Affirming that our meat-centric eating habits fail to support perfect health, particularly when we eat industrially produced meats from animals fattened with grains instead of grass, respected food writers and researchers have begun advocating “a new geometry of the plate.”
Three examples:
Ellie Krieger at Fine Cooking magazine introduced me to the “geometry” term. She suggests devoting at least half the “real estate” on a plate to vegetables.
In this article and in his book, Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual, Michael Pollan offers three rules for good personal and planetary health: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” We’ll take “Mostly plants” to mean vegetables covering more than half our plates at mealtime.
In articles like this, and in his book, Food Matters, Mark Bittman advocates making big increases in the vegetable portions of our daily meals. Bittman tried eating “vegan till 6″ — eating only plant-based foods until 6 PM each day — and reaped the benefits of necessary weight loss, reduced knee pain, improved blood sugar readings, and no more sleep apnea.
Nothing could be easier in Kentucky right now than covering plates with mouth-watering vegetables and fruits. My Sunday supper plate, above, includes perhaps 80 percent vegetables: Elmwood bi-color corn, two varieties of our own filet-style green beans, pink oyster mushroom — technically a fungus, not a vegetable — and garlic scape pesto from Blue Moon. Oh, and I followed that plate with a generous serving of a fresh slaw.
Share what’s covering the “Plant Real Estate” on your plates now so we can inspire each other with ever greater vegetal wonders. So good for us in a state with unnecessarily poor health right in the middle of vegetable wealth.
For Savoring Kentucky email subscribers: Please go directly to the post to comment and share information about vegetables you are growing, choosing and eating, or other topics of interest to Savoring Kentucky readers.
This is Savory Kentucky Bite number 14 of 116 Savory Bites created in honor of the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
The concept of “eating a rainbow” of color nicely compliments the idea of changing the “geometry” of the dinner plate. And, the concept of “eating color” has caught on with my friends and students. Without getting into a tiresome and repetitive discussion of the value of vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals, people are getting it.
Such a good sensory/pleasurable measure. Thank you, Janice. Now I wish I had added the beautiful purple slaw to the photo!
The concept of “eating a rainbow” of color nicely compliments the idea of changing the “geometry” of the dinner plate. And, the concept of “eating color” has caught on with my friends and students. Without getting into a tiresome and repetitive discussion of the value of vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals, people are getting it.
Such a good sensory/pleasurable measure. Thank you, Janice. Now I wish I had added the beautiful purple slaw to the photo!