If eating healthy food is important to you, there’s a simple way to accomplish this. Generally, simple food is healthy food. Items that don’t have a long list of ingredients, nor a label to put that ingredient list on, are generally healthier. Lettuce doesn’t have a label that says “lettuce”. There’s no need for an ingredient label. While I was researching the cuisine in France, I found this principle in place everywhere I went.
Then, if you take direction from France cuisine, you can really assure you’re eating healthy food by practicing “terroir” (tare – waa). Terroir is a French term that literally means “earth”, but has come to denote all things that are produced locally to where you live. As it was explained to me, terroir is “the sun, the soil, and the love of the farmer”.
Pascale Mierve, owner of L’ Epicerie Fine, and multi-generational grocery and spice dealer explains terroir in such an elegant way. “You have to respect the seasons,” he tells me. “You should not eat a tomato in December, you eat potatoes in December.”
What France cuisine has taught me, and Pascal is verifying, is that eating healthy foods means eating not only what is grown or produced locally, but what is produced seasonally also.
The most nutritious, most flavorful items are the simple foods, those that come from within a few miles of your home and don’t have an ingredient label. Eating healthy food shouldn’t be the secret it is because if you eat local and seasonal, you’ll always be eating healthy. I hope that you will take the lessons that I’ve learned from studying France cuisine and begin eating simpler, fresher ingredients from your local farmer too, then you’ll know how to cook fresh.
Starting TODAY, you can cook healthier, better tasting food and STILL save money.
I agree with you 100% about using local produce and bring the best of it out at the end of all the making of the meal or the baking or just putting together a salad, or making jam or jelly or even fresh salsa from fresh vegetables. It is very open to what you can do with what you have.
Thank You
Hi Wendy!
A recipe is only one person’s OPINION of how something should be cooked, it’s not the only way.
The best cooks know basic methods and then use their artistic interpretation to make changes they desire.
Totally agree. There is no reason this country can not produce good healthy food instead of importing junk from overseas. Too much government intervention and favortisim, and allowing the manipulation of food is not the answer. Of course our 24/7 lifestyle is not good either,,we need to slow down and take the time to eat healthy, spend time together at the dinner table, and exercise. But it starts with good healthy food, and it’s out there in many places, we just have to take the time to find it,buy it, cook it and enjoy the benefits.
Hi Wayne!
I agree with everything you’ve said. It does take a bit more effort to find the best foods, but many people won’t take those extra steps.
If you really enjoy food and see it as nutrition and exploration, you’ll be at the farmers market.
If you’d rather eat fast food, convenience foods and snack foods, you don’t have to bother.
Something else the French have going for them is their incredible farmer’s markets – even the small villages often have regular local markets with a stunning array of produce. I can’t imagine shopping at a huge, brightly lit warehouse supermarket when there’s such an option round the corner. We’re doing better in this arena, but can still be inspired by french markets..
That’s what Pascal was saying, there MUST be a fresh food market near you no matter where you live. It just takes a little effort.
I’m at the point where the sight of industrial beef or waxed tomatoes at the mega-grocery make me nauseous.
Hi Chef Todd:
Another great video!
It reminds me that a Respect for Life, is a Respect for Food, is a Respect for Simplicity, and of course Seasonality!
Good/ Great Food Preparation to me is a reflection of how we chose to live and perceive our lives daily. It’s a reflection of Ourselves. It’s a Reflection of Our Culture, Our Experience.
🙂
Hi Chef Todd,
I couldn’t possibly agree more. I’m a huge advocate of working locally and we have so many more choices now than we did when I was growing up! I live in Chicago and this is my favorite time of year because there are fabulous farmers markets nearly every day of the week in a very accessible location. Every Thursday there’s one right outside of Daley Plaza and they even take the LINK card (food stamps) so people with lower incomes can still eat fresh, healthy food.
The “terroir” philosophy shouldn’t really surprise us – the only reason it does, as Americans, is that in the past 40 or 50 years we’ve really let “food science” take over how we think about what food is. Artificial flavors, preservatives, fillers abound, and the labels make health claims…in my opinion, beware any food in a box making a health claim.
We don’t know everything about why the body reacts to certain nutrients and especially certain combinations of nutrients. But we *do* know that the human race survived a long time eating food (actual food) in many different varieties…high protein low fruit & veg, high fruit & veg low protein, dairy-rich, low dairy, lots of rice, little rice, and we didn’t get obese or diabetic. The common thread is that people were eating food that was local to them that they raised or produced, that was in season, that they took care with and loved.
I highly recommend Michael Pollan’s Book “In Defense of Food.” I hope it will wake a lot of people up to supporting local organic and sustainable farming, and I commend you for doing the same in your videos and blogs as well. Mr. Pollan offers a mantra that on the surface seems simple, but it really requires getting a little more educated about where your sustenance comes from:
“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”
Thanks again for everything you’re doing. I love you man, in a macho he-man sort of way. 😉
I agree with you 100% Scott.
The advent of “fake” food has confused our bodies.
I’d recommend that everyone see the movie “Food Inc.”
Michael Pollan’s books and, in particular, “Food Inc.” changed my life.
It was a necessary change for a chef.
Interesting to hear this from a Frenchman just days after the news about the French announcement that they are going to begin mass-producing wines without regard for terroir. There’s also the other aspect (to continue using strawberries, as the video did) that a strict adherence to terroir and localism would mean that people in some parts of the U.S. would never enjoy the flavourful strawberries of New Jersey, let alone the mediocre strawberries of Florida or California. For that matter, some people would never experience strawberries (or apples or oranges or sweet corn), at all, if they only eat what they have available locally.
Very interesting. I have learned a lot about cooking and eating. Keep up the good work.
I have one over on you guys…I grow it, I bring it in, I wash it and I cook it. What is left over from the harvest is prepared in various ways and put in the freezer for use in the winter. As far as this “terroir” stuff…it’s called “gosh, just like they used to do it in the olden days.” There is nothing wrong with using out of season produce…you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to realize it isn’t as flavorful, but it can get depressing eating “roots” all winter long. I am all for eating “ground zero” and in season, but sometimes you would like to eat a fresh eggplant parmigiano in January. Don’t forget that that produce that comes in in the winter provides work for many Americans…from dock workers, to the intermediaries, to the plants that process it and to the vendors that sell it. There are two sides to every story.
Very interesting. I have learned a lot about cooking and eating healthy. keep up the good work.
Well said, Bella.
Thanks for the great contribution to the discussion.