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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