Eating Green; Cookbook Review of More-With-Less

http://www.worldcommunitycookbook.org/more/about.html

My friend Ashley recommended this cookbook, More-With-Less by Doris Janzen Longacre, to me last year. I didn't know what to expect, but upon flipping through the introductory chapters, I realized they were writing about how wheat is processed today and how horrible it actually is for us consumers.

An excerpt from the intro section Overeating Sugar and Processed Foods: "Since Roman times, bakers have been aware that flour stored for a few months becomes whiter and has improved baking qualities. But storage time increases manufacturing costs. Around the beginning of the twentieth century, millers discovered they could get these same effects instantly by blowing nitrogen trichloride (Agene) or chlorine gas into the flour as it descended the chute into bags. Agene was used for forty-one years, but discontinued after a 1945 study showed that dogs fed the treated flour developed hysteria. Chemical bleaching and maturing of flour continues in many places." 

This was surprising to me.

It's one of those cookbooks that isn't just a bunch of recipes, it's also a philosophy. First off, it's a Mennonite Community Cookbook. Secondly, they don't like all these processed, packaged foods.  Thirdly, it's about keeping meals simple and nutritional. I can get behind that. The main idea is to ensure that there's enough food for everyone in the world; we can help by being less wasteful.

It never would have occurred to me that a religion would have an opinion about such a thing, but it does make sense. The web site for the book flat-out says: "...it addressed the concern that North American [sic] were doing the opposite — consuming more and more food made up of wasteful calories and unnecessary packaging." These people were green before it was cool. :)

From the More-With-Less site:

• "Written to challenge North Americans to consume less so others could eat enough, the book has sold an astonishing 830,000 copies since its release in 1976."
• "A global food crisis in the early 1970s with food reserves at a “precarious low” created the impetus for More-with-Less. In the first chapter of her cookbook, Longacre writes that the “average North American uses five times as much grain per person yearly as does one of the two billion persons living in poor countries.”
• "Longacre wrote to MCC friends around the world asking for economical low-meat recipes that would help North Americans reduce consumption by eating less animal protein and fewer highly processed foods." 

The only down-side for me is that it's not very allergy-friendly. On the plus side though, if a dish is just vegetables, lentils, and a meat, then there's nothing I can't eat anyway. There are things I can substitute too--almond milk for regular milk, gluten-free flours for flour, flax-meal for eggs, etc.

On Amazon.com, it sells for $7 used. Not too bad for a whole philosophy...