healthy eating

Well, of course arugula is bitter! Wouldn’t you be, if the media decided to disparage you as a symbol of all things elite and effete? The right is relentlessly deriding Barack Obama as “an arrogant, arugula-eating, fancy-berry-tea-drinking celebrity,” according to ABC’s Jake Tapper.

To which Jon Stewart replied:

The Beltway loves to stew over Obama’s eating habits; Maureen Dowd squandered valuable NY Times real estate to pontificate about his daughter Malia’s chilling revelation to Access Hollywood that her daddy doesn’t like ice cream. And now, the Wall Street Journal’s speculating that Obama’s thin frame may be as much of an issue for some Americans as his supposedly thin resumé. The article offers man-on-the-street soundbites from folks who say Obama is simply too fit to be president. And his healthy food choices could prove equally alienating:

Apparently there are plenty of voters who deem a candidate unqualified to be Leader of the Free World if he’s too much of a wuss to clog his arteries with fatty processed foods and develop even a hint of a beer belly. Do we dare elect a candidate with a fondness for fresh salad greens? He might do something really radical, like heed the pleas of the Rip-Out-The-White-House-Lawn-And-Grow-Veggies lobby (see This Lawn is Your Lawn video above.) And then what? We’d not only have arugula in the White House, but all around it, too. The horror!

Drugs and guns are more readily available than fresh fruits and vegetables in some poor urban neighborhoods, and, if you think about it (which, sadly, most of us don’t), lack of access to healthy foods hurts a community just as substance abuse and violence do.

We enlightened—or, depending on your perspective, elitist--eaters in New York’s West Village clog up the aisles of Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s as we dither between the “minimally treated” local apples or the organically grown ones from the Pacific Northwest. But a few miles north of our Ethicurean enclave, folks are too burdened by the obesity epidemic and a diabetes rate that’s ten times higher than it is downtown to debate the merits of local versus organic. An apple a day of either kind might keep the doctor away, but it’s a moot point when you live in a “food desert.”

In neighborhoods from East Harlem to East LA, the statistics tell the same story; a shortage of shops and restaurants offering healthy food; a surplus of outlets selling cheap, high-calorie, low-nutrient convenience foods; and an alarmingly high rate of diabetes and obesity. Uber-capitalists crow about all our consumer choices, but where are the choices for these consumers, so ill-served that it’s literally making them ill?

Everyone from activists to nutritionists to farmers to politicians is trying to tackle this fundamental problem of how to provide people with more of those fresh fruits and vegetables the USDA keeps telling us to eat but doesn’t seem inclined to subsidize (unlike the corn that’s coming out our ears and every other orifice, now, and going into our gas tanks, at great environmental expense.)

But bringing these underserved communities more fresh, whole foods is a half-baked plan if you don’t follow through and show folks how to cook up all that gorgeous produce. That’s why I was so thrilled to find out about The Go Green East Harlem Cookbook, which Jones Books is publishing today. It’s a lovely little paperback packed with 68 recipes for wholesome comfort foods, it’s bilingual (English on one side, Spanish on the other) and it’s going to be given away for free to East Harlem residents at community events (the rest of us can buy it in bookstores or online for $17.95).

Wow, sounds like a real public service! And that’s because it is. The Go Green East Harlem Cookbook was produced by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer in collaboration with the non-profit Community Fund for Manhattan, who spent $54,000 to print 8,000 copies of the cookbook.

The simple, tasty recipes were donated by East Harlem’s chefs, community leaders, and other residents who wanted to share their knowledge and love of good food with the rest of us, and the equally appealing photographs are the contribution of a group of graduates from the International Center of Photography. The recipes were vetted by Integrative Nutrition, a school whose declared mission is to “play a crucial role in improving the health and happiness of Americans.”

They’re off to a great start with this book, which, in addition to dozens of recipes for delicious soups, stews, salads and other dishes, features savvy advice from Scott Stringer on his own culinary specialty—take-out. The Manhattan Borough President is the first to admit that he himself doesn’t cook, but Stringer’s “Top Ten Takeout Tips” for how to ensure that the food you’re eating is healthy even when you have to outsource your meals could be the most valuable resource in the entire book for those who can’t, or won’t, take the time to cook.

Other helpful advice includes dietary guidelines from a doctor and how to get your kitchen set up so you’ll have what you need on hand to whip up a batch of Sweet Potatolicious or Soulful Stuffed Sole. But though The Go Green East Harlem Cookbook is intended to inspire culinary novices, its easy-to-make, ethnically diverse recipes will appeal to anyone looking to cook fast, healthy meals built around fresh foods. There are dishes that include fish, poultry, or meat, but the emphasis is where it should be—on the plant-based foods that ought to be front and center on our plates.

For far too long East Harlem (like so many other inner city communities) has been an “afterthought for urban planners,” as Scott Stringer notes in the book’s introduction, and a “dumping ground” for environmentally undesirable projects. Stringer’s out to change all that with his Go Green East Harlem initiative, which also includes the creation of The East Harlem Asthma Center of Excellence, set to open this spring with a goal of reducing asthma hospitalizations by 50 percent within 3 years; a tree planting program that brought hundreds of new trees to East Harlem and provided a tree care workshop to teach neighborhood kids how to care for the trees; and a green building conference last fall that promoted sustainable development and renovation for less affluent neighborhoods.

So to all you cynics who think that government can’t be a force for good in the ‘hood, I say, get your hands on a copy of The Go Green East Harlem Cookbook. You’ll have to eat your words.

Bill Richardson’s “been on every diet.” Barack Obama’s trying to quit smoking—a wise move, but one that often brings an unwanted weight gain. Hillary’s perpetually dieting, as former White House chef Walter Scheib told Jon Stewart last Monday.

But the road to the White House is a perilous path filled with greasy spoon meet ‘n’ greets, beyond-the-beltway barbeques, and deep-fried fundraisers. As our presidential hopefuls set out to woo voters, they’ll be hard pressed not to pack on the pounds as they press the flesh.

The Democrats might want to steal a page from Republican candidate Mike Huckabee, the once-obese Arkansas governor who maintains his newly lean physique by carrying “a small cooler with smoked turkey, strawberries, apples, bottled water and diet soda so he won't be tempted by higher-calorie foods,” as the Washington Post reported a while back.

Forget about Romney, McCain or Guiliani; this kind of discipline proves that Huckabee’s the one to worry about. If he approaches the presidential race with the same level of commitment he demonstrated when he radically altered his own lifestyle, he’ll be a formidable opponent.

That’s why every Democratic presidential candidate’s campaign manager should run right out and get a copy of Nikki and David Goldbeck’s Healthy Highways: The Traveler’s Guide to Healthy Eating. Billed as “the answer to supersize, calorie-laden, high-fat meals,” Healthy Highways provides “keyed state maps and local directions” to “health-oriented eateries and natural food stores throughout the USA.”

Leafing through Healthy Highway’s pages, it’s easy to see why Governor Huckabee has to haul a fruit-filled cooler around in his homestate; the listings for healthy food outlets in Arkansas barely fill one and a half pages. The listings for California, by contrast, fill about fifty pages. New York has thirty four pages.

Other states whose listings barely fill a page include Nevada, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma and Wyoming. But there’s no need to whistle past Dixie; even most of the red states have a fair number of places where presidential hopefuls and their entourages can bypass the fast food drive-thrus and find more wholesome fare.

So candidates, enjoy an occasional slice of pie or a plate of ribs, but stick to your goals, and keep an eye on the scale while you’re watching the polls. The path to the White House has plenty of potholes, and donut holes, too.