
It's organized in 4 parts: Fire, Water, Air, Earth. I loved all 4 videos, each about 45 minutes long, but my favorite was Air. Turns out, Michael Pollan and I share a love of sour dough bread making which is discussed in the Air segment. Here are instructions for how to make your own home made sour dough bread with whatever flour you want. I wrote about this in my blog entitled The Art of Dough http://www.enchantednutrition.com/blog/the-art-of-dough
I agree with Michael Pollan, that most people who think they are sensitive to gluten or wheat are probably actually sensitive to industrial yeast and/or industrial bread production, not gluten. Having said that, I don't think that people who think they are sensitive to gluten should start eating gluten, but I think it's an interesting point. Gluten free products are big business these days, and most of these products I see are junk, even the expensive stuff, or maybe I should say especially the expensive stuff sold in health food stores.
To be clear, I follow a low carbohydrate diet myself, but the way I have defined this for myself is not so much in terms of grams of carbohydrates but quality of carbohydrates. I think a slice of home made sour dough bread made with sprouted spelt every now and then is ok. I also think vegetables are essential, but perhaps not all fruits are ok and not without limits, to be sure. The advice to eat more "fruits and vegetables" in my opinion is wrong. It should be "Eat more vegetables and fruits." And in my opinion, fruit juice is a junk food, as I wrote about previously here http://www.enchantednutrition.com/blog/juice-is-a-junk-food
Hope you read the book or watch the videos. You will gain an understanding of how humans came to cook in the first place, and how we figured out how to make bread and alcohol, although it was probably alcohol first and then bread, according to Michael Pollan, and I have to say he is probably right about that one too.
Another reason why I loved the Air episode is, that it reminded me of my childhood in Turkey. I remember my grandmother making bread and giving it to me to take to the community baker to put in the oven. I also remember being sent to some neighbors who had a cow to get milk. I remember my grandmother boiling the milk and then putting it in the fridge, before she gave it to me. I hated milk and never developed a taste for it. I think my grandmother gave it to me, because someone told her it was a good thing. I'm pretty sure she never drank cow's milk herself.
The "Earth" video is also very interesting, as it deals mostly with fermentation. Cheese making and of course alcohol are the topics in this one. The cheese making part is especially interesting, as it deals with raw milk. Raw milk and raw milk products are a huge controversy these days. I hope to address this in a future post. For the time being, I hope you read the book or watch the videos. In the meantime:
"Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly Plants."--Michael Pollan