Last week I went to a wonderful lecture by Michael Pollan, author of at least two New York Times number-one bestsellers: The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food.

If you haven't read his books, I urge you to do so.  They are extremely well-written and witty.  Most importantly, they are eye-opening.

I suspect you, like me, are relatively careful about what you eat.  But Pollan's book In Defense of Food -- the subject of his lecture -- revealed how casual I have been about eating "food-like substances". 

Moreover, his simple wisdom "Eat food.  Not too much.  Mostly plants." is a call for sanity.  It certainly is a path to better personal health, but as importantly, this path is critical if we wish to take care of our planet.  He draws the dots on how everything -- and I mean everything -- is integrated.

If we're not taking care of soil, we're not taking care of plants, and this is the basis on which we feed our bodies.  Unless, of course, we're eating semi-edible food like substances with tons of additives. 

So, you might ask, how does this relate to giving?

One of the concepts we champion in our book is that it is important give money to charities. But even if you give 10% of your income to charities, you still have 90% to spend on other things.  How you spend this money can have an enormous influence on our environment, our communities, and our health. 

Right now, people on a Western diet are spending enormous sums on food that is bad for our personal health and bad for the environment.  Pallon's book shows how we can spend their money more wisely and benefit all of us.

Here's a link to an excellent interview with Michael Pollan: http://thetyee.ca/Books/2009/06/12/PollanGardenFresh/?utm_source=mondayh...