Back in August 2008 when I was in Portugal, I was trying to purchase some music on itunes. For whatever reason, it wasn’t allowing me to buy them from my computer in Portugal. I was in desperate need for something new to listen to on my runs. It was my husband who suggested I download Leonard Lopate to my ipod.

For those of you who do not live in the NYC area, he is described on the WNYC website this way, “Host Leonard Lopate lets you in on the best conversations with writers, actors, ex-presidents, dancers, scientists, comedians, historians, grammarians, curators, filmmakers, and do-it-yourself experts.” Rarely to my husband and I agree on things, but we both love Leonard Lopate.

I went back to itunes and subscribed to his podcast. While there, I also subscribed to This American Life and a few other awesome PRI shows. Easy peasy, melon squeezy.

When I told my marathon sister, she balked at the idea of running and listening to anything other than music, but on a slow run day, which is every run for me, Leonard and the others are great. Maria too now is a fan, as is my mother-in-law, as well as my sister-in-law.

Another thing about Leonard is that the man is prolific. So since I am not really interested in the Broadway interviews, I just pick and choose what I want to listen to. However, I am often surprised that something that I didn’t think would appeal to be turns out to be really great.

While out running a few months ago, I was listening to an interview with write Michael Pollan about his new book In Defense of Food. Some of the things he spoke of I had heard before, but there were so many things that I didn’t know. I knew I’d be buying the book. (WARNING: That happens ALL the time when you listen to the Leonard Lopate show, but the books are usually great.)

Since arriving in Australia, I have been giving a lot of thought to the foods we eat, especially the foods we feed our kids. I have also struggled with the amount of money we spend on food here. After listening to the Michael Pollan podcast I made a decision that I was going to try to avoid processed foods. It wasn’t just the idea of feeding my family healthier food, but also saving money. He makes the point that the further we move from the original state of a food, the more expensive it gets. i.e. Oatmeal is cheap, but as soon as you process it into brand cereal, it becomes more expensive.

I haven’t banned processed food from my house, and yes, we have eaten McDonald’s and Doritos since I made that call, but I just decided that as a stay-at-home mom I would try to make most of the food we eat myself.  I already cooked almost every dinner myself from scratch, but this meant a few changes like oatmeal rather than processed cereal at breakfast and my kids lunches would not be store bought fruit bars and rice wheels, but homemade fruit bars (easy recipe). I figure there are two advantages here: even in large packages fruit bars cost a $1 each here, whereas if I make them myself they are a fraction of that price and they are FRESH and yummy.

We also took a look at the meat we eat, which is very expensive here. I am still a carnivore, but we have certainly cut back slightly on our consumption. I can imagine the Portuguese having a very difficult time imagining a meal that does not contain meat (or fish), but we have discovered some great recipes (I promise to share them later) that even Lana enjoys.

If I sound like I am on a soapbox, that is not my intention. I just thought I’d share Lenny with the people I love as well as In Defense of Food, by Michael Pollan. For those of you interested in hearing the podcast it can be found here.