churning stomachs,

mull over every little grain,

grabbing all the good stuff, so much good stuff to grab.

The poop comes out- yeah, I said POOP!

and flies buzz around,

doing fly business (don't laugh- everybody's got business),

making little baby flies in the POOP.

Along comes the chickens, pecking pecking pecking,

eating up the baby flies, making their own

happy happy baby chicks.

All of this, and the sun, and the raindrops, and the poop,

falls back to the dirt.

We eat all the glory grown from this stuff,

then we fall, too, to the clover.