Malto-what? An introduction.

This is not your typical eco food blog.

For starters, I can't claim to be a foodie/fervent cook/restaurant enthusiast, at least not yet. At present, I'm just an avid blog reader of people who can.

After a couple batches of pasta (burnt) and boiled eggs (golf ball properties), my parents decided that their young daughter was no budding chef and subsequently exiled me from the kitchen- a matter of public safety. There was quite a bit of self-exile there as well, since I started viewing food as strictly nourishment and calories-in/calories-out, and taste was sort of tertiary. I could probably find my way around a drawer of surgical equipment faster than a drawer of cooking utensils... Or, perhaps, confuse the two.

Secondly, I was never much of a tree hugger. I spent twenty-odd years in mainstream America, under the illusions that water was in infinite supply, diet soda was diet-friendly, and "yoga" was just another word for strength training. I had moments of clarity throughout my adolescence, but it wasn't until college (and Al Gore) that I started realizing what kind of mess we had all gotten ourselves into.

Anyway, as a recent college graduate and newcomer to the real world, I had reason to start fresh when it came to the kitchen. That could have meant learning a new recipe, but instead it meant becoming uncomfortably aware (read: outraged) of our broken food system and what it was doing to my breakfast. What were all these alien additives doing in my oat bran? Malto-what? Until Netflix suggested I stream "Food, Inc." instantly to my laptop, I had no idea the extent of it. When I surveyed those around me, I realized they didn't either; worse, they didn't care.

Enter a flurry of Michael Pollan books and related documentaries ("King Corn" is a good one). I realized that this was not a matter of staying slim and trim, or even protecting one's heart or cholesterol levels. This was a political, economic, and ecological disaster.

My friends and family don't want to hear me going off about commodity corn one more time, so this is my new outlet. Please join me as I figure out what the hell is going on in my food and the industrial system that put it on my plate, while learning to cook for the very first time- in the simplest, cleanest way I can find.