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About the Fresh Choices Cookbook

From the Kansas City Star

Be a good chooser 

Fresh Choices by David Joachim and Rochelle Davis (Rodale, 2004) ought to be on everyone's summer reading list. Although technically a cookbook with more than 100 recipes, it is the kinder, gentler version of Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation, a scathing indictment of industrial agriculture.

Choices explains in simple but verifiable terms why we should change our eating habits. Yes, the authors preach the gospel of local, organic and seasonal, but they know that this isn't always doable. So they offer some alternatives. For example, they explain which fruits are highest in pesticides levels (strawberries, Chilean grapes) and which would be a healthier alternative (California grapes, bananas, blueberries, kiwis). Seasonality isn't always the deciding factor; toxicity is. Thus, they also explain how to decrease exposure to pesticides and commercially grown produce. Eat the apple, but peel it first, they advise. They also offer alternatives to eating fish and seafood from overfished or dangerously polluted waters. Instead of Atlantic salmon, choose wild Alaskan. Instead of red snapper or swordfish, try striped bass. 

Essays are peppered throughout the book, covering topics ranging from “What is a Genetically Modified Food?” to “Protecting Children From Cancer.” Read a few of those, and the higher cost of pasture-fed beef and organic grapes won't make you feel apoplectic. 

The recipes are refreshingly simple: warm potatoes with mustard herb dressing; chicken and cheese enchiladas, made with pasture-raised or organic chickens; and mocha pudding cake. Given the risk of pesticides on children, the bulk of the recipes are geared for a child's palate. 

The topic matter can be frightening, but the alternative—contaminated food sources, the continued loss of small family farms, and the effects of pesticides on our food sources—is far scarier and deadlier. 

— Lauren Chapin/The Star 

From the Pioneer Press

Know what you're picking 
Tomatoes are ripe, and so is the time for smart food choices

Stephanie Fosnight 
Staff Writer Pioneer Press

If you're a tomato gardener, it's harvest time—time to start pulling those home-grown beauties off the vine. It's time at last to savor their delectable, red-ripe juiciness; time to slice them on hamburgers, dice them for tacos and cut them into your favorite salad.

But what if you can't get home-grown tomatoes?

For many home gardeners, home-grown also means organic. Yet those who buy tomatoes and other summer produce from the grocery store can't always find or afford organic fruits and vegetables.

"Fresh Choices" (Rodale Press, $18.95) is a new cookbook co-written by Rochelle Davis of Evanston. The book has more than just recipes, however. Davis is the executive director of Generation Green, an advocacy group that focuses on environmental toxins and children. So sprinkled in between the recipes are liberal servings of behind-the- scenes information about the food industry and the levels of pesticide residue found in specific fruits and vegetables.

The book is unique because it recognizes that not everyone can go organic all the time. The book lists which food products carry the most toxins and which carry the least, so that consumers can make informed decisions about what to buy organic. For example, while apples are a fruit with some of the highest pesticide residues, blueberries have some of the lowest.

Tomatoes fall in the middle.

"There's good reasons for buying organic whenever you can," Davis said. "You're guaranteed less pesticide residues and you know the making of it didn't add to other general exposure issues in our environment. If those are important values to you and organic tomatoes are available, then you should buy them."

"But," she adds, "if you're in a situation where you have to choose and make decisions, use your organic focus on the items that have the most pesticide residues."

"Fresh Choices'' comes with a pull-out shopping guide that lists the levels of pesticides in produce and deciphers labels on meat, dairy and grains.

"In the last few years, going to the grocery store got to be kind of complicated," Davis said. "We felt it was really important to help people become smarter shoppers and navigate around these labels and to deepen their understanding of some of the choices in the marketplace and its implications for health and public policy."

Home chef and cookbook editor David Joachim wrote most of the recipes, which tend to be easy enough for home cooks to attempt. There is a strong focus on healthy eating with whole grains and produce.

"Right now there's a lot of talk in our society about obesity, and eating fruits and vegetables is one of the primary recommendations made by the surgeon general," Davis said.

Though in the end nothing beats a plate of luscious fresh-sliced tomatoes, perhaps sprinkled with a bit of salt, Joachim also recommends the following recipes for using garden bounty.

From Kathy Lawson
Coordinator of the Healthy Children Project of the American Learning Disability Association

As a "cookbook reader," I must tell you what an outstanding resource Fresh Choices is and how enjoyable it is to read. The format is so engaging—presenting wonderful healthy alternative recipes when organic is unavailable as well as presenting background info on why we should go organic for each particular food group. I collect cookbooks and Fresh Choices is one of the best.