According to cookbook author Terry Walters, I’ve got a dirty mouth. No, it’s not what you think; I’ve been putting dirty food into it. All joking aside, articles like Michael Moss’ E. Coli Path Shows Flaws in Beef Inspection that appeared recently in the New York Times make a germaphobe like me lose some serious sleep at night. They also make a book like Walters’ Clean Food all too appealing.
Moss’ article follows the path of beef from the slaughterhouse(s) to one woman’s dinner plate in the form of a hamburger. That woman, 22-year-old children’s dance instructor Stephanie Smith, ended up paralyzed from the waist down as a result of a foodborne illness caused by the presence of the pathogen e. coli in that burger. If that’s not enough to put you off your lunch, the article reveals major flaws in the system that is intended to ensure that our meat is safe and shows why eating processed foods, like ground beef, can be a serious gamble.
Recent outbreaks of foodborne illnesses linked to spinach, tomatoes and peanut butter, too, underline the importance of knowing where our food is coming from and limiting the number of steps between its production and our dinner plate. And that’s really what Walters’ book is about. “Clean food” is food that is eaten close to the source and in a minimally processed form. The more processing and transport a food goes through, the more opportunities there are for pathogens like e. coli and salmonella to be introduced. In Clean Food, Walters also demonstrates how processing food depletes it of many of its nutrients.
Walters shows that healthy eating doesn’t require adhering to a strict diet, counting calories or grams of fat, or subscribing to a food movement like raw food or veganism. Instead, she provides a simple 5-point guideline: “Eat all the colors of the rainbow, all five tastes [sweet, sour, salty, pungent and bitter], a varied diet, locally grown seasonal foods, and enjoy your food at mealtime.” It’s that simple. Best of all, her recipes, more than 200 of them arranged by season (plus a bonus “Anytime” chapter), will appeal to just about any palate. Dishes like Winter Green Salad with Sugared Walnuts, Crispy Pears and Pomegranate, or Chocolate Pecan Pie are seriously tempting.
Even if you’re a lover of meat and dairy, you’ll hardly notice that the recipes are all vegan. It’s a fact not touted on the cover, or even on its pages, but it’s a stealth bonus for anyone trying to improve their diet through small steps. There’s no need to swear off meat or commit to a full-time locavore diet right off the bat. Walters makes it easy to make a few incremental changes that will leave you feeling better—physically, psychologically, and morally. I’m taking Walters’ lessons to heart, and believe me, I’m sleeping a lot better at night.
“Eat all the colors of the rainbow, all five tastes [sweet, sour, salty, pungent and bitter], a varied diet, locally grown seasonal foods, and enjoy your food at mealtime.”
That's interesting advice about the colors and the tastes. My diet is pretty heavy on the combination of sweet and salty with preference for the color red. Sounds like I need to diversify! 
