Seven Days a Week

So, I'll be honest: I struggle with food quite a bit. I don't know where it comes from, and it certainly hasn't always been there, but I have terrible willpower in the face of food. If I'm at a party or buffet or if some food baddie has made it into the house, I just want to eat and eat, totally forgetting about all my beliefs around food. Even simply eating out can be a challenge: I have a tough time saying no to french fries.

Now, to be sure, doing this blogging and thinking more about where my food comes from has helped immensely. Having a set of criteria by which to analyze my food has helped keep my on track, to some extent. Even so, I find it too easy to slip back into old ways of eating absolute junk.

Weekends are the worst for me. During the week, I can be a total paragon of healthy living eating only whole foods and eschewing sugar. I feel so high and mighty on those days, it's really a little embarrassing. Then, the weekend rolls around and I find myself pawing through the cupboards in search of chocolate or taking seconds at the party buffet. It's a little Jekyll and Hyde-ish to tell you the truth.

So, my goal for the next few weeks is to make it a seven-day-a-week goal to eat better. Less sugar and white flour (which I'm already way down on). More water. Continuing the fruits and veggies. Less eating out and definitely less Starbucks. I can do it, I'm sure, and I'll feel much better about myself. My body still looks and feels great, but I need to snap out of the cycle of low willpower-bad eating-lower willpower.

Sorry this got so personal, but this has been a struggle for me lately and I want to surface it. I'm working so hard in the gym and I really want to see the results, and being so Type A, I'd like to get this one area of life under control.

So, if you see me out and I'm reaching for seconds at the buffett, I give you permission to smack the plate out of my hand!

Resurfacing

Things are starting to calm down a bit and I found myself with the urge to blog today, so here I am!

The good news is that since I've been taking my hiatus, I've really been sticking to the principles of healthy eating that I've learned in the last six months. It's really just become part of who I am and how I cook. I'm enjoying eating this way and I definitely feel better!

Several things I've learned in the last few months:

1. That, for all intents and purposes, I'm a pescetarian at heart. I'm barely eating any meat these days and when I do, it's fish nine times out of ten. Part of it is just not desiring meat, part of it is just not being clear on where it comes from.

2. That buying all organic fruits and veggies really isn't any more expensive than buying traditionally grown. I think the main thing is that we're not buying meat, which has shrunk the grocery bill.

3. That I can make a mean stirfry combining pretty much whatever I have on hand.

4. That I don't get tired of eating stirfy.

I haven't lost any weight with this new way of eating, but I always find the summer months difficult with all the barbecues and other events. Plus, even though I've been eating healthier foods, that portion control is still and issue and I have a huge sweet tooth. This is something I'm going to be focusing on in the next few weeks. Just in time for the holidays.

Speaking of which, we're coming up on Halloween and I'm trying to decide what to do about all the candy I know will be around. I'm of two minds about it:

1) It's only once a year, right?
2) Yeah, but only once a year still contains quite a bit of sugar, HFCS, and other things we don't need. Especially my three year old, who has energy in spades.

And not only am I conflicted in this way, but then I have to decide not only what to do for Lauren, but for the candy we hand out to trick-or-treaters. I have to do some thinking on this, but found one convincing article on the Spoonfed blog last week. More on this later.

Hiatus

Not that anyone is waiting with bated breath to see when I'll write next, but I figured it was only fair to go ahead and take an official hiatus. Things are getting crazy with work and I just can't devote the time to blogging that I'd like. I'll continue to read and cook good things, and I might pop in now and again to share things, but for now, blogging is on hold. Thanks for your support, and I'm sure I'll be back before too long!

Veggie Week suits me...

... and so it's turning into Veggie Two-Weeks! Jeremy is out of town again this week, which means that I don't have to worry about making things that he will eat. So, more veggies and whole grains it is!

This week has actually been a breeze. During the week, I just ate the stir-fry and eggplant parmesan leftovers that I had, and I had A LOT! This weekend was a bit of a test, with going out to restaurants twice. I was nervous I wouldn't find something to eat, or that I'd have to settle for something really lame. At the first place, I ate nachos that I had ordered without the chili, which aren't the healthiest, but boy, were they delicious. Today I ordered the Caprese sandwich and had them leave off the chicken and proscuitto. Again, delicious. Actually, both were way more delicious without the meat, I think.

I felt really great this week too, which adds to my enthusiasm about all of it. I just felt clear-headed and clear-stomached, if there is such a thing. I just find meat heavy. The only blockade I ran into was when I way overdid eating the peanut butter cookies Lauren and I made together: I suffered the most epic sugar crash. It really does affect your body badly, especially when you're not used to it! So, no sugar for me this week. As soon as I finish this cookie...

I ran across an article that makes me angry, one about a family farm that's being sold after 378 years. Essentially, the 11th generation of this family can no longer support themselves with this farm due to the proliferation of large factory farms and U-pick-type businesses, and so they are selling their farm that their ancestors have lived on since the 1600s. Instead of subsidizing the large farms that keep pumping out more and more corn (and therefore HFCS), why not support the little guys just trying to make a living? Sadly, the small family farm seems to be a dying art form.

Close Call

I am a stress eater. Whenever I get nervous or overwhelmed, I tend to head to the kitchen, or worse. I tend to eat whatever's closest and usually, the worst for me. I'm also a boredom eater to some extent, but I've managed to keep that in control by not having crappy food around the house. It's the stress eating that really gets me.

This week, we had quite a scare at home. Lauren had a febrile seizure, one triggered by a high fever. I spent Tuesday afternoon with her in the ER after a trip in the ambulance. She's fine, but took a little longer than I would like to come out of it and so the trip to the hospital. Once we got discharged and were headed home, I had a terrible, terrible urge to stop at McDonald's. I was starving and knew I had food at home, but really wanted to have something salty and bad for me. I was literally driving down the street to McD's and I had major second thoughts. I don't need the salt. I don't need the grease. I don't know where the meat came from. I don't need it. I thought all those things and still kept driving. At the last minute, my conscience won out, and I turned around and drove home. I felt good about that; I am making changes!

Veggie Week is going well. I'm enjoying the yummy things I'm eating and just feeling good about sticking with it.

Veggie Week

I'm back, trying to get slowly back on the horse. I'm finding that my interest in the topic isn't waning at all; it's really more that my desire to blog about it has waned. I think I need to cook something pretty and colorful and it'll be all love and excitement again.

Jeremy is out of town this week, so I've decided to go vegetarian while he's gone. I'm not a big meat eater anyway and I have a ton of veggies in the fridge, so I think this will be pretty tasty and easy to do. I'm also trying to stick to eating whole foods. Yesterday, I made a gorgeous stifry with onions, bok choy, purple cabbage, carrots, and celery with tofu that was heavenly. I had that over brown rice. Tomorrow I'm planning on making an Eggplant Parmesan that's really delicious and healthy. So, Veggie Week is starting off well!

One interesting development on the Lauren front: she dug in and ate some of the tofu yesterday as I was prepping it and seemed to really like it. She called it cheese. Of course, once I cooked it, she'd have nothing to do with it, but it was a start!

I've been continuing to read In Defense of Food and have been doing some good learning and thinking. I'll share that later in the week. Baby steps!

Putting my money where my mouth is

Last week I did something I was proud of. The main struggle I've dealt with along this new path is eating out or eating when someone else prepares the food. I'm good at sticking to my resolve when I'm cooking for myself and my family, but when I'm not putting the food on the table, it's pretty much a fail.

I changed that for myself one day last week. I was down in Olympia, working for the state superintendent's office. Each day, lunch was catered. It was delicious, but not always what I would choose for myself. After reading the chapter in Food, Inc. about the treatment of animals at the large factory farms, I was feeling disturbed about my choices with eating meat in my life. Not that I didn't know terrible things were happening to animals in our country, but I just shoved it to the back of my mind. I still do that to some extent even now, but less and less so.

Of course, after reading that, the next day there was flank steak available for lunch. I stood there and stared at it for probably 30 seconds before I chose not to eat it. Without knowing where it came from, I just couldn't do it. Now, that's just one time that I made that choice, but it's a start, right?

Also, the last two times I've bought eggs, I bought those that were organic and cage-free. Terrible things happen to chickens in large farm settings: beaks snipped off so they can't peck each other, living in tiny cages, standing in their own feces... chickens may not be the smartest creatures, but they deserve better than that. From now on, I will be making better choices when I buy eggs and chicken meat. I feel like it's one of those changes that are rather easy to do and is totally the right thing to do. Doing better for the Earth and its creatures (including my family and myself) is what this is all about after all.

Sometimes, it's better to be in the dark

On the heels of my post yesterday about not knowing what you're eating, I thought I'd write a little bit about what I've learned about food safety. This is definitely one of those cases where the more you know, the less you wish you knew.

All of this information comes from a chapter in the Food Inc. book entitled "Food Safety Consequences of Factory Farms" by Food & Water Watch. You can visit their website here. Yet another website that has way too many great resources to delve into!

The chapter starts with the almost obligatory information about the use of antibiotics in factory farm animals and how this is leading to more resistant forms of bacteria. Fortunately, it seems that the FDA is finally listening, as it has released draft guidelines for the reduced use of antibiotics in animals. I have to admit that my faith in the FDA is a little shaky given their track record of less and less oversight of an gargantuan problem of a food industry, but it's a step in the right direction.

They then move on to talk about Mad Cow disease and E. Coli. They're related because of what cows on these farms are being fed: corn and various animal products. Certain animal by-products are allowed in the feed of other cows in order to fatten them up quickly for slaughter. For example, "poultry waste", the material found on the floor of poulty barns can be added to cow feed. Also, cattle blood is allowed in the milk replacer given to calves*. These are risky, potential avenues for Mad Cow transmission, given that it is transmitted by eating the nervous system tissue of another cow. Unlike other food-borne illnesses, Mad Cow can't be cooked out of the food or by otherwise disinfecting the meat.

E. Coli comes into play because of cows eating primarily corn* which is not what their bodies are set up to break down. Both of these issues are especially troubling given the lax oversight by the USDA and reduced testing of animals for these bacteria.

The use of hormones (rBGH) is next. The entire story of the rBGH is still yet to be told, but it seems to have a clear link to certain types of cancers. It also has been linked to the increase of twin births in the U.S. which, while not necessarily a bad thing, makes me wonder what other parts of our reproduction are being tinkered with. Around 22% of all dairy cows in the U.S. are injected with rBGH, with a higher percentage of those in large herds (read: factory farms) receiving the injections. Canada, Australia, Japan, and the EU have all banned the use of rBGH and the FDA here only approved it after a single study done by Monsanto. Talk about the fox guarding the henhouse! The Food & Water Watch folks have this rBGH-free guide, written state-by-state so you can see which milk product producers in your area are rBGH-free. I'm going to have to take this list with me to the store, as I didn't see many of the big names in our area on the list. I have a feeling this may be tough to sort out.

*Pardon me if this gets ranty, but why in the world are we messing so with nature? Feeding baby cows formula?! Forcing cows, who are ruminants, to eat corn?! Simply because we can and we feel that we need to in order to grow the already oversized food business? Maybe this is just the mom in me, but the thought that calves are being taken from their moms and fed formula in order to a) fatten them faster for our consumption and b)use the milk produced by their mothers for our consumption makes me very, very sad. I think in pursuit of a faster-producing, more productive food system, we've tampered with nature in ways that may have some serious consequences.

More on this tomorrow...

Mystery food

Apologies for my MIA-ness lately. I got caught up in the festivities of the 4th, a nasty stomach flu, and more festivities with the family in Seaside, OR. An exciting life have I! We just won't speak of some of the things I ate. At least it wasn't a deep-fried Snickers bar like a certain husband of mine!

I've continued to read the companion book for Food, Inc. and have some thoughts on food safety that I'll share with you tomorrow, but an interesting thought occurred to me as I drove down to Olympia to work for the week:

Why do we so confidently eat foods when we don't know a) where they came from and b) potentially, what they even really are?

This thought occurred to me as I was listening to a radio ad for something called Beta Prostate. Essentially, it sounds like a pill designed for gentlemen to take when they're having prostate issues. As I was listening to the ad, I was thinking, "Why in the world would someone put something in their bodies when they're not even really sure what it is? Responding to this ad is the eating equivalent of buying some product out of the back of a comic book!" As soon as I thought that, though, I realized that we do that all the time. Really. All the time. How often are we eating something prepared by someone else? How often are those things first processed in some way by some nameless people in factories? Even if it's produce, how do we really know where it's coming from and who handled it? Or what was sprayed on it? It's been shown time and time again that the regulatory agencies that are supposed to be looking out aren't, so why are we eating with such confidence?

Even with all the things I've learned, I'm really not acting on it as much as I should. Obviously, it would be difficult to know where every morsel I put in my mouth came from and probably even more difficult to make sure it's all from sources I feel confident about, but there's certainly more I can do. I think buying locally and organically has been a step in the right direction, but there's more to it than that.

Another step I did take recently was to buy organic, cage-free eggs from Costco instead of our regular package. I'd still like to look at the company, but I'm thinking differently. Jeremy also didn't freak out about the price, which is good. Progress.

Just because it's organic...

Several times this week I saw references to an interesting story. Evidently, people (in this small study) think that organic also means low-calorie. Given the choice between organic and non-organic cookies with calories clearly labeled (and the same)and people chose the organic ones. They even said they'd eat more of them.

On first read, I thought this sounded totally ridiculous. It's like that old what weighs more: a pound of bricks or a pound of feathers? I mean, really, who doesn't know that just because something is grown naturally that it doesn't have a different calorie count?

Upon thinking about it, though, I can see how people do that. I certainly have been lulled a bit by knowing that I'm eating better. It's easy to get caught up in the whole pull of organic food and healthier eating. It's easy to feel like just changing to organic food is doing enough, but it really isn't. I need to be mindful not only about what is organic and what isn't, but what I'm making with those ingredients. Sticking with whole foods goes a long way, but it takes more thought as well. There's the big component, the change I've already undergone: buying different foods, shopping different places, using new recipes, and cutting back on several things. I feel like I've done that well. Then there's the small component, the part that I wrestle with: making those small day to day decisions, meal to meal decisions.

Take today for example: I have a whole fridge full of organic, healthy, delicious food and I even have a couple large sets of leftovers. What do I have for lunch with Lauren? A hamburger and fries at a restaurant. Ugh. I wanted to try this new place and it seemed like something fun to do with my kiddo and I ended up not making very good decisions. I need to find a way to wrestle down that food=fun, food=relaxing bent that I seem to have and make better small decisions. I have a couple of challenges ahead with a group trip to the beach coming up and then a week away for work in which I won't be fixing anything I'll be eating, so we'll see how I do. It's all about doing a little better a little bit at a time. That, and being a good role model for Lauren. That's key.

In fact, I seem to be making some headway on that. Tonight, all she wanted for dinner was applesauce and peas with milk. She ate every bite of a decent portion of each and then declared, "Mommy! I'm a good eater!" I still can't get her to try new things, but at least there are many healthy things that she's already eating. I'm proud of my girl.

How deep do I dig?

One big question I've had in the back of my mind as I've been doing all this learning is how far I go with this. I mean, I learned pretty quickly that organic food is better for our environment and our health in numerous ways and that eating locally when possible only deepens the benefit. I made some changes to my buying habits and our diet that reflect that new learning, but all the while, I've been keeping in mind all the other issues that go along with eating consciously. I just don't know how much I want to pursue them!

For example, the movie Food Inc. raises all sorts of issues about eating, including GMOs and agribusiness, food safety, and the safety of those working in fields and processing plants. I'm now reading the companion book to that film, also called Food Inc., and those issues are being brought up again and again. It's making me realize how much we vote with our forks, and I hate that I've been 'voting' unconsciously all these years. There was a powerful quote from Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation in the first essay: "I don't see any point in having heirloom, organic tomatoes if they're harvested by slave labor." That really struck me.

Of course, I have a lot more learning to do as I go along, about businesses and their practices. I want to make sure I'm making the right vote with my fork as well as making the right decisions for my family. Who knew that the simple act of eating could be so complicated? So I guess I'm back to the chaos from the clarity. It's not quite as simple as "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.", huh?

One thing that might help is that the FDA has issued draft guidelines for limiting antibiotic use in animals that are to be eaten. This is a huge step in the right direction!

What I've been eating lately

I got very absorbed in my first week of summer and managed to barely post! Part of my absorption, though, has been taking care of things around the house which includes cooking and eating good things!

I went to Trader Joe's last week to pick up just a few things for the recipes I was planning on cooking, but, as always, left with more than I planned! Their fruit just looked so good that I ended up getting grapes, strawberries, and blueberries. Add to that the cantaloupe, peaches, and pluots that came in my Full Circle Farm box, and I've been enjoying lots of sweet treats. I made a fruit salad and then demolished it in less than a day! Hot weather makes that cool, sweet mixture just call out to me.

In the last couple of weeks, I made the Veggie Burgers from The Great American Detox Diet, the Crunchy Chicken Salad Wraps from Weight Watchers, and a Kale and Bell Pepper Strudel from the Moosewood cookbook, all delicious. The strudel is a bit misnamed, I think, since it uses filo dough and looks much more like spanikopita. It was relatively easy to make, even with never having used filo before, and it was quite good. I actually had leftovers from that tonight. I coupled it with some Moroccan Roasted Veggies over bulghur from the Moosewood cookbook, which was delicious. Add some fresh cantaloupe, and it was a great dinner!

From Drop Box

One thing I've been struggling with and know that I will continue to this summer is all the celebrations and cookouts that come along with it. I agree with the commenter "Uncle Paulie" that said that you sometimes have to give into those cravings and really just enjoy what's in front of you. The problem is, I seem to crave it all and give into all of it! I tend to equate food with relaxation and celebrating, and need to be really mindful of that. It's an ongoing process, you know?

I am managing to be really slow in my reading which is very unusual for me, and so had to return In Defense of Food to the library. I'll put it back on my hold list and see when I get it. I also picked up Food Inc., which is evidently a collection of essays that are a companion to the movie. I'll let you know what I learn!

The state of nutritionism

I was reading Michael Pollan's book In Defense of Food last night and read something that really resonated with me. It's in the chapter that's talking about "nutritionism", how since the late 1970s, the U.S.'s food policy and the scientists that help create it views food as the sum of its various parts, or as the parts itself. How often do you see the words protein, carbs, and/or fats on the front of a food package? Those words are as critical as the pretty colors or the happy mascot to our buying, it seems.

The quote that really made me think is from Harvey Levenstein, that for the last century "...taste is not a true guide to what should be eaten; that one should not simply eat what one enjoys; that the important components of foods cannot be seen or tasted, but are discernible only in scientific laboratories; and that experimental science has produced rules of nutrition which will prevent illness and encourage longevity." It's like we Americans think that we need others to tell us how we should eat. Ridiculous! I for one want to eat what is enjoyable and the things that I know are good for me. I'm glad I'm doing all this learning, but I'm finding that I know more about what's good and what's bad than I thought. The hard work is just sticking with that!

Today when I was on the treadmill at the gym, a local tv show was airing a profile of Dave of Dave's Killer Bread. I've always seen Dave's Killer Bread at Costco and was able to try some at a friend's party, but never really thought about buying it. It's a little spendier than the others out there and I thought the brands I was buying were just fine. After seeing the profile today, though, and learning a little more about the products, I'm sold.

It turns out that Dave was in prison several times over the years for armed robbery and assault, amongst other things. He turned his life around and took up his father's trade, which was baking. He now makes these amazing breads that are all organic with as few ingredients as possible. Not only that, but they strive to make the breads in a sustainable way. The next time I buy bread, that's what I'm getting!

Chaos, then clarity

So my work year doesn't officially end until tomorrow (with 10 days worked in over the summer), but I have my sanity in enough check now to surface and post. It's amazing how a little fuller schedule can knock you off track!

I have to admit, part of my drowny feeling was due to all the reading and learning I'm doing. It just seems that the more I know, the more I worry about what I'm eating, the more I try to do about it, and the more overwhelmed I feel. Organic? Local? Vegetarian? Grass-fed beef? It's so much. I really identified with this post by my favorite blogger (warning: a little profanity and a lot of funny). Basically, I get on this empowered high and want to make and eat everything just perfectly, but that's exhausting and my resolve and energy start to crack, and then I find myself eating Hershey's All-Corn-Syrup Chocolate Nibs alone in the closet.

Okay, so not that last part, but you get what I mean. It's a lot to take in.

I found some clarity this week, though, when I picked up Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto (what's with the manifestos and the food movement?) at the library. I haven't gotten too far into the book just yet (I keep falling asleep again), but the simplicity of his message is really resonating with me: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

The gist of his argument is so far is that scientists and food marketers have made eating much more complicated than it needs to be over time. That the discovery of the micronutrients such as carbohydrates, protein, and fats led to people focusing on one more than the others at certain points in time and calling them out either as the enemy or our friends. South Beach Diet, anyone? He says we've gotten ourselves to the point where we're relying on those scientists, food marketers, and the occasional nutritionist to tell us what to eat when it's really quite simple: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. His argument is that if we will surround ourselves with great fruits and vegetables and other whole foods and try to prepare things our grandmothers would recognize, we'll be a lot better off.

I can buy that. (Literally.) It made me feel a lot more clear on what I need to do and what I need to focus on, and I think I can continue this. Whew.

A couple of resources for you:

I saw this extraordinary video on the Organic Authority feed on Facebook and just have to share it.

Also through Organic Authority, I found a link to the Environmental Working Group's top sunscreen recommendations. Totally no shock here, but it turns out that many sunscreens either don't protect you well or have harmful stuff in them, or both. Great. So, check out their recommendations. I've never heard of 90% of them, but I'm definitely going to check them out with my fair-skinned crew heading to the beach next month!

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In the tradition of the last week of school, I'm crazy busy with work and for some reason, all sorts of after-work activities. Things like going to the vet, I mean, not anything fun like drinks with friends.

Anyway, I just don't have the energy to post coherently at this point, and I don't even really have the energy to gather links to post. So, I'm going to take a break for a day or two, do some reading, and get back to you.

Cheers!

My Chemical Past

No, this isn't some rehab tale. Anyone who's met me knows I'm too square for anything of the sort. Like I've been saying, I've found my interests in learning about our food have been a sort of springboard into learning more about the way we live and how that affects the environment. Diving into the deep end, so to speak.

One thing I'm learning is just how much the companies that bring us all the products we just must have are polluting the earth. The BP oil spill disaster aside, it seems like every day there's a story in the news about a company paying fines of some sort or lobbying against regulation. And speaking of regulation, it's appalling how little regulation there is and how the EPA and other agencies really have no ability to stop many dangerous practices. I fear what we're doing to the world we're passing onto our children.

This especially hit home for me this week when I was doing some genealogy research. It turns out that much of my mother's side of the family worked for DuPont, the chemical corporation. Same for my paternal grandfather. They worked in various positions in the mills from the early 1900s to the late 1980s. DuPont is one of the big bad polluters I was speaking about above: it has been named in numerous lawsuits about pollution over the years. Searching for "dupont pollution" on Google brings back 865,000 results. Now, none of my family were in the R&D area and I certainly can't fault them for taking what at the time were very good jobs, but I have to admit it rankles a bit. Here I am trying to create a cleaner world for myself and my family, and my family history is intertwined with one of the worst polluters! Not that we knew then what we know now, but...

One concrete step I can take is to try to eliminate the use of unsafe chemicals in our home. I found this list today on the Rodale site that's a good starting place. I need to take a look at our antibacterial products first and then move on to the cleaners. The hard thing is that there's no way Jeremy would ever let me get rid of them, but I can certainly have alternatives in place when those run out. Does anyone have any favorite, good-for-the-Earth commercial cleaners or homemade recipes they love?

I'm also still thinking about alternatives to products that contain BPA, especially given this story about the prevalence of BPA in canned foods. Eden foods has cans that don't use BPA. I'd like to find them in stores so I don't have to order online. Another job for this summer!

On a non-chemical note, I have been a paragon of eating this week. Part of my success has been due to the cold turkey approach I've taken to sugar. I've realized that sugar is my gateway drug: once I have a little sugar, I'm likely to binge on other things. Another reason for my success is having a whole boxload of fresh veggies that need to be used immediately or they'll go bad! Funny how motivating that is. Finally, I'm motivated by the fact that I've been working with a trainer starting this week. I don't want my eating to undo that hard work. And, boy, has it been hard work. I thought I was in good shape, but apparently not so much!

Cold Turkey

As I've wavered in my resolve to avoid things that I know are bad for me, I've definitely discovered that I have next to no willpower when it comes to sweets. Especially chocolate and very especially chocolate ice cream. I've tried to eat them in moderation, but just can't seem to. I have a bite of something sweet and suddenly I'm craving, and indulging in, more. So, back to avoiding refined sugars again. It wasn't that hard before, and I just need to stick with it.

Tonight for dinner we had the Hearty Vegetarian Stew from the Weight Watchers Turn Around cookbook. This is one of our old favorites: it's so easy and delicious. It's #19 here.

From Drop Box

I paired it, sort of randomly, with a curried quinoa from the Moosewood cookbook.
Very easy to make, and quite tasty. The second Jeremy tried it, he said it reminded him of biryani, and I agree!

From Drop Box

Food Movement, Rising

I found this fantastic article about the rise of the "food movement" in recent years. The gist of it is a history of the food movement and some of the issues it faces today. I've been doing all this reading, and here it is, all summed up in one article!

A couple of interesting facts:

-"Americans spend a smaller percentage of their income on food than any people in history—slightly less than 10 percent—and a smaller amount of their time preparing it: a mere thirty-one minutes a day on average, including clean-up."

-"...the “hunger lobby” (those concerned about hunger and poverty) has traditionally supported farm subsidies in exchange for the farm lobby’s support of nutrition programs, a marriage of convenience dating to the 1960s that vastly complicates reform of the farm bill—a top priority for the food movement. "

It's an interesting read and would be a good primer for anyone trying to understand the movement as a whole.

As a follow-up to something I posted a few days ago: I found this article about health fraud in labeling. Several prominent food companies are called out for promising health effects that their foods don't deliver. This just goes back to my frustration that those that are supposed to be watching out for us, namely the FDA and USDA, aren't.

You may notice that I'm talking a lot here about the food movement in general and not so much about my own eating. Sigh. Let's just say that I understand how people get caught up in the convenience foods. I've been eating better than most, for sure, but haven't been cooking as much as I'd like. It's tough right now, with my busy work schedule. I'll be out of school on June 21st and I will be much better about all of this then. I need to find ways of balancing things and eating better when times are crazy; it'll come in time, I guess. I have some good things I'm planning on cooking this week, so I'll post pictures.

More about organics

I get a Runner's World digest in my email every week; I love their stories on nutrition and their training tips. I thought it was fitting that the top link I received today was 5 Reasons to Go Organic. It's written by Maria Rodale, author of Organic Manifesto.

The article goes into much more depth, but the 5 suggestions are:

1. Eat Nutrients, Not Toxins - I especially found this quote interesting: "They found far fewer chemicals in the children's urine the same day they switched to an organic diet—and a return to high levels when they went back to a chemical diet."

2. Protect Your Body - Did you realize that arsenic is commonly used in pesticides? I didn't! Yikes!

3. Get Plenty of Protein - This we knew, but it's emphasizing the fact that grass-fed, humanely treated animals are out there.

4. Solve the Climate Crisis - I thought this was unsurprising, but interesting: "In a study commissioned by PepsiCo, an independent researcher found the most significant component of the carbon footprint for Tropicana orange juice (a PepsiCo product) wasn't transportation or manufacturing, but "production and application of fertilizers."

5. Enjoy the Taste - Again, something we knew, but organic does not equal bland. In fact, I'm finding the taste to be better with organic fruits and veggies!

The below was posted at the bottom of the article and I thought it was really important:

What's Organic, Anyway?
How to decode the claims on food labels
By Joanna Sayago Golub

100 PERCENT ORGANIC
Must contain only organically produced ingredients and processing aids. These foods can carry the USDA Organic seal.

ORGANIC
Must contain at least 95 percent organically produced ingredients (remaining ingredients must be approved). Can also carry the USDA Organic seal.

MADE WITH ORGANIC INGREDIENTS
Processed products that contain at least 70 percent organic ingredients. Will not have the USDA Organic seal.

NATURAL
Term often refers to food without artificial ingredients or preservatives, but (aside from poultry and meat) no official standards legally define it.

As a follow-up to the study I posted recently about more obese shoppers shopping at the cheaper chain store like Albertson's, I wanted to share this blog post. I think the author makes a good point about people needing not only the time but the skills to be able to cook good, whole foods. I was also pleasantly surprised at the intelligence of the commenters as relative to many of the comments I see on others sites. There are some pretty diverse views there, and I saw a few that were pretty interesting. I have a feeling that this will be something for which there is no easy answer, but it's good that people are thinking about it.

Now that's just gross!

I pretty much have a cast-iron stomach and seem to be immune to most gross-out types of things. I dissected cats in Anatomy lab no problem, and happily watch programs on the Body Farm and other gross delights, usually while eating something. Suffice it to say I have a pretty high tolerance for the gross.

Last night, though, I read something that really, truly grossed me out. So much so that I swear my stomach actually turned over in disgust. Where did I find this gem of a fact? Organic Manifesto. Ready for it?

It comes from a section describing the cycle of chemical farming and how so many farmers end up in a cycle of debt with poorer and poorer soil quality and eventually smaller yields. Coming from a family of farmers, this made me quite sad. Even farmers that want to go organic can't, because it's too expensive to break the cycle of debt and difficult to break the relationship with Monsanto and/or Cargill, the companies that create the GMOs and the weedkillers that farmers need. Add to that that it takes 3 years to purify the soil to become certified organic, and most farmers don't do it. No wonder there aren't organic farms popping up more often!

That's not the gross part, though. That comes in a section about the products of the chemical farming, including the food itself and the waste from the farm. Are you ready for this?

"Most farm waste (including dead animals) is fed to animals or sold for fuel. Some farmers fertilize their fields with sewage sludge, or municipal waste. It contains human waste, which is contaminated by pharmaceutical drugs and cleaning supplies that have literally been flushed down the toilet, as well as industrial waste."

!!!

I swear, every unwashed grape or other bit of produce I have even eaten flashed through my mind in that moment. Why in the world is this okay? Why are we not only intentionally putting chemicals on our food, but growing them in human waste that contains other nasties? Is this some subconscious masochist trend we have going on? Because it seems to be working.

This latest nugget just once again reaffirmed my belief in eating organic. I need to know where my food is coming from and in what it was grown. The health benefits are great, sure, but it's the control freak in me that needs to be watching over what my family is putting in its mouths. I've abdicated responsibility too long and I need to wrest that control back.

This whole food business has gotten me thinking in a larger sense about how we're living and how we can be better stewards of the earth and of our bodies. I saw this article today about alternative food containers and I love them! I'm kind of an organization nut anyway, and these all look so pretty and neat. I've been suspicious of our Gladware for a while (even though it's better) and I think when that wears out, I may need to buy some of these.

In the comments section of that blog, there's a link to another blog with a wider look at living green. The quote “If every household in the U.S. replaced just one bottle of 100 oz. petroleum-based liquid laundry detergent with our 100 oz. vegetable-based product, we could save 460,000 barrels of oil, enough to heat and cool 27,000 U.S. homes for a year” really gave me pause.

Oooh... pretty colors!

I figured that since it's been a while since I posted that I need to bring a peace offering. So, I bring you some photos of food I've made lately.

This was a portobella mushroom topped with brie and sun-dried tomatoes on a bed of bulghur. I brushed the mushroom with balsamic and pre-cooked it a bit in the oven before adding the brie. I added a little Italian spice mix to the bulghur. It was all delicious!

From Drop Box

This was a great stirfry with tofu, red cabbage, kale, and asparagus. I served it over brown rice, and it was delicious. It just tasted so clean and healthy and good, and I'll definitely make it again.

From Drop Box

Tonight's dinner was Corn, Potato, and Mushroom Soup from The Great American Detox Diet. I randomly paired it with a Roasted Veggie Quinoa salad from the same book. It's one of my favorite recipes.

For the soup, I used red potatoes and cremini mushrooms. A wonderful, hearty soup for a cold Memorial Day Weekend!

From Drop Box

Here are the onions, carrots, beets, and parsnip all cut up and ready to be roasted.

From Drop Box

This is the finished product:

From Drop Box

I spent some time making a list of meals today and doing a little shopping. I'll post that tomorrow in the "Meals and Checklists" section. I'm using the Moosewood cookbook this time around, and I'm really looking forward to it.

Organic Manifesto

No, not mine. Someone else's. Because my pile of books became bigger than my reading time would allow, I had to return several of the books to the library. I've put them all back on hold, though, so when I have more time on my hands (e.g. summer) I can read them. One of the only survivors of that purge was Organic Manifesto: How Organic Farming Can Heal Our Planet, Feed the World, and Keep Us Safe by Maria Rodale.

I had heard the Rodale name because they're magazine publishers, but I had no idea just how important they have been to organic farming in the United States. Maria's grandfather started Organic Farming and Gardening Magazine and her father started much of the early research into organic farming. She and her late mother, Ardath, have continued that legacy and she has now written this "manifesto."

I can't go into too much depth as I haven't gotten that far into it. Not because it's a dense read or because I keep falling asleep reading it (okay, maybe a little), but because it's so depressing! I mean, the first two chapters are "We Have Poisoned Our Soil, Our Water, and Our Air" and "We Have Poisoned Ourselves and Our Children." See what I mean?!? And it's not just about the chemical pesticides and fertilizers we use on our food that then get into our bodies and the soil and water, it's about so many of the chemicals that we surround ourselves with. It's really making me think more about the antibacterial soaps, sanitizers, and other similar products in our house. We think the EPA and other regulatory agencies are protecting us, but that's not the case. They've changed their safety standards on certain products and have yanked funding on projects when it's clear the results aren't favorable. If they're not looking out for us, who will be?

I'm feeling that way about all I've learned, really. Agribusiness, marketing companies, and even our own government don't seem to have our best interests at heart when it comes to the food we're eating as a society and the products in our homes. It's really disturbing. I'm glad that I've started this journey and that I've learned so much, but I feel like I have a long way to go.

I found this list of "age-erasing" foods online today. I found it interesting and yet unsurprising that most of the foods on the list are ones I've introduced into my diet or eaten more because of what I've learned. The only one I can't do is yogurt. Ick.

Cause and effect? Or just correlation?

One of the things that stuck out to me in Food, Inc. was the statement that poverty is the greatest predictor of obesity. They really didn't go into the causes of that, but the film seemed to imply that it's due at least in part to the government's subsidies of corn and other crops. After I posted that in my notes on the movie, I had an interesting discussion with a friend about the potential causes of this correlation. Suffice it to say that there seem to be many forces at work.

In that same vein, today I read this article about pricey grocery stores and obesity. Basically, a survey was done of different grocery stores and their patrons' BMI. Whole Foods, one of the pricier stores, was found to only have 4% obese customers (BMI over 30). In contrast, Albertson's, the lower-cost chain, was found to have 40% obese customers. The article then gives the basic idea that people that shop at the pricier stores are more willing to buy more expensive, whole foods and are therefore thinner.

Because I am a masochist, I read many of the comments on the story. In the spirit of finger-pointing that is so prevalent in our society in this day and age, the commenters bounce back and forth between "It's their own fault they're fat!" and "The government/big business is making us fat!" without offering up any real insights or solutions. Not that I expected any treatises on maximizing health on a budget; I guess the average MSN reader isn't thinking about it on that large of a scale (no pun intended.)

As I said above, I think there are many forces at work here. Larger, cheaper chains like Albertson's do make shopping on a limited budget much easier. They have larger sales and lower prices in general. I can see that someone trying to feed a family on a small budget would do well to shop there. If poverty is a high indicator of obesity, then it stands to reason that a store with lower prices will see more people that are obese.

That said, people that are shopping at PCC or Whole Foods aren't necessarily willing to spend more money for the same exact product. What they're buying at PCC is usually organic and sometimes local. Plus, PCC has a larger selection of fruits and veggies than does Albertson's. So, the argument that it's just rich people spending more money on a bunch of conventionally-farmed celery doesn't hold water. Not entirely, anyway.

I do think processed food does have a lot to do with it. Processed foods are not necessarily cheaper than say some brown rice and broccoli, but it gives you the idea that you're getting a meal in a box and I can see how that would be appealing. Albertson's is rife with those products and all of the additives and fattening ingredients that go with them. On the other hand, PCC has less processed food, and that that it has tends to be better for you, with whole grains and less sugar. So, people buying there would be consuming fewer calories and fat grams, theoretically.

I also have to admit there's probably a status thing about shopping at PCC too. I honestly like being able to say that the potluck dish I bring is from there. It would make sense that people that seek out such status in their shopping would also want to have status in the way they look. Not that people that shop at Albertson's don't care about how they look, of course, but I've met a few people that shop at PCC and carry out their little reusable bag like it's a Coach purse. No one I know, of course. Just sayin'.

Anyway, it's interesting that they're looking at this. It seems like every day there are more and more such articles in the news. Obesity and the way we eat are always in the news, and I think that's a good thing.

Maybe I should be dressed as Ronald McDonald...

When I began this project, I had two major goals: 1) to change the way I purchased and cooked our food, both for our health and our environment, and 2) to expand Lauren's diet and move her away from the so-called "toddler foods." On count one, I'm having some pretty good success. On the second? Not so much.

I knew I had to start slowly, as forcing her off the chicken nuggets suddenly might be an incredible shock to her system. I figured that I would try small changes, like making some of her favorites with better ingredients. She would never know, right?

Wrong. Totally wrong. I started making the little pizzas that she loves with whole wheat English muffins, healthy tomato sauce, and organic mozzarella cheese. I thought they tasted really well, but Lauren disagreed. She won't even touch them, after the first bite helped her determine their impostor status.

So, I tried another tactic. I tried hiding some healthier things in the dishes she does like. I put flaxseeds in the peanut butter when she eats peanut butter and apples. Nope. She will eat them in peanut butter on waffles if I really try to hide them, but sniffs them out easily if they're not perfectly stealth.

Finally, I've taken the 1/3 approach. I've left her meals 2/3 of her old foods (which included a good dose of fruits and veggies in the first place) and tried to add something new. The other night, she has her regular chicken nuggets (and dip!) with mixed veggies and then I gave her mango with that. She tried a couple of bites and then mixed them in with the dip and put them in her milk, but it was a start, right? She hasn't been so kind to the other things I've put in front of her (quinoa, beets, kiwi, etc.), but she's being exposed to them.

I'm just trying for her to be willing to try new things at this point. Really getting her to move to a whole new diet, to be eating the things that we're eating is my goal, but this is a start.

The first taste is free...

I admit it: I'm slipping a bit. It just seems to be part of my personality that I will get a new project or topic I'm super passionate about, go full bore on it for a while, and then slowly let it go. I would be embarrassed to show you the number of unfinished craft projects around the house. Surely, some of you can identify with that. Right? Please?

Add on to that that work has been crazy busy lately and with the two half marathons I've done and the travel to them... I may have bitten off more than I can chew in terms of time and energy. My eating lately has been mostly in line with the principles I've been learning about; I've kind of been in survival mode with cooking and food prep. Not that I like admitting that, but there it is. I'm kind of a control freak if you haven't noticed.

This is something I care greatly about, though, and so I will persevere. I am continuing to plan healthy menus and cook the great, great majority of food at home. When I do eat out, I'm thinking carefully about what I'm ordering to make sure it's adhering to the principles in Food Rules. I plan only to be stricter with this this summer when I have more time to spend on it. Hopefully the learning and planning I do then will help me get through the more hectic times in the future.

Also, I had to return a couple of the books to the library unread since I ran out of time. As always happens to me, they all came in at the same time and I was drowning in reading material. Nice problem to have, though. I still have Bitter Harvest by Ann Cooper and have put the others on the hold list to come around again.

So, getting to the point, I originally wanted to make...

I was struck the other day by just how powerful the lure of sugar is for me, and probably for most Americans. I've been avoiding refined sugars almost entirely and using other sweeteners in moderation. While it was tough at first, I've adjusted to it and haven't really missed it.

The other day, I was at lunch with a couple of coworkers and they ordered Diet Cokes and on a whim, I did too. Drinking it reminded me of why I don't need it, but it did complement the meal (Mexican) nicely. What amazed me was how, instantly, I wanted more sugar. I wanted chocolate. I wanted more pop. I couldn't stop thinking about it and my body seemed to be crying out for it. It literally was instantaneous. I had heard that the Standard American Diet is essentially addicting and this demonstrated how true that is!

Not only did the effects last that day, but over the last two days, I've continued to crave sugar. I would kill for a cupcake right now. I don't like the idea that control freak me can be so controlled by food, but it's there. This is exactly why I don't keep that stuff in the house; I'd eat it all, all time!

Off to eat a piece of fruit to soothe the beast...

Protein intake check

In carrying on with the theme of protein this week, I decided to look at my protein intake for just a day. Since I read that most people get 4 or 5 times too much protein per day, I was interested to see where I fell in that. I was surprised at the results!

As a woman, I'm supposed to have 25 to 50 grams of protein a day (oddly wide range, huh?) For breakfast, I had my tea with milk (9g) and toast (5g) with peanut butter (1 tbsp.=3.5g) and flaxseeds (1 tbsp.=1.5g). I was shocked that my breakfast was already 19 grams of protein! I then had a cheese stick at lunch (6g) and the Thai Protein Salad with tofu (5.5g). For dinner, I had a portobello mushroom with brie (not sure) and bulgur (6g), plus a glass of milk (9g). So, just with that, I had had at least 36g of protein. That's with no meat and relatively little cheese or other major sources of protein. I can see how people overdo it.

Now, I'm not really going to change my intake, because I think it's fine with the running I do and for my lifestyle in general. I'm definitely not overdoing it. I was just shocked to see how quickly it added up. I will definitely consider my balance of protein to complex carbs and healthy fats.

A couple of news items of interest:

Someone on Facebook posted this article: 7 Foods So Unsafe Even Farmers Won't Eat Them. I was nodding along with these but am feeling a little panic at the canned tomato thing. I haven't yet found any non-canned tomatoes that are easy to store and use. Any ideas, anyone? (And yes, I know canning is an option. Just not a likely one for me.)

On a related note, I found this article "Pesticides on Produce Tied to ADHD in Children" quite interesting.

Checking In

I've been a little MIA the last week due to being just swamped at work with a big project. It's all done and submitted now, so I can get back on the blogging wagon. Not that I have a million followers of the blog, but I know a few of you are reading. Thanks!

I realized that though I've still been following the principles of The Great American Detox Diet, I haven't caught up on my reading! I'm in week 6, which is all about protein: how Americans eat too much of it, how dangerous some of the common sources can be, and what alternatives there are.

It seems like in society we're inundated with messages about getting enough protein. Just think about those milk ads and the whole idea of building strong bones and muscles. It is true that our bodies need calcium and protein for a strong body, but we Americans consume way too much of it! It's recommended that men eat between 30 and 60 grams of protein a day, while women should eat between 25 and 50. Most Americans eat between 100 and 120 grams a day, so well over twice as much as the recommended amount! Eating too much protein can have serious health effects, including certain cancers, asthma, and migraines.

Another issue is that our most common sources of proteins (animal products) aren't always the most safe. Many fish have high mercury content, which can be very dangerous if it builds up in your system. Cows can carry E. Coli, and chickens can carry salmonella. Many cows are treated with rBGH, a growth hormone to bring the cows to adult weight quickly. This hormone ends up in the milk and meat, and though long-term studies of this effects of this have not been concluded, it's certainly not smart to be adding unnatural hormones to our body.

In addition to the issue of protein, having too much calcium is bad. As I said, having calcium is necessary for strong bones and teeth, but too much in your system can actually leach calcium from your bones! How weird and counter-productive is that?

What it all boils down to is that people need to work on getting protein from non-animal sources. There are many yummy, healthy foods that are great sources of protein and calcium. Here is a great list of these sources.

Of course, now that I'm back, I will be off for a couple of days as I head to Spokane to run in the Windermere Half Marathon. I'll try to check in tomorrow, but I'll be back for sure Sunday night!

Outraged on behalf of cows

After eating a large piece of beef tenderloin Sunday night, I sat down to read the next section of The Ominvore's Dilemma. Big mistake. The section was all about feedlots and their effect on cows, and I immediately began to rue eating the meat.

It's interesting to think about, but humans used to only eat meat on the most special of occasions. The Easter ham or occasional steak really was something special; now, most Americans eat some sort of meat with every meal. To keep up with that level of consumption, this huge industrial complex has grown up to get the cow from the ranch to your plate.

I was surprised to learn that baby cows are actually kept with their mothers and grass-fed until they're weaned, usually before they're a year old. I had pictured tiny babies ripped from their mothers and put on lots very young, but that's thankfully not the case. They do get one blissful time on the ranch.

Once they're weaned, however, the story changes. They're trucked to a massive feedlot where they are fed roughly 32 pounds of corn every day until they reach their slaughter weight. Rough life, right?

Actually, it is, for a couple of reasons. First, as I've mentioned before, cows are not designed to eat corn. They have highly-specialized stomachs that allow them to eat grass; they're ruminants. Corn is much, much cheaper, though (Thanks, government subsidies), so down the hatch it goes. Feeding cows corn can cause them a multitude of health problems in their digestive tract and related organs. Officially, 15-30% of cows have an abscessed liver at slaughter, though the number is probably closer to 70%. Now, I've never had an abscessed liver, thankfully, but it can't be comfortable. Poor cows.

Their diet also includes certain binding elements and fats to get them to the weight and slaughter-ability that's so desired. What's really gross is that companies are allowed to feed cows fats of other animals, including cows. The practice was largely restricted due to mad cow disease, but it still does happen. We've turned the poor babies into cannibals!

The other reason it's a poor life for cows is the conditions of the pens. They live on a river of manure, which causes all sorts of infections, for which they're fed all sorts of antibiotics. (Which leads to antibiotic-resistance in humans.) The river of manure dries and raises a nasty dust that can harm their eyes. Terrible living conditions for any creature; it's ironic that we then turn around and eat them. You'd think we'd want better for ourselves and, consequently, for them.

Then there are a whole host of other issues that arise, whether it's the runoff from these plants that's poisoning local water resources and crops or it's that feeding cows corn makes them more susceptible to E. coli. And let's not even talk about the conditions in the slaughterhouses and the laxness of the USDA inspections and regulations. It's a wonder that people don't get sick more often!

It's important to point out that you don't have to become a vegetarian to do something about this. Choosing beef that is grass-fed is a huge step in the right direction. Many markets are beginning to carry grass-fed beef in their cases and you can find it in certain butcher shops. You can search using the Eat Well Guide to find local resources.

As for me, I'm continuing to work our way through the freezer full of cow we got from Idaho. It is all grass-fed, so I feel better about that. I'm not sure what I'll do when we've gone through it all; I'm just not convinced we need to eat meat. Stay tuned, I guess.

A Timely Topic

Unless you've been living under a rock for the last three weeks, you've seen the news about the oil rig explosion and leak in the Gulf of Mexico. 200,000 gallons of oil going into the ocean on a daily basis. That's 139 gallons a minute. I'm absolutely heartsick over this, and it's given me new reasons to work on eating better.

Originally, my reasoning for doing this was all about our health and welfare. Eating organically keeps pesticides out of our bodies and eating whole foods and more fruits and vegetables is just better for us. What I've found along the way is that eating this way has even bigger implications.

Nothing has brought this home more than the environmental disaster. The way Americans eat, our Standard American Diet, is hugely reliant on fossil fuels. Petroleum is needed to till the land, plant the seeds, harvest the crops, and transport it to sale. Then you have the fuels that go into processing and even more to transport to the store. Same for meats. The cows are born and raised to a certain age in one place and then transported to another to be slaughtered. The feed that helps raise them to full weight (corn) has to be brought to them. More fuels. The way we eat is making us more reliant on fossil fuels by the day!

Now, I get that unless you've growing veggies in your back yard, you're always going to be using fossil fuels. Eating organically and locally, though, helps to mitigate that. Ditto for eating seasonally. I've been doing better about the first two, but I need to learn more about seasonal eating.

Hopefully as this goes on, the media will help people think about all the things this oil is being used for in our everyday lives. I hate it that an environmental disaster is what it may take for people to wake up to this, but hopefully some good will come of it!

That said, I've been a little off the wagon this week. Between coming off the half, being sick, and J being out of town, I haven't done much cooking. Not much = once this week. I'm discovering that while all the changes I'm making are relatively small, I have to be really conscious about it and keep the focus on my eating. Next week, hopefully I'll be more able to do that.

Remember When Eating Was Easy?

Okay, so maybe it never was truly easy, but ignorance is bliss, perhaps? The more I learn about what we eat as a nation and the multitude of effects that diet has, the more confused and concerned I am. As my friend Marci said, "Sometimes it's exhausting to give a crap..."

Today's dose of irritation comes courtesy of the New York Times.

The first article I read was about the new growth of Round-up resistant weeds in our farmland. Basically, farmers have been using these "Round-up ready" seeds for years, ones that will allow you to spray a field with Round-up to get rid of weeds without affecting the crops. Farmers will do anything for a big yield, and this seemed just a gift from heaven. (Or Monsanto. Whatever.) Of course, Nature is smarter than we and has now begun growing these behemoth weeds that Round-up can't kill. Farmers are having to use even meaner, scarier weedkillers and old-school techniques of plowing and (gasp!) pulling weeds by hand. We've genetically engineered ourselves into a bit of a corner, haven't we?

I'm being flip, but it is sad that in our quest to produce more more quickly, we've messed with nature and it's fighting back. The even more ridiculous part is that we really don't need all the corn and soybeans being produced, so as I mentioned yesterday, we're doing all these unnatural things with the products. Hence the next article:

My second read is called,"For Corn Syrup, Sweet Talk Gets Harder". The gist of it is that corn syrup has gotten a bad rap in the media as of late and the corn industry is seeking to deal with that. For example, they're creating a new version of Hunt's ketchup that uses actual sugar, with a prominent banner on the bottle, I'm sure.

My irritation with this article was twofold. First, the article was one where I couldn't quite put my finger on what side the author was on, but I'm thinking they come down as not anti-HFCS, if that makes sense. There was an attempt to appear balanced, though it largely failed. They kept citing studies and quotes that say that HFCS is no worse than sugar. They also had more quotes of folks from the corn industry saying, "It's not us!!11! The consumers are just begging for it!!1!" (That's a direct quote, clearly.) Also, it's interesting that the header on the browser says "For High Fructose Corn Syrup..."

My second irritation is the underlying message. We are all so hung up on whether HFCS is bad or sugar is good that we're missing the big point: no sweetener is good for you in large quantities! Sweeteners have no business being in 90% of the foods they're in, much less in the quantities we're receiving. Instead of panicking over whether they should be eating Stevia or pure cane sugar or HFCS, people really need to just slow down, look at labels and really think about what they're putting into their bodies. If there's too much of something that's questionable, don't buy it! There are always alternatives. In fact, buying things that don't need labels (e.g., fruits and veggies) is always the best route.

Rant over. I'm going to go clutch my copy of Food Rules now and do some slow breathing exercises.

Thinking About Corn

Thinking entirely too much about corn, actually.

I'm reading The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan and am really enjoying it. It's a dense read and takes all of the reading strategies I have to get through, but it's a topic I knew nothing about before and I'm learning tons. Ha. Literally.

The first section I'm reading about is all about corn and agribusiness. Up to now, my knowledge of corn has been limited to having seen it on the way to my grandmother's house in Kentucky as a kid and knowing a couple ways of serving corn at meals. Through the learning I've done in the last month, I've begun to understand a little more just how ubiquitous corn is in our diets, whether it's in its whole form, in HFCS, or in the meat we eat. Not to mention all the myriad corn products in our food, like maltose and xantham gum. Not that I really get what those are still, but I do know they're corn-based.

What I've learned in the first section of this book, though, is just how much the U.S. government has helped create all the cheap corn and cheap corn products that are flooding our market. I'd heard of farm subsidies growing up, and understood that they helped farmers with the expensive business of farming. What I didn't know what just how much some products, namely corn and soybeans, are subsidized.

It turns out that the government pays corn farmers the difference between the price they can get for their corn at the grain elevators and what the national minimum price is. For example, if the grain elevator is only paying $1.10 per bushel and the national price is $1.84, the farmer will get a check for $0.74 per bushel they sell. Now, multiply that times, well, a lot and you can see how this adds up. What happens, then, is that farmers set aside more and more acreage for corn and try to get higher and higher yields so they can make money. So, while these deficit payments were originally supposed to help farmers and the supply at the same time, it's ended up hurting both. The farmers are going deeper into debt to raise their yields and keep up production and the supply is flooded, meaning we have way too much corn in the world and we have to find ways of using it up.

What this means is that the scientists are always trying to figure out ways of making corn into new things. Hence, HFCS and all the other corn derivatives are being produced and shoved into just about every product imaginable. Ethanol is being produced and being put into our gas for our cars. (Does this mean we're paying for it twice, with the original subsidy and again with the tax we pay at the pump?) Also, cows and other animals (think: salmon) are being taught to eat corn which isn't a natural process for them. So, your dinner could be made up of corn-fed meat, side dishes made with different corn derivatives, and brought to your table by trucks fueled by ethanol! No wonder they've called us Americans "corn chips with legs"!

Dinner tonight was Indian food. Jeremy is out of town and I'm getting over a bug, so cooking seemed like far too much effort. Back on the wagon tomorrow.

Running Naturally

This weekend, I was down in Eugene, OR participating in the Eugene Half Marathon. Great town, great race, great time with a friend... pretty much my nirvana. The only bummer was not getting to hang out with my kiddo, but she was with Grandma and Grandpa and really couldn't have cared less where I was: they feed her Mickey Mouse-shaped pancakes and therefore win.

Going into this race was an interesting one for me because I've been performing really, really well in my races lately and I was hoping to do the same here. My previous personal best in a half marathon was 2:14:something, and I'd had to walk a bit. My goal during this race was just to run the whole time and finish somewhere under 2:10:something. Well, the race gods were with me, and I ended up doing 2:01. And :17, to be precise. Wowza!

I'm going to go ahead and attribute most of this to my eating as of late and my eating right before and during the race. To be fair, I've been turning in better times since the beginning of the year and this little race series I did, but the times just in the last few weeks have really been above and beyond. I'm really starting to think that eating these whole foods and striving for the right balances of protein and carbs makes a great deal of difference.

I also was really careful about my eating leading up to the race, trying to make sure I had good complex carbs for energy and some protein to help my muscles recover. The day before the race, I ate my yummy oatmeal concoction and then had fish at both lunch and dinner with veggies and rice and bread. Oh, and a beer with dinner. :) (I'd really like to think that helped.) In the morning before I ran, I had bread (would have liked it toasted. Thanks, Best Western!) and peanut butter, along with most of a banana. I also was sure to hydrate really well. Feeling good, I went off for the race.

It's what I did during the race that was a bit different and seemed to work well. In the past I've used the various sports goo things and had Gatorade or whatever electrolyte beverage. In doing some reading on Runner's World, I saw a suggestion of trying honey instead of the goo. I did that on a few long runs, and I'm hooked. It tastes way, way better, is all natural, cheaper, and really does seem to work. It's lower in carbs than the goo, but you can just have 2 or 3 at a time. They go down really easily on their own, or some water is fine too. The only bummer is that the packets can be a little hard to open: I had to ask a spectator to open one for me in Eugene.

I also drank only water along the way and after the race, having read that the different electrolyte beverages aren't really needed unless you're a super elite athlete. Given that "super elite" is not a title I can put before "runner" in my context, I have been drinking only water and liking it. No artificial colors or flavors either, and certainly no extra calories.

All in all, this mixure of things I tried really worked, so I will definitely be doing it all again in two weeks for the half marathon in Spokane that I'm doing. Well, that and wearing my timing tag on my right shoe. I'm totally sure that helped as well.

Have I Learned Nothing?!?

Just when I think I'm making some good progress on learning more about nutrition and eating healthfully, I do something really dumb...

Last week at the 5k, they were giving out these little Bagelful things at the post-race snack table. It's a Kraft product and is basically a bagel stick with a filling inside. I went for the carrots and apple slices and so didn't pick it up, but Jeremy did. He showed it to me and I glanced at the ingredients label. There are about 25 different ingredients in this tiny little thing, most of which you couldn't find in the average kitchen. "Yuck," I thought, and went back to my carrots.

Jeremy evidently thought so too and didn't eat it. Somehow the thing ended up in the fridge. This morning, I had to feed Lauren on the run to daycare and grabbed it, thinking she would like it. Of course, I should have thought at this point, "If I didn't want to eat it, why in the world would I feed it to my daughter?" I was in a rush, though, and wasn't thinking and grabbed what was easy.

Lauren is smarter than me, though, because she took one bite a refused to eat any more. I kept offereing it to her, worried that she wasn't eating, and she kept refusing. Finally, I tried it myself. Awful! It was like mushed-up strawberry Chap-stick in a crappy bagel! No wonder the poor kid didn't want to eat it!

The thing is, a lot of people would have eaten it. A lot of people would have grabbed it on the go, like I did, and would end up eating it because they don't have any other choices available. Heck, a month ago, I might have eaten it and not given it a second thought. It's incredible how little attention we pay to what we put in our bodies!

One interesting thing is that's actually pretty high in fiber and low in calories and fat. Therefore, it would be low in Weight Watchers points. Now, I love and adore Weight Watchers: it helped me change the way I was eating about 5 years ago and lose 40+ pounds. It's a great system and can actually help people learn healthier habits. The one downfall of the system, though, is that a convenience product like the Bagelful is low in points and would perhaps be preferable to something that is healthier, but more points. I know I spent too much tme eating low-fat cheese that was basically oil product in order to save myself points. Now, of course, someone could be eating only whole foods on the plan and do really well, but the convenience foods are just so easy to fall into. Too easy.

I won't be around the next couple of days: I'm running a half marathon in Eugene, Oregon. We'll see if this healthier food for the last months pays off! See you soon!

Mindless Eating

I've been very busy at work these last few days and have been desperate to relax when I get home, so I've been spending a lot of time in front of screens. Television and computer screens, that is. I've been eating in front of them more than I'd like to admit, taking my lunch at my desk as I've been working and eating dinner at home in front of the TV. I've found myself not paying attention at all to what I'm eating, just mindlessly chowing down as I eat.

Through a friend, I found another blog that I'm just loving: Real Food is Good Food. She has wonderful, delicious-looking recipes and gorgeous photos of the process to make it all. I highly recommend it!

Another is Smitten Kitchen. Ditto on the recipes and the photos. I can't wait to find out some of the things I'm finding on these sites! Namely, Homemade Pop-Tarts. I've never wanted a pocket pastry so much in my life!

Our dinner tonight was a Thai Protein Noodle Salad from The Great American Detox Diet. I can't find a recipe online, but it had bean sprouts, tofu, rice noodles, avocado, red bell pepper, and a yummy dressing made with peanut butter, ginger, and soy sauce. I can't even tell you how good it was and exactly what I needed to prep for the race this weekend!

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From the Farm to the Table: A Story in Pictures

We picked up our second box of food from Full Circle Farm today - so exciting! I decided to take a bunch of photos to show you the bounty and what I did with it.

It's here!

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Oooh... look at it all!

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Oh crap. Where am I going to put this? Can you tell I just went to Costco?

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There's a little room over here...

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Posed veggies - Those are cremini mushrooms and arugula

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Gorgeous new citrus fruits, tomato, and avocados

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Dinner-making in progress. Note my compost bowl.

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My ever-present chef's helper with a spoon on her head, right before she was banned from the kitchen for not listening. Hiring a new sous-chef if anyone is interested.

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Cooking in progress with my pan already nearly overflowing. Those are roasted golden beets on the right for the salad.

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Finished arugula salad with roasted golden beets and radishes. I made a dijon mustard/caper/maple syrup/olive oil concoction for dressing that was surprisingly good.

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Finished, steaming chili with ground turkey, eggplant, zucchini, mushrooms, tomatoes, beans, carrots... pretty much as much as I could fit in there.

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So, there it is! A gorgeous, yummy dinner in just under an hour with lots of great organic veggies. The bean and veggie chili was one of the recipes in Food Matters and the salad was my own invention. Delicious!

Food, Inc. Part II

Here are the rest of the note about Food, Inc. There was just so much interesting material in that film! I definitely think it should be required watching for adults and kids!

The biggest predictor of obesity is income level. - As with many other things, this wasn't surprising, but was good to have pointed out. We have to do something about the subsidies paid that make the foods that are so bad for us so cheap and subsidize good, healthy foods and make them readily available.

1 in 3 Americans born after 2000 will contract early onset diabetes. In minorities, the number is 1 in 2. - Wow. Add to this the fact that this generation of children is expected to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents. What are we doing to our kids?

Many of the food processing plants hire illegal workers. The government cracks down on the workers, but never on the companies. - Interesting given the legislation just passed and signed in Arizona.

At the turn of the century, the average farmer could feed 6-8 people. The average American farmer now can feed 126 people.

Monsanto, the chemical company, has patents on genetically-modified corn and soybeans (GMOs). They have a team of investigators that prosecute people that attempt to clean and keep the seeds, calling it patent infringement. Farmers must continue to use Monsanto seed or face losing their crops, since few heirloom, pure seeds exist. - This was something I knew next to nothing about, but am prepared to learn more as I do all my reading. It's incredible the depths to which these huge companies have their fingers in the pie.

70% of foods in supermarkets has some sort of genetically-modified product. - So how do the other 30% manage it? Are they the fruits and vegetables only? Or do those not even count because corn and soy products are used as preservatives and industrial waxes? It's definitely a complex topic.

You'll notice above that I tried to use my photography to make something pretty rather than the slop I ordinarily produce. Hope you like it!

Food, Inc. Part I

I watched Food, Inc. last night. It was shown on PBS and you can still access it on their website here. I found it just incredible to watch and learned so much more about our food and food supply here in the U.S. So much of it was astounding to me and I feel pretty well informed already. So many Americans just have no idea what they're putting into their mouths and the mouths of their children!

Some notes I took and a little commentary:

The way we eat has changed more in the last 50 years than in the previous 10,000. - This wasn't a surprising fact per se, but hearing it really brought home the seriousness of the Standard American Diet. Why are we messing with what's worked for 10,000 years? Convenience? Taste?

The top 4 beef producers control 80% of the market. - Well, we know where our meat is coming from. Not that that's a good thing.

Many of the chickens “raised” never see sunlight. - This fact, along with the shots of the poor chickens in the poultry house made me sad. My heart just aches for mistreated animals and I wonder what it says about our humanity that we can do this to other creatures.

The chicken has doubled in size in the last 50 years, due to production needs. They go to full size now in 7 weeks. They grow so fast, their internal organs and bones can’t keep up and they can barely walk. - See above.

We eat 200 lbs. of meat per person, per year. - Now that's just gross.

Corn is being fed to cows to fatten them because it’s cheap and abundant, but cows are really grass-eaters. Mutant, more dangerous E. coli is formed by their eating this diet. Normally, grass would keep the E. coli out of their system for the most part. The runoff from our farms is contaminating other products, like spinach. - Now this fact made me nervous. I can make better choices, such as organics or buying from certain companies, but the lax USDA standards and inspections really are scary. I may think I'm making the best decision, but it could have terrible consequences.

The food regulatory agencies have often been led by the former heads of the largest food companies and lobbyists. - Being a history major, this surprises me not at all, but it makes me really sad. Really, really sad. Plus, it makes me wonder about other industries as well.

Kevin’s Law, which would give the USDA the ability to shut down plants with numerous failures of microbial tests, has not been passed in the 6 years it’s been in circulation. The lobbyists keep making sure it’s defeated. The bill is named after Kevin, a 2 ½ year old boy that died of hemorrhagic E. Coli. - See above. Kevin's story just broke my heart, especially since my daughter is not much older than he was when he died. It blows my mind that our government cannot regulate its own industries. Is the tail wagging the dog here or what?

I took so many notes that I'm going to have to finish up for today and give you the rest tomorrow. It was definitely worth my time to watch and I hope you will as well!

I picked up some more books at the library today, so be prepared for much more information! Man, my reading list has grown!

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The other day, I posted a not-so-great photo of the whole oat groats I had for breakfast. Though this is steel-cut oats, I fixed it the same way, with a little flaxseed oil, a tiny bit of milk, chopped almonds and walnuts and golden and regular raisins. This is Lauren's portion, not mine. Clearly, I hope.

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This was tonight's dinner: Walnut and Lentil Salad from The Great American Detox Diet. I can't find the recipe, but it has spinach, lentils, walnuts, sun-dried tomatoes and various oils and spices. Very filling and very good!

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Sneaky, sneaky!

Running has been a large part of my life for the last two years, ever since a friend asked me to join a relay race team. I never thought I'd be a runner, but I find so much enjoyment in pushing myself and doing new things. I also find it very relaxing and a great way to relieve stress. One major reason I'm doing this eating overhaul is to improve my running, and I'm finding that it's working! Ever since I started eating this way, I've been getting faster and feeling so much better while running. Of course, that's not the only cause, but it certainly helps!

Today we were at a 5k race, and they had quite a spread at the finish line: carrots, apple slices, 100% fruit juice, yogurt, water... it was great. And then, there was this cookie. I won't name it, but it has the word 'power' in the title and says it's "naturally flavored." Right. Here's the ingredient list:

Rolled oats
Rice flour
Corn syrup
Maltodextrin
Sugar
Water
Dextrose
Fractionated palm kernel oil
Soybean oil
Fructose
High fructose corn syrup
Nonfat milk
Flax seed
Honey
High maltose corn syrup
Brown sugar
Rice bran
Nonfat yogurt powder (cultured nonfat milk)
Natural flavor (what could that possibly be?
Cinnamon
Salt
Calcium carbonate
Soy lecithin
Titanium dioxide (added for color)
Ferric orthophosphate
Niacinamide
Thiamine mononitrate
Riboflavin

What a list for a 1.76 oz. cookie, huh? Especially one that's supposed to be marketed for atheletes! Notice the bolded words? All EIGHT of those are kinds of sugar! That little cookie has 3 teaspoons in it! It'll give you energy for sure, but then you'll crash and burn in an hour. How sneaky of them to pack the cookie with all that sugar! Most people today picked it up, didn't even think to look at it and just wolfed it down. No more of that for me!

Tonight's dinner was Orecchiette with Turkey Sausage and Broccoli Rabe. I couldn't find the exact recipe, which I got from Food Matters, but this is close enough. I added just a few sun-dried tomatoes and put in much more broccoli rabe. On the side, we made some green garbanzo beans that we found at Costco. We just put a little olive oil, sea salt, and garlic, and microwaved it for 2 minutes. Totally easy dinner and very yummy!