tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74086398882047737452024-03-18T20:09:30.069-07:00The Frugal ForagerAlternative eats and how to get them for cheap!Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger65125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7408639888204773745.post-75018842610992929412009-05-28T09:55:00.000-07:002009-05-28T10:07:50.088-07:00Welcome Back<center><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3134/2757386366_235b21bf59.jpg?v=0" /></center><br /><br />If you have come here from Polycultural, my old blog, welcome! I decided to start blogging again because I've accumulated so much new information. I stopped blogging at Polycultural because I moved to Europe and was so busy settling in!<br /><br />I have followed the paleo diet in the past for my health problems, but when I moved here I was healthy and felt invincible. Cue coffee, cake, and alcohol! After a few months, I got pretty sick and took NSAIDs again. My stomach problems came back with a vengeance. <br /><br />Unfortunately, when I tried to go back to paleo, I found I was having trouble dealing with the standard fare. I started experimenting with raw plant and animal foods and I'm finally healing on raw fish, eggs (the country I live in salmonella-free!), wild greens, and berries. It's been hard going back to square one, but I've learned so much about food in the process. I guess at this point I'm high raw, high paleo, with a few assorted things that are neither. <br /><br />I continue to work with sustainable ag, which makes me weird diet a little bit of a problem. I guess I worry about other people's reactions too much. In my own family I've converted my father and mother to a sort of paleo with great results. But at work I don't want to be seen as a meat-guzzling weirdo I guess. <br /><br />I'm living on a budget now and it will be even tighter next year when I move to a big American city for a volunteer position with a ridiculously low stipend. I hope to use this blog to spread nerdy health and evolution topics...and eating well on a budget!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7408639888204773745.post-22166636844926898572008-07-11T18:24:00.000-07:002009-05-28T05:23:53.019-07:00Priced out<a href="http://letters.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/07/11/magical_animal/view/?show=all">Reading the letters on an article at Salon about pork</a>, I came across this:<br /><blockquote><br />It's easy to talk about "meat should cost more money", when you are like Rebecca Traister and you can afford to live in an airy apartment in an elite neighborhood and order boutique meats to share with your chef boyfriend. It's easy when you are a singleton or a DINK, and you have six figure incomes and trust funds, and you eat at 4-star restaurants, and put tiny portions of expensive foods in your Sub-Zero refrigerator.<br /><br />It's not so easy when you are a single mom with three kids, or elderly and living on a fixed income. When you have to feed four or five hungry people, and the "precious pork bellies" from Niman Ranch costs $12.99 a pound, and basically it comes down to this: you can't afford meat at all. And look around people (especially if you live near a Whole Foods): it's not just chi-chi meat....once you get started on that, then it's precious heirloom vegetables and precious artisan cheese from heirloom goats and precious stoneground heirloom wheat bread baked in a special heirloom hearth oven...<br /><br />Pretty soon, there is nothing out there that is less than $22 a pound, and there is almost nothing that a family could cook and cheap inexpensively. Oh right -- except for lentils. As we all know, the poor should be eating lentil soup, every single solitary day of the week. It's so nourishing and cheap, and why, isn't that what the poor people ate in Dickensian England? Who wouldn't want to return to that scenario?<br /></blockquote><br /><br />The anti-"elitist" sentiment like the letter above and the vegans were all abuzz. This time I found myself siding with the vegans. The idea that not eating meat means eating crappy lentil soup is ridiculous. <br /><br />The truth is that recently I've been priced out of meat. I'm between jobs and I figure that if I can't afford good meat, I'm not going to buy it at all. <br /><br />And guess what? I haven't died of malnutrition, nor have I gained any weight. My food expenses have been halved even though I'm still buying at the farmer's market. <br /><br />Really though, my diet is far from Dickensian. Vegetarian fare has come a long way in the past decade, so instead of eating bland stew, you can eat a savory dal or spicy curry.<br /><br />Here is a better letter:<br /><blockquote><br />Maybe the key to enjoying humane pork is to cut back on how often you eat it so you can afford to buy it. Like a treat rather than a staple. You don't have to eat meat for every meal or heck, every day, or heck every other day.<br /><br />I was a vegetarian for years, and even though I eat meat now and have no quibble with those who abstain or who gorge on it, I can't help but think that though human beings were made to eat meat, we weren't made to eat so much of it. (Of course, there are exceptions based on geography, so I'll say Americans weren't made to eat meat every day.)<br /><br />When my mom was growing up in the South, they used smoked hamhocks, bacon, fatback, etc. to season all of their greens, turnips, etc. They'd cook some cornbread and that was all they had for dinner; no seperate steak or pork chop. For lunch it was biscuits and drippings (don't ask.) And those hearty breakfasts you hear so much about? Well, they certainly didn't have bacon, eggs, sausauge, biscuits, gravy, grits, etc., every day of the week.<br /><br />And they weren't weak or protein starved, even though they didn't get to actually eat a pork chop or rack of ribs or a steak every day. They ate, if lucky, one serving of meat a day, more like flavoring, and they were thankful for it because if they didn't slaughter the animal outright, they had to butcher and clean it. Ham and pork belly and pigs feet were treats, not daily staples. (mmm, pigs feet. I don't know why I love them so much, but I do.)<br /><br />Unfortunately, nowadays, factory farming has made meat so cheap you can afford to eat those huge down home Southern meals everyday. And its killing us. There's this great Boondocks episode about this.<br /></blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7408639888204773745.post-68149802758000284792008-06-21T13:03:00.000-07:002009-05-28T05:23:53.039-07:00Get Toasted<a href="http://aveceric.com/">Chef Eric Ripert's blog Avec Eric</a> has fantastic recipes for the much neglected toaster oven. These days I'm loving toaster ovens because who wants to fire up a giant regular oven and heat up your home to make a panini or something simple? A toaster oven is energy efficient and simple to use!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7408639888204773745.post-29183073278160375052008-06-20T13:19:00.000-07:002009-05-28T05:23:53.045-07:00Rise of the pawpaw?If the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/18/opinion/18koeppel.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin">Banana is doomed</a>, maybe we should turn to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawpaw">Prairie Banana</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7408639888204773745.post-12959334170767953472008-06-18T12:41:00.000-07:002009-05-28T05:23:53.050-07:00Re-Indigenizing Our Diets II<a href="http://polycultural.blogspot.com/2008/06/re-indigenizing-our-diets-i.html">Part II</a><br /><br />Knowing all of this, I started to become convinced that agriculture really was the worst mistake in human history. Our genes have changed very little since Paleolithic times, obviously the agricultural diet was pure poison to the human as a species.<br /><br />But that’s why my story has to once again veer back to a focus on Native Americans, who present a two-fold paradox, highlighted in Gary Nabhan’s book Why Some Like it Hot. First, for Native Americans, many modern foods are not just unhealthy like they are for Europeans, they are downright toxic. This highlights the fact that the “very little” gene change still matters. Second, most Native Americans had already adopted agriculture before contact with Europeans, yet few of these agricultural civilizations were teeming with the misery blamed on agriculture.<br /><br />In fact, comparisons of Native Americans agriculturalist with their hunter-gatherer counterparts show that their indicators of health, from obesity levels to cardiovascular health, are remarkably similar. Overall, Native American agricultural diets deviate very little from the nutritional precepts of the Paleolithic diet. Growing crops for thousands of years allowed them to adjust the diet to be more nutritionally fulfilling, such as treating corn with lime to release B vitamins and pairing it with beans to provide complete amino acids.<br /><br />Another striking point is that the pictures of healthy teeth in Weston Price’s study included Peruvian potato farmers and milk-drinking Masai. Neither do farmers have a monopoly on bad teeth: cavaties show up in Sonoran desert foragers with a taste for sweet cactus fruit and Papua New Guinans who live among plentiful beehives. Native peoples aren’t being poisoned by agriculture, they are being poisoned by our agriculture, specifically, modern industrialized agriculture.<br /><br />In the Americas, several powerful agricultural civilizations rose to power and then abruptly died out. In Jared Diamond’s Collapse, he profiles the Maya of Central America and the Anasazi of Southwestern North America. In both cases, Diamond says the collapse was caused growing populations that had to rely on more and more intense agriculture, similar to modern intensive agriculture, which eventually led to the dooming resource degradation. Looking at the impressive ruins that these peoples left in their wake, we may be tempted to call them “great civilizations.” Perhaps they were great in some ways, but ultimately this greatness was short-lived. Contrast them with smaller agricultural societies that survived until colonization, and in some cases, still survive, and the failings of these “great civilizations” become apparent.<br /><br /><br />These successful agricultural civilizations were successful because while they embraced technology, they did not forget the land, with both its wealth and its limitations. Many of them continued to rely on wild foods, such as the Pima, who gleaned 60% of their food from agriculture in wet years, but only 20% in dry years. Others used a hybrid system, applying cultivation techniques to wild plants, such as the Karuk in California who used controlled burns to increase acorn yields and the Ojibwe in Minnesota who practiced intentional resowing of wild rice . Even cultivated fields were not divorced from the wild. In Mexican Tepehuan fields, Teosinte, wild corn, was welcomed because it often bred with cultivated varieties, producing offspring with “hybrid vigor.” Pima used wild peppers in a similar way and used other wild plants to shade their crops from the hot desert sun.<br /><br />Indigenous agriculture also relied on more varieties that modern industrial agriculture does. Much of our modern diet relies on only a few different crops like corn and wheat. Within these crops, we commercially cultivate only a few out of the thousands of varieties that exist. Different varieties, despite being the same species, not only taste different, but often provide a different mixture of nutrients and secondary chemicals, mirroring the diversity of plants relied on in Paleolithic diets.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7408639888204773745.post-81507105626276942392008-06-17T13:01:00.000-07:002009-05-28T05:23:53.056-07:00Food for thoughtI think obesity is a problem, but I think Japan's practice of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/13/world/asia/13fat.html?">policing it is frightening</a>. It's something to think about when considering government and health care. It might give the government a rationale to further tweak our bodies for better or worse. Considering the close ties between the food industry and government and the laughable piece of clip art that passes for a food pyramid...I think it's a reason to worry.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7408639888204773745.post-27068981235196686852008-06-06T20:03:00.000-07:002009-05-28T05:23:53.063-07:00New Pornographers + Slow Food<a href="http://www.chow.com/grinder/5692">@ Slow Food Nation</a>. Too bad I'm out of the country by then, but hopefully it there will be other Slow Food Nation celebrations in the future. <br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/bHWWWa8EvzI&hl=en"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/bHWWWa8EvzI&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7408639888204773745.post-68093717547406171042008-06-05T18:19:00.000-07:002009-05-28T05:23:53.069-07:00Re-Indigenizing Our Diets II was nineteen when I was diagnosed with my first ulcer. The doctor looked at my family’s medical history with dismay, noting both my parent’s struggles with chronic stomach problems and suggested I start taking medicine to counteract the acidity of my stomach and the cramping in my lower intestine. The following year was a battle between myself and my rebellious stomach. Despite subsisting on what the doctor’s claimed was the safest diet, a blame regime of bananas, yogurt, and bread, nothing seemed to get better. On a desperate visit to the college acute care clinic, the middle-aged doctor told me that his entire family had the same problems, and like him, I should expect to be on my medication for the rest of my life. Food became my enemy and the thought of dinner was one of dread.<br /><br /> I was no stranger to medical disorder. Like my mother, I had also suffered from severe asthma and like my father I had a congenitally misaligned jaw. I accepted these inheritances as my lot in life and thanked my lucky stars that I had been born in modern times.<br /><br /> The first inkling I got that I might not be so lucky was my sophomore year of college, when I was assigned an essay called The Worst Mistake by Jared Diamond. I had read several of his books, but I had never encountered such an infuriating idea. He dared to imply that agriculture, the foundation of all modern society, was a mistake. To me, agriculture was the mother of all I loved. It had allowed us to break free of our state of nature, which Hobbes famously called “nasty, brutish, and short.” Because of agriculture, Chopin had played his etudes, Michelangelo had painted the sublime Sistine chapel, Homer had written his epics…and I had my very thick glasses that allowed me to read them. I set out to prove him wrong.<br /><br /> A dramatic and unintentional experiment on the effects of modern agriculture is being played out right now. The subjects are the native peoples of America and while the results may be more exaggerated than what happens to the average person, they may hold the key to the disorders that plague modern society.<br /><br /> The most prevalent disease that accompanies civilization is sometimes simply called “Syndrome X,” a deadly cocktail of high blood pressure, high triglycerides, high cholesterol and obesity that is linked with heart disease and diabetes . In indigenous populations, this Syndrome X has reached epidemic levels. While it has also increased in the general population, the increase in indigenous populations has been much larger. Native Americans have two times the heart disease and seven times the rates of diabetes . It affects nearly every Native American population, from the Ojibwa-Cree in Northern Canada with the third highest rate of type II diabetes in the world to the Pima in the American Southwest who are the second most obese people in the world to Native Hawaiians who have twice the national level of heart disease .<br /><br />The end result of Syndrome X is type II diabetes, a disease of chronically high blood sugar . In a healthy person, sugar stimulates the pancreas to produce insulin, which leads to sugar being absorbed by the cell, but in a diabetic, but the process has stopped working because so much sugar has been consumed that the receptors malfunction. The sugar remains in the blood stream and in high levels it can become toxic. Even with treatment, diabetics can suffer from high rates of vision problems, kidney failure, cardiovascular disease, and in the worst cases, gangrene. On a visit to a Pima reservation, reporter Malcolm Gladwell described the carnage: 300-pound pre-diabetic teenagers, young women confined to wheelchairs, and middle-aged men dependent on kidney dialysis. In most towns in America the same scene of carnage is repeated, but typically only in homes and hospitals catering to the elderly.<br /><br /> The stark fact is that when Native Americans first made contact with Europeans, no such illnesses existed. They emerged only as their societies adopted western foods such as white flour and sugar.<br /><br /> Foods like white flour and sugar have been connected with disease in every society on earth. However, for Native Americans and other indigenous populations, it seems these foods are more toxic than normal. These foods were a product of thousands of years of agriculture in Europe, whereas as Louis LaRose, a member of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska, describes it: “we’re only two or three generations removed from picking berries, we were not designed to do all our hunting in aisles A, B, and C. ”<br /><br /> In reality, no human was designed for the modern diet. Humans have not changed much since the Paleolithic, when all humans lived as hunter-gatherers . It is commonly believed that hunter-gatherers live short, harsh lives, but science come to different conclusions. As I researched the effects of agriculture, I learned that studies of modern hunter-gatherers show that they not only obtain an average of 2116 calories a day, but they only have to work 4-5 hours a day for their food . While they are unable to accumulate possessions like shiny cars or ipods, disease is rare. Modern hunter-gatherers have usually been pushed to marginal land, so it’s possible that ancient hunter-gatherers lived in even greater abundance. In a seminal essay on the subject, Anthropologist Marshall Sahlins called it “the original affluent society,” challenging the notion that wealth is about possessions, instead connecting it to health.<br /><br /> Through bones and other human remains, anthropologists have been able to paint a picture of the diet humans evolved to eat and the effects of agriculture on human diet and health. It’s impossible to perfectly reconstruct the original human diet, but a few tenets have emerged. Scientists have concluded that the Paleolithic diet was low in sugar, high in “good” fats, high in micronutrients, low in acid, high in potassium, and high in fiber . Very few grains and tubers were consumed, and milk, eggs, beans, alcohol, and refined sugar were entirely absent.<br />Modern diet gurus often vilify certain macronutrients like fat or carbohydrates as “bad,” but hunter-gatherer diets were healthy no matter the composition. That composition varies from the Eskimos, who ate an astonishing 185 grams of fat a day, to the Yanomamo, who primarily subsisted on high-carbohydrate plant foods .<br /><br /> The food itself was the difference. Meat from a wild animal is not the same as the ground beef from a fast-food burger. Wild game is typical lower in total fat, especially saturated fat, which has been linked to heart disease . However, wild game is higher in the “good” fats such as omega-3 fatty acids. Recent science has shown that omega-3 fatty acids are vital in heart and brain health . Unfortunately, in the western diet, omega-3 fatty acids have literally been literally out-competed by their cousins, omega-6 fatty acids, which are present in high levels in seeds, a staple of western diets in the form of grains and oils. The receptors that process these fats work best when the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 is 2.3:1, but in the western diet the average ratio is 15:1. This explains why Eskimos, who still consume large amounts of seafood rich in omega-3 fatty acids now suffer from symptoms of omega-3 deficiency -- the fats in the new foods cancel them out .<br /><br /> Even the plant foods were different. Overall, more leaves were consumed than seeds. Some peoples consumed staple foods, but overall they relied on hundreds of diverse plants . The plants they consumed were rich in complex secondary compounds, which are known to affect genetic expression and metabolism Little is known about the effects of having a diet less rich in these secondary compounds we evolved to consume, but scientists suspect their absence is connected to diseases such as cancer.<br /><br /> Most sugar consumed by early humans was in the form of fruits, but fruits were also different. Wild fruits contain more fructose and glucose, whereas cultivated varieties contain more sucrose. They are also higher in fiber and those secondary compounds.<br /><br /> The dawn of agriculture 12,000 years ago left its mark on human skeletons. Agriculture developed independently in as many as seven places and archeologists who survey skeletons find that as civilizations increased their reliance on agriculture, their bone-health deteriorated. This does not exempt American civilizations. The Mayans heavy reliance on corn, a food that lacks important nutrients and impedes absorption of others, led to shrunken skeletons deformed from pellagra. At Dickson Mounds in Illinois, studies show that first farmers in the area had lived an average of 19 years compared to the 26 years their hunter-gather predecessors enjoyed.<br /><br /> One of the more dramatic illustrations of the effect of agriculture came from a paper by an intrepid dentist named Weston A. Price, who traveled the world in search of the cause of poor dental health. In his work, he juxtaposed pictures of traditional hunter-gatherers, smiling with straight white teeth, with those who had adopted “modern foods” like sugar and boiled potatoes, who had crooked jaws and blackened teeth. The changes happened in as little as one generation, squarely laying the cause on food, not genes. I started wondering if my crooked teeth were really all my father’s fault.<br /><br /><b>Some links, a full bibliography at the end</b><br /><br /><a href="http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200251h.html">Price, Weston. 1945. Nutrition and physical degeneration a comparison of primitive and modern diets and their effects</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7408639888204773745.post-315983298994687192008-05-29T10:38:00.000-07:002009-05-28T05:23:53.077-07:00<a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-foodlab26-2008may26,0,2275284.story?track=rss">Interesting article about food detectives</a>, but I found this part scary (emphasis mine):<br /><br /><blockquote><br /><br />A few years ago, they received a utility blade that a consumer claimed to have found in a canned tomato product. The case fell to Jim Charboneau, a chemist who has been with the lab for more than 40 years. Through the processor's records, he was able to determine that it had been packed and sealed a year earlier. The blade sported a few stains but still looked new. So Charboneau wanted to see what an identical blade would look like if it sat in a can of tomato sauce for a year and compare it to the sample. He put identical blades in different cans of sauce and sealed them. After a month, he opened one can and found the blade had etching on its surface. After two months, he opened another. That blade had deteriorated more than the first. <b>When he opened another can after three months, he couldn't find a blade. It had been eaten away by the natural acidity of the sauce.</b><br /></blockquote><br /><br />I think I'll pass on the canned food unless there has been a hurricane and I'm stuck without supplies for weeks...or something.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7408639888204773745.post-44091049608201487412008-05-28T17:33:00.000-07:002009-05-28T05:23:53.084-07:00Chive-Goat Cheese Drop Biscuits<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP5Gkv5XC42ecJ7HH8b9nIMOxjoo7a9shgCLRHKMuH3JAJRExe1CrWVWNiCTp2sD7rzRRfBpZEVEiecnZCU9Re7ueHi7Qnev3nUdf4-KOfjaZ0kT1-my0ybZ9FqxBEx35tWMRTRzx9eMWD/s1600-h/IMG_1201.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP5Gkv5XC42ecJ7HH8b9nIMOxjoo7a9shgCLRHKMuH3JAJRExe1CrWVWNiCTp2sD7rzRRfBpZEVEiecnZCU9Re7ueHi7Qnev3nUdf4-KOfjaZ0kT1-my0ybZ9FqxBEx35tWMRTRzx9eMWD/s400/IMG_1201.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5205591708347321602" border="0" /></a><br /><b>Chive-Goat Cheese Drop Biscuits</b><br /><i>I adapted this recipe to use local goat cheese and chives. Really delicious and easy.</i><br />Adapted from <a href="http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/CHEDDAR-SCALLION-DROP-BISCUITS-106062">Epicurious</a><br /><br />2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour<br />2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder<br />3/4 teaspoon baking soda<br />1 teaspoon salt<br />6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes<br />6 oz crumbled young local goat cheese, usually called chèvre<br />8 local chives<br />1 cup well-shaken buttermilk or 1 cup milk + 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar<br /><br />Preheat oven to 450°F.<br /><br />Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a bowl, then blend in butter with your fingertips until mixture resembles coarse meal. Stir in cheese and chives. Add buttermilk and stir until just combined.<br /><br />Drop dough in 12 equal mounds about 2 inches apart onto a buttered large baking sheet. Bake in middle of oven until golden, 18 to 20 minutes.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7408639888204773745.post-63809859875662246712008-05-28T15:12:00.000-07:002009-05-28T05:23:53.090-07:00Working on the farm<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/27/nyregion/27crops.html">With Migrant Workers in Short Supply, a Farmer Looks to Machines</a><br /><br /><a href="http://community.nytimes.com/article/comments/2008/05/27/nyregion/27crops.html">NYT Readers respond with a great deal of ignorance, suggesting we substitute criminals and teenagers for immigrants</a><br /><br />There was an article in the NYT a few weeks back about the poor job market for teens. But what people don't realize is that the problem with industrial ag jobs is not that they are dirty or menial, it's that they are downright dangerous. The machines can crush you and the pesticides are toxic. Most farm kids I know who come from large farms won't work in their own fields because of this. It's a job with high potential costs. <br /><br />Small organic farms? Many ag student compete to do "menial" things like pick spinach as interns. The best organic farms turn down interns because they have so many applicants.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7408639888204773745.post-17605692161726896772008-05-28T14:08:00.000-07:002009-05-28T05:23:53.096-07:00Another reason to eat label-freeI think one of the best diet tips I ever heard was that if it has a label, you shouldn't eat much of it. Apples, spinach, and turnips? They don't need labels. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.foodproductiondaily.com/news/printNewsBis.asp?id=85517">Turns out, in New Zealand, those labels aren't very accurate anyway</a>. Given our government's track record, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that most U.S. labels are inaccurate too.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7408639888204773745.post-88400424728339955012008-05-26T20:12:00.000-07:002009-05-28T05:23:53.106-07:00AgricizeSince I started working in agriculture, I've met a great deal of farmers. On of the farmers I've worked closely with called farming "nature's gym." He, like many farmers who practice labor-intensive small scale agriculture, was about as fit as many elite athletes I know. This contrasts with the larger farmers I know, who are easier picked out because...well they are much larger. <br /><br />Underscores the fact that while "saving" labor is economically efficient, there are costs and benefits that aren't often factored in. Most farmers labor much less than their counterparts in the past, but perhaps they pay for it in terms of health problems. <br /><br />Last week I worked on his farm and while my muscles may be uneven (it's much harder to hoe with my puny left arm), they sure are large. The other farmer, a woman, told me that just like any sport, it's important to have good technique on the farm if you want to prevent injuries. <br /><br />I say this because I find it interesting that so many people spend hours and hours in smelly boring gyms...when they could get a garden instead. I personally have shied away from gyms after I realized that the cleaning chemicals many gyms use seem to bother my lungs. I've felt much better since I've stopped going. <br /><br />Small farms should market "exercise agri-tourism" or something. Suburbanites get skinny, farmers get free labor.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7408639888204773745.post-14216658588684735972008-05-23T18:25:00.000-07:002009-05-28T05:23:53.120-07:00Foie GrasSo foie gras is now legal in Chicago again. <a href="http://leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com/thestew/2008/05/peta-calls-repe.html">PETA says</a>:<br /><blockquote><br />Foie gras is a diseased, rotting organ of an abused animal with a high price tag slapped onto it. The aldermen -- who voted overwhelmingly for the ban (48 to 1) -- were right the first time in banning this hideously cruel product. With foie gras bans already in effect in more than a dozen countries and a growing of number people learning about the cruelty of foie gras production, this industry's days are numbered.<br /></blockquote><br /><br />I have no problem with the part about people learning about the cruelty and thus buying less, effectively killing the industry. I do have a problem with one group imposing its fringe philosophy on another. With their logic, lots of other products would be banned as well. I might not like foie gras, but I'm not going to tell others they can't eat it. <br /><br />Actually, I had never heard of it before the ban and ordered it after I read about it because I wanted to be rebellious. They say no publicity is bad publicity. I'm sure the ban made many people curious.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7408639888204773745.post-32103330797289928952008-05-21T09:38:00.000-07:002009-05-28T05:23:53.126-07:00Harvest MoonMuch of the eco-crowd likes to trash video games. Occasionally, I do agree. At their worst they can suck people's lives away. But I would like to admit that video games were one of the reasons I got into farming. <a href="http://www.fogu.com/hm/">Harvest Moon</a>, a series of Japanese video games centered on farming, are my favorite video games. I started playing them when the first one came out for the original game boy in America and I still play them, primarily while traveling since otherwise I don't have much free time. <br /><br />A locavore's dream, the Harvest Moon games are focused on small-scale farming and tight-knit local communities. You get rewards for talking with your neighbors and treating your cows well. Contrast that with popular games like Grand Theft Auto where you get points for running over people and slapping around prostitutes.<br /><br />While there are lots and lots of differences between Harvest Moon and real farming, I did learn some key things:<br />1. Repetitive work is not always bad. In fact, it can be quite comforting. Planting seedlings, hoeing, and transplanting leeks....fantastic stress relief. <br />2. Have picnics on your farm. It connects people to where their food comes from and helps build community ties. <br />3. If you have a small farm, diversify! It's a lot easier to stay afloat if you rely on multiple sources of income.<br />4. Don't forget about foraging. In the game, wild foods can be a source of income and sustenance.<br />5. Plant your crops in a way that makes later chores like weeding less taxing.<br /><br />However, Harvest Moon is not a how-to-farm game. It's very much simplified. There is no starting seeds inside, nor insect pests, and soil is woefully ignored. I want the next games to reward good crop rotation or something.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7408639888204773745.post-12276933202065325512008-05-11T20:24:00.000-07:002009-05-28T05:23:53.143-07:00Raw Milk Aricle<a href="http://harpers.org/archive/2008/04/0081992">The great Harpers article about raw milk is now online</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7408639888204773745.post-87130939594271669042008-05-10T19:29:00.000-07:002009-05-28T05:23:53.169-07:00Gastrofacist<span style="font-weight: bold;">Gastrofacist,</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">n.</span> A person who believes that government should micromanage the food supply as per their own personal interests.<br /><br />A la ethanol <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7390959.stm">and now Gordan Ramsay</a>:<br /><blockquote><br />Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay says British restaurants should be fined if they serve fruit and vegetables which are not in season. He told the BBC that fruit and vegetables should be locally-sourced and only on menus when in season. Mr Ramsay said he had already spoken to Prime Minister Gordon Brown about outlawing out-of-season produce.<br /></blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7408639888204773745.post-36889980352345671612008-05-10T10:23:00.000-07:002009-05-28T05:23:53.175-07:00Gastrolibertarian<span style="font-weight: bold;">Gastrolibertarian,</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">n.</span> A person who believes that government should have a limited role in the food system.<br /><br /><a href="http://americasfuture.org/doublethink/2006/10/anthony-bourdain-just-like-me-is-the-kitchen-confidential-author-turned-television-star-a-libertarian/">Anthony Bourdain</a><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Devils-Picnic-Travels-Through-Underworld/dp/1582346151/">Taras Grescoe</a><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Everything-Want-Do-Illegal-Stories/dp/0963810952/">Joel Salatin</a><br />Many in the raw milk crowd<br /><br />Varying degrees here: Taras believes the government should help manage fisheries, protect endangered species, etc., whereas Salatin is more like a agrarian"gastro-anarchist."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7408639888204773745.post-75865680178483520552008-05-09T09:40:00.000-07:002009-05-28T05:23:53.162-07:00Slimy slow release<blockquote> Hi Melissa,<br /> I'm visiting your blog from Fanatic Cook. I like what you write about! Nice blog! Re what you said on Bix's blod, just wondering what sorts of foods are included in the "mucilaginous carb" category (hope it's not okra--ick!). Thanks!</blockquote><br /><br />I mentioned this with respect to native diets and <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=MEQ45L3ZcegC&pg=PA173&lpg=PA173&dq=nabhan+slow-release&source=web&ots=IzrtCbAgwM&sig=I3zmF81NFVsDe8jqSqQ0kFeSODo&hl=en#PPA181,M1">Why Some Like It Hot</a>, Nabhan's excellent book. In that book he mentions that many native foods, when ingested, do not spike blood sugar...at all. From a botanical standpoint, many of these are desert plants that have evolved in a way to defend themselves against moisture loss. Most of them are considered mucilaginous, an appetizing (or not) word meaning "Having the nature or properties of mucilage; of a soft, moist, and viscous quality or appearance, slimy." <br /><br />Slimy? While that might not sound delicious, it keeps these foods slow in your digestive system. This is a boon if you have blood sugar issues, but also for a host of other health problems like IBS. These foods also keep you satiated for longer than average. <br /><br />Some of the foods he mentions include Southwestern prickly pear and other cacti, Australian bush potato, and mesquite. More common foods that are considered mucilaginous include, yes, okra, but also purslane, seaweed, flax, oats, and cucumbers.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7408639888204773745.post-39498710710305666492008-05-09T09:34:00.000-07:002009-05-28T05:23:53.185-07:00Not So Sweet<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-kimbrell/mothers-day-candy-from-mo_b_100059.html">Another reason to avoid sugar</a>:<br /><blockquote><br />A new option available to farmers this year is Monsanto's Roundup Ready sugar beet, genetically engineered to survive multiple direct applications of the weed killer, Roundup. At the request of Monsanto, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency increased the allowable amount of glyphosate residues on sugar beetroots by a whopping 5,000% -- glyphosate is the active ingredient in Roundup. Sugar is extracted from the beet's root and the inevitable result is more glyphosate in our sugar. This is not good news for those who want to enjoy their chocolate morsels without the threat of ingesting toxic weed killer.<br /></blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7408639888204773745.post-90750141431980700782008-05-06T12:51:00.000-07:002009-05-28T05:23:53.154-07:00Native American Diets<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTnb7OGRIZAKc7TD5FFhi9eimb_1KESu3bH-MRjNzGiV6iVEcaTEytkwoI7pK9vW34Yc26W-cugMQVHHtX-AsBioPd6Ca1oqWT481Sn_vS1RF_Uvzff1454pBRMw09xHjhjl04HNcqtwyd/s1600-h/reindig.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTnb7OGRIZAKc7TD5FFhi9eimb_1KESu3bH-MRjNzGiV6iVEcaTEytkwoI7pK9vW34Yc26W-cugMQVHHtX-AsBioPd6Ca1oqWT481Sn_vS1RF_Uvzff1454pBRMw09xHjhjl04HNcqtwyd/s400/reindig.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5197355367889523474" border="0" /></a><br />Made this food web (not pyramid) for a class. Native Americans, from Hawaii to Alaska, had diverse pre-contact diets, but this shows a lot of common ones, as well as some nutritional principles. Note the absence of certain foods.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz1rhZJ3x2BdtFSFRTw60cPR-4J2Fw89dixCGXhQmZE7YcNZk6n33kd9_dX2NdRlfaSQxGbDjw2Eq50xszKD7EDqF658T5HG45ISNGTzHAeDK4bnstMwGmNl3ikQV3ZBCkBLObExB5dJeO/s1600-h/reindig2.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz1rhZJ3x2BdtFSFRTw60cPR-4J2Fw89dixCGXhQmZE7YcNZk6n33kd9_dX2NdRlfaSQxGbDjw2Eq50xszKD7EDqF658T5HG45ISNGTzHAeDK4bnstMwGmNl3ikQV3ZBCkBLObExB5dJeO/s400/reindig2.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5197355857515795234" border="0" /></a><br />No bread, no refined sugar, no dairy, no factory-farmed meats. Anyone can benefit from emulating Native American diets. If there is one thing I learned from studying them, it's that what you eat matters, but what you don't eat matters a lot more. That's why you see people doing well on both low-fat vegan and high-fat paleo.<br /><br />Recommended reading<br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Why-Some-Like-Hot-Diversity/dp/1597260916/">Why Some Like It Hot</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7408639888204773745.post-4545755968605594892008-04-27T20:14:00.000-07:002009-05-28T05:23:53.192-07:00Global Food and Style Expo 2008 Recap<a href="http://www.globalfoodandstyleexpo.com/08/public/enter.aspx">Well...where to start?</a> First of all, while this show is mainly about food (there are a few token clothing booths), it's not the kind of food the average person eats every day. No, this show is mostly about the kind of food you impulse buy at Whole Foods or that comes in a gift basket you got from your boss. Also, it's sort of the antithesis of the local foods crowd: big companies, importers, exporters, etc.<br /><br />The keynote speaker was Bobby Flay. I was unimpressed, especially when during the Q&A, he entirely dodged a question on food bans. Of course he did have to field some pretty ridiculous questions, including not one, but two not-so-skinny women, complaining about overuse of things like cream and lard , chiding him for not including more low fat foods on his shows. Rightfully, he pointed out that almost no one in this country is fat because of uncommon ingredients like duck lard.<br /><br />Much of the show was simply overwhelming. At first I wanted to try everything, but I quickly became more selective. You can only stand so many mustard pretzel dips.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKx54DgkLZUiy6nt0WxYMrp2lBSiBh07x2dRTMlpraJfk2Q5Wo5TjIYDYiccFlH9SWm4qAx688r3PEycmvt0LpgytEWjU0BPWWRVZ4F4REClOB1gUSOP7i94gWhKmzh4tL22pyd8xQeCvx/s1600-h/IMG_1093.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKx54DgkLZUiy6nt0WxYMrp2lBSiBh07x2dRTMlpraJfk2Q5Wo5TjIYDYiccFlH9SWm4qAx688r3PEycmvt0LpgytEWjU0BPWWRVZ4F4REClOB1gUSOP7i94gWhKmzh4tL22pyd8xQeCvx/s320/IMG_1093.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5194133987798700754" border="0" /></a><br />One of my first stops was <a href="http://www.wholesomesweeteners.com/">Wholesome Sweetners</a>. On the rare occasion I do bake, I like their rich organic fair-trade brown sugar. Their new raw honey was fantastic, unfortunately, when we asked why they weren't sourcing locally, they said that there were no organic beekeepers in the U.S. Hilarious, one of my companions was an organic beekeeper, and <a href="http://www.honeylocator.com/organic_results.asp">not the only one either</a>.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9jfomjBoH23ouQToEK1kOuGTQ9PCjW7XT0OaHihyphenhypheni8n-T8PVhYLhSF-MIZ9LlgraUS3LajecoDYiDjEpOQiNTH3b2H2XC53eLuSMf7-j4HEVSXTgDnr030MA5RUKpD8ZosXibxekmthLN/s1600-h/IMG_1092.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9jfomjBoH23ouQToEK1kOuGTQ9PCjW7XT0OaHihyphenhypheni8n-T8PVhYLhSF-MIZ9LlgraUS3LajecoDYiDjEpOQiNTH3b2H2XC53eLuSMf7-j4HEVSXTgDnr030MA5RUKpD8ZosXibxekmthLN/s320/IMG_1092.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5194136603433784050" border="0" /></a><br /><br />These cute gummy bears were made with <a href="http://www.ciranda.com/tapioca_syrup.htm">organic tapioca syrup</a> and tasted much better than most vegan gummies.<br /><br />At another booth I tried <a href="http://www.himalania.com/">Goji berries</a>, which were good, though I think the whole superfood thing is overhyped. That same booth also had yacon chips, made from a Peruvian tuber, which tasted more like melons than potatoes.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIxqrUx0lM4WiRl2CCV6a2e0Rbb0Q-9Lvk8herEewoCGaf2IHb642EVCxUw8bZea637yMIYZYWyiV9KpJ4aEDHzZZZ_anFcG_vi8BCJ2P5rF3iEuDrgqMkoM5c3BhLdO-sbF6fNGJxf1Uu/s1600-h/IMG_1095.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIxqrUx0lM4WiRl2CCV6a2e0Rbb0Q-9Lvk8herEewoCGaf2IHb642EVCxUw8bZea637yMIYZYWyiV9KpJ4aEDHzZZZ_anFcG_vi8BCJ2P5rF3iEuDrgqMkoM5c3BhLdO-sbF6fNGJxf1Uu/s320/IMG_1095.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5194137750190052098" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Some of the more unusual offerings came from the Japanese and Korean booths. A friendly Japanese businessman expounded on the benefits of the Maitake mushroom, showering us with packets of a maitake supplement. We were confused, but when I got home I looked it up and it seems like it has <a href="http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-94538647.html">interesting</a> <a href="http://www.vermontmushrooms.com/herbmed_gmm.php?HerbID=2"> properties</a>. In the U.S. it is known as Hen of the Woods.<br /><br />In other news: while I like kimchi, I don't think it's the next sushi.<br /><br />I loved the truffles from <a href="http://thetearoom.biz/">The Tea Room</a>, they were the best I'd had in a long time. The red raspberry rooibos was my favorite. The really really dark chocolate at <a href="http://veregoods.com/">Vere</a>, was unusual, but people seemed to be flocking to their booth.<br /><br />The only teas that pretty impressed me was from <a href="http://glteaandspice.com/">Great Lakes Tea and Spice</a>. I really liked their peach white blend.<br /><br />I tasted what seemed like a million dips, but the only memorable ones came from <a href="http://herbaldelights.biz/">Herbal Delights</a>.<br /><br />The only clothing that caught my eye was from <a href="http://www.nimli.com/items_1190__Nimli_Brands_Synergy_Clothing.html">Synergy</a>, simply because I had bought one of their dresses before and I love the way they fit.<br /><br />The trends? It seems probiotics are in. Someone was even hawking a probiotic yogurt for dogs. My favorite was the <a href="http://www.nancysyogurt.com/">Nancy's Kefir</a>, though I wish they would offer whole milk kefir. Other trends seemed to include granola snacks and raw vegan items.<br /><br />In the end though, I much prefer more local-food oriented food gatherings. Having ingested the equivelent of an entire Harry & David gift basket, I left the expo with a a nice capitalist stomach-ache.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7408639888204773745.post-75661594510845099692008-04-24T13:21:00.000-07:002009-05-28T05:23:53.203-07:00The End is Near111!!!<a href="http://www.salon.com/wires/ap/business/2008/04/23/D907S3VO1_wal_mart_rice/index.html">Sam's Club, Costco limit rice purchases as prices rise</a><br /><br />Does this mean that the boxed rice that has been sitting on my shelf for ages will soon be considered a commodity investment?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7408639888204773745.post-22879376465920037772008-04-24T12:09:00.000-07:002009-05-28T05:23:53.210-07:00Grandmother hypothesis and slow foodIn class yesterday we were discussing how to adjust to eating better food. Upper and middle income individuals can usually afford to sacrifice some income in terms of less hours working and more hours cooking or in terms of spending more on food. However, what about people who are barely getting by in the first place?<br /><br />The solution touted by most people in government programs. Others favor community groups, but I started thinking about this a different way.<br /><br />Children don't work, but also don't do well at managing to procure and prepare their own food. But who else doesn't typically work? Grandparents!<br /><br />Students of evolutionary anthropology may have heard of the <a href="http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/95/3/1336">grandmother</a> hypothesis. Humans are pretty unique for their long postmenopausal lifespans, which means that human women often live far past their reproductive years. A waste of resources on non-reproducing individuals? No, apparently grandmothers in the past played an important role in helping to raise children.<br /><br />My grandmother helped out my busy mother with food and in many ethnic communities this is still relatively common. Grandma isn't likely to be part of the workforce, so the opportunity cost of having her go to the farmer's market and cook a healthy meal is low. Unfortunately, it's increasingly common to have grandparents live far away from their grandchildren, either in retirement destinations or nursing homes.<br /><br />This is a tragedy on several levels. There the lost knowledge of the elders, the loss of family bonds, and increased burdens on the parents.<br /><br />I would say grandmothers are the missing part of a lot of sociological conundrums, from childhood delinquency to healthy diets.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7408639888204773745.post-89740064270864209162008-04-22T21:16:00.000-07:002009-05-28T05:23:53.217-07:00Weepies- Simple Life<object height="355" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Zwd1Swf9k4A&hl=en"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Zwd1Swf9k4A&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="355" width="425"></embed></object><br /><br /><center><br />I'll kiss you awake, and we'll have time<br />To know our neighbors all by name<br />And every star at night.<br />We'll weave our days together like waves<br />And particles of light.<br /><br />I want only this, I want to live<br />I want to live a simple life.<br /></center>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0