In my (apparently very domestic and I suppose boring to some) married life, I have become more and more enamored with cooking and cooking related topics and hobbies. One of my favorite things to do is to go grocery shopping. Mostly because we do this activity as a couple and have fun together as we trod through the aisles. Recently, our local Kroger has been remodeling. A process that seems almost complete as of yesterday when Christopher and I went for our weekly shopping trip.

Grocery shopping is a pretty organized affair, I make a list during the week of the things we run out of and stock up on fresh veg and fruit each weekend. The remodel has made an old store new, and it's very lovely as far as grocery stores go. The old corner section of organic food has turned into a beauty and health care section. The organic food has taken a more prominent place near the produce. And the bakery/deli areas seem to have expanded with a new cheese display and large olive and salad bar.

I use the deliciousness that I buy there to make even more deliciousness at home. Recently, I've taken up stir fry. A bit difficult since I don't have a wok and my largest pan is not that large. But I make it work, very carefully. My stir fry usually includes cabbage, bok choy, broccoli, carrots, and chicken. mmmmmmm.

Another new favorite is twice baked potatoes with a hot chili pepper sour cream sauce. The recipe includes butter, cheese, scallions, milk, salt/pepper, and something else I can't seem to remember. It's a bit long in cooking (baking potatoes takes about an hour or so), but totally worth the wait when it's done.

And, of course, Christopher fires up the grill regularly, usually multiple times a week. I'd pick his burger over a restaurant burger any day of the week. He's also gotten very good at glazed grilled chicken, fajita chicken, steak, and grilled salmon.

Not to brag, but I love dinner at my house!

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In a recent trip to the library - man, I love the library - I decided I wanted to find something from the non-fiction section to keep me entertained and interested on the weekends. As you can tell from the food posts, I'm very interested in healthy living. So, this is the area where I went to choose my books. I picked up The Hundred-Year Lie: How Food and Medicine are Destroying Your Health by Randall Fitzgerald.

Overall, I recommend this book. It is thorough, informative, and backed by dozens and dozens of reputable works cited. It is alarmist, no question; however, that is exactly the point the author is trying to make. And he succeeds.

Neither Christopher nor I have ever been just-take-a-pill kind of people. We both have to convince the other when it's time to go to the doctor. We both have to read up on the research available on the internet for the medication we are prescribed. We both have a general mistrust of medication. It was nice to read this book and have factual information back up our intuition. We will use prescriptions when necessary. However, what we will not do is go get antibiotics for every cold we may get when they will do absolutely nothing for our cold and create an environment for developing stronger bugs.

The main thesis of the book is that mankind is performing a chemical experiment on itself while blindly expecting objective government agencies to be its watchdog. Fitzgerald talks about the food industry quite a bit, but also takes his sword of choice to the pharmaceutical and medical industries as well as the bias, political agencies charged with regulating these. My one critique is that he uses a lot of animal testing to show how medications should have been pulled from shelves long before they were, but he then argues that animal testing is not a valid form of comparison to human reactions to chemicals. Granted that is a simplification of his statement. For more information on that, just read the book! ;)

What I like best about the book is (1) it's an interesting read with a relatively well organized structure (2) it uses recognizable evidence for its claims (3) it makes sense. I also can agree that, generally speaking, doctors and the community at large are too focused on finding one single chemical cure for a disease or one single cause for a symptom. Fitzgerald successfully discussing the hazard of such an approach and the benefit of looking at synergistic properties of drugs, foods, and environmental toxins. I also appreciate his nod to holistic medicine and traditional use of food as illness prevention.

I finished the book in one week, reading solidly only about two days. So it does not take a long time to get through its pages. If you're interested in this kind of thing, I'd say it's a great one to pick up.

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