boring homogenous food

I love food, I love to travel, and I love to try food from other places in the world.  Bill Clinton said "we need to look at how people do things in other places."  Of course he did not say that with regard to food.  He said it at the sustainability conference about expanding our insular and one-sided perspective on politics, energy policy and sustainability here in the US.  But the idea is the same. Fast food joints turn out the same food whether you are in Paris, Los Angeles or New York.  Whether food or Western culture at large, homogenization simply goes against nature's grain, because nature is all about diversity and increasing complexity with ongoing development.  And what we eat depends on what grows where we live.  Different soil, different climate, different culture, different ecosystems create different foods, which in turn allow us to create completely different dishes.

What fear of life let's us be comforted by the knowledge that we can eat the same hamburger and French fries even if we travel halfways around the globe?  I will scream if one more pizza joint, one more Italian restaurant or Chinese take-out opens in our town.  Instead, give me Indian, Thai, a fish restaurant, real Chinese, or true local American.

It's about discovery, it's about opening up to new tastes, new experiences, new ingredients, a zest for life and all it has to offer.   I tried duck tongues (tough and

chewy) and chicken feet (didn't like those) in China, green papaya salad in the Phillipines (delicious), chirimoyas in Peru (creamily yummy), jackfruit in Hong Kong (so so; ripe ones are so smelly they are forbidden on the Singapore subway), and of course frogs' legs and escargots in France (love them).

Let's celebrate the diversity of life, let's discover what people have to say in other places, how they eat in other places, how they do things differently from us.  Why must we be politically correct?  Why can't we live with our differences and appreciate them?  Discuss them?  Learn from them?  We need to accept that the entire world cannot be homogenous.  Imagine if the whole country were Republican?  Or Democrat?  If everyone wore the same outfits?  Boring.

we can buy calories but not real nourishment

That's what Charles Eisenstein wrote. Since my last blog post was about the importance of feeding the soul, in that case through mantras, I'll continue a bit along those lines. Gaining nourishment from food is a many-layered process that includes a lot more than counting the calories of a meal or dissecting its nutritional content. Those are quantifying analyses. But the soul also gets nourishment from the qualitative aspects in and around food.

What might those elements be? The first thing that comes to mind has to do with how the food grew, was or was not processed, and how it was made. Vegetables and fruits grown in healthy and mineral rich soil on a small farm with loving care, grown without -ides (pesti-, insecti-, fungi-), harvested at the height of their ripe- or readyness, and used for cooking as soon as possible after harvesting, is incredibly nourishing to body and soul. Its intrinsic quality is so much more complex than produce that was harvested before ripening (bananas, peaches, tomatoes grown on large farms all get harvested before their prime to ensure unsquooshed arrival at the supermarket), had to be shuttled cross country or across continents, and then sits in the supermarket for another few days, before making it to our fridge, where it sits yet another few days. Same goes for meat, for those who do eat meat.  It matters in what surroundings the animal was kept, how it was handled, what it was fed, and how it met its end.  That quality, which we introduce into our body, has an influence on our spirit.

Other elements that add a more ethereal quality to the food we eat are the care and love and interest with which we prepare and cook the food. A lovingly prepared and composed dish will have a better energetic quality than a quickly slapped together microwaved meal. Your homemade jar of jam has so much more qualitative depth than one from the supermarket that's been made industrially.

Lastly, the context within which we eat the meal can nourish the soul. A nicely set table helps; taking the time to sit down as a family for a meal sets a comforting and warm tone of togetherness for the day or evening; and sharing a leisurely meal with friends imbues the food with a different meaning than eating alone.  And just think of those special holiday meals coming up soon.

Also look back at my post "food, glorious food."

there's no food!

At least that's what my son keeps telling me.  "Mom, there is no food in the fridge/pantry!"  He doesn't mean that there is literally nothing in the fridge or pantry.  He means that there are no little packages and baggies with portion size snacks he can just help himself to. The thing is, I cook from scratch.  So fridge and pantry are stocked with "basics" to create meals, such as legumes, grains, canned tomatoes, flour and so on.  That's indeed pretty unsatisfying for someone looking for a quick snack.  "You are so European, mom," he says, the idea being that Europeans don't snack as much as we do over here.

So then - what about healthy unpackaged snacks?  My daughter has recently taken to making "quick nachos" by simply grating cheese over some tortilla chips and broiling them in the oven for a few minutes.  Other wholesome "from-scratch" afternoon snack ideas for hungry school children are apple slices with pea/nut butter and/or chocolate/hazelnut paste, oven broiled cinnamon toasts, oven broiled cheese toasts, yogurt/ricotta cheese with honey and sunflower seeds, a few chunks of cheddar and some fruit, crackers with hummus, nuts with raisins or dried cranberries.  There you go - we do have food.

shark fin soup and hope

If the Chinese are back peddling on shark fin soup, so ubiquitous at all festive banquets of the past, there is hope for changes in our attitude about a lot of other things as well.  I am thinking of idling stances on such pressing issues as climate change, pollution, animal welfare, GMOs, child prostitution, and many other ugly realities.  It seems to me that ultimately our collective indecisiveness on these issues boils down to the hesitance of wrestling ourselves away from the profit-first model.  If we only realized that the wellbeing-first model benefits us all around. Bonnie Tsui wrote this week-end in the NY Times about the changing attitude of the Chinese on serving shark fin soup at important banquets, previously a sign of "honoring (and impressing) your guest."  I was served shark fin soup at several banquets in my company's honor in the late 1980s when we lived in Hong Kong, and was oblivious of the gruesome practice (which I can't bear to describe here, but you can look it up).    Because it has been such an inherent component of Chinese food culture I was really quite amazed to read that "last summer, the Chinese government announced that it would stop serving the dish at official state banquets."

Here's to change for the better, change towards wellbeing, change towards respect of nature and all living beings. 

the fat myth

Food research of the past years has revealed that food is healthiest when we eat it the way nature made it.  When food becomes a "product," meaning when it comes from a factory and they've done stuff to it, it's no longer so healthy and in many instances even harmful. There are a lot of food myths out there that we/our culture created from the ill gotten belief that man-made stuff would surpass what nature makes because it is based on science.  But the food industry pushes under the rug that it's really after the profit, not your health, and that's what they apply their science to.

So here goes the fat myth:

FAT IS BAD FOR YOU  - "lite products" are better for you.

Hence low fat and no fat everything, cheese, milk, yogurt.  The absurd and unhealthy culminations of this misguided belief system of course are butter substitute and margarine, not much nature left in those.  Hence also the French Paradox - why the northern French don't get fat on all their cream and butter and delicious camembert, and the southern French thrive on the olive oil rich Mediterranean diet.  Sally Fallon, one of my nouveau food idols, has all the scientific back-up information for the skeptics in her oft cited food myth debunker and cookbook Nourishing Traditions.

I switched our whole family back to full fat everything a few years ago (I am only a few steps ahead) and we have neither gained weight nor become sick; as a matter-of-fact, we are all very healthy, love to eat, and never spare a thought on the fat question. 

fermented foods and good bacteria

Looks like the mainstream is coming around to the fact that microorganisms are not only all around us but also all over our insides, and that that's not necessarily a bad thing (see Michael Pollan's recent article).  As a matter-of-fact, we are realizing now that bacteria are necessary to our gut health and a strong immune system.  So, antibacterial soaps and wipes and sprays weaken our immune systems because the lack of bacteria oversensitizes the body and removes the chance to interact with our environment; and doctors are becoming much more cautious in prescribing antibiotics for human consumption (now we just need the meat industry to come on board and stop feeding the animals preventative antibiotics, trace elements of which remain in  the meat, and which also end up in the water cycle, so ultimately this practice bites us in the behind).  The few times I was treated with antibiotics as a child our pediatrician stressed the importance of eating yogurt every day to replenish the gut bacteria destroyed by the antibiotics.  You may have read of the newest treatment for intestinal inflammations:  fecal bacteriotherapy, the deliberate injection of fecal bacteria from a healthy person to replenish a sick person's gut bacteria.

Turns out that most cultures have traditions of fermenting foods, foods that "turn" and develop lactobacteria, and when eaten regularly, keep replenishing our gut fauna naturally, foods and drinks such as yogurt and kefir, cheese, Sauerkraut and Kimchi, pickled vegetables (not made with vinegar but naturally fermented), beer and wine, cured sausage, sourdough bread and so on.  Consult Sally Fallons' anti establishment cookbook Nourishing Traditions on really easy recipes for fermented vegetables, as well as the new fermented food bible The Art of Fermentation from Sandor Ellix Katz.

Also refer to my recent post on loving your germs for a different facet of the same issue, and keep eating (raw milk!) cheeses, cultured butter, and all those other delicious fermented foods.

food, glorious food

Food is one of my favorite subjects because I grew up in food cultures.  For me food counts as "entertainment," as going to a concert or the movies might for someone else.  While foodies know that food is more than fuel, there is also more to food than the surprise of a clever new taste combination or the goodness of a sunripened peach in August.  Food provides us with energy in more ways than the obvious.  For one, there is the life energy we ingest with our food.  It is most vibrant in freshly plucked and raw foods, and least in processed foods because they are so far removed from their origins as something that actually grew in the ground somewhere sometime.  And with meats a consideration is how the animal was raised and treated, what it ate, and how it found its end.  This all finds its energetic way into our meal.

On the other hand,  food feeds the soul when enjoyed in a harmonious atmosphere and in company.  That kind of food experience literally nourishes us spiritually.  And it sure doesn't have to be fancy to be meaningful.  It can be a picnic, it can be an ethnic festivity, it can be a potluck, or an outdoor meal.  It's more about the overall experience, what goes with it - friends, the setting, the conversation.

Bon Appétit!  Guten Appetit!  Buon Appetito!

the meat quandary - last installment

That meat eating has become a potential ethical dilemma indicates a change in our awareness.  As we can see from the Inuit (who eat mostly fish protein) or the Masaai (who subsist mostly on the meat, milk and blood of the cattle they raise) on the one hand, and the Hindus, most of who have been vegetarian for a few millenia, there is a cultural context to any diet that arose in no small part from the geographical surroundings and inherent food potentials. As we have been struggling with the health implications of the big-ag industrial diet that makes for-profit "products," not food, (remember, they don't make this stuff for your benefit, but for theirs: $), and which are made out of geographical context altogether, we have wrestled with the "diet of the day" out of confusion.  The Atkins Diet, the South Beach Diet, the Paleo Diet, the Mediterranean Diet, and what not, have all been hailed as an epiphany at one point or another.

In my view diet has to be considered not only within an ethnico-cultural-geographical context, but also in the context of consciousness evolution.  What I mean by that is that a diet reflects our current understanding of things, our beliefs, our culture, our state-of-affairs.

I believe that it is perfectly ok to eat honey and eggs and some meat and some fish If we live in a context of respect and mutual benefit for all. Check out Sally Fallon's "Nourishing Traditions" for a well researched reversal on some of our common food myths.   Most important is to eat real food - the rest is up to your personal convictions, state of mind and stomach (listen to your body; when you exit a fast food place or a steakhouse and feel heavy and stuffed and as if you couldn't eat anything for the next 24 hours, maybe that food wasn't so beneficial for you).  Food should energize you, physically and spiritually.

Your views and diet evolve as you become better informed, mine continually do.  And if you believe from the bottom of your heart that a candy bar is really really good for your body  (not just to fulfill an emotional need), then it will be.

Please see installments 1. and 2. for the complete picture on the meat quandary.

the meat quandary - in 2 more installments

2. on eating produce Will Tuttle in his World Peace Diet, and the China Study, among many, are fervently advocating vegetarian and even vegan diets.  The two main arguments are that the industrial meat industry's carbon foot print, in combination with continually increasing demand for animal protein due to a still growing (and ever more affluent) world population, is disastrous to our environmental health (which it is), and that  meat eating contributes to, or causes, cancer and other civilization diseases (which it only does under certain conditions, some of which I mentioned in my last post).

Yet, the fact that the vegetarian/vegan movement is becoming so prominent points to a shift in awareness (of the abominable industrial meat industry, its contribution to global warming, and of the unhealthiness of industrial meat and cornfed beef).  Michael Pollan's famous advice to  "eat food, not too much, mostly plants" is good advice for most of us, indeed.

On another vegetably note, the basis for our existence is light, water and soil.  Produce is closer to light energy than meat is.  As we all know, plants grow through direct conversion of sunlight to energy.  When we eat plants we take in sun energy just one step removed.  When we consume meat, we are one step further removed from that light energy because we eat the animal that fed on plants that fed on sunlight.  And incidentally, humans don't usually eat predator meat because that is yet one step further removed from sun energy than meat from vegan animals.

However, as long as we keep subjecting our crops and soil to synthetic fertilizers and chemical pesticides (and killing the bees along with the birds in the process), and monoculturing our produce crops, and not demanding GMO labeling (which has already happened in Europe, Japan, Russia and many other industrialized countries), we are not achieving that much with vegetarianism/veganism.  We'll keep subjecting farm workers to the health dangers of working in chemically laced fields, big-ag will keep doing its thing with produce, Monsanto & Co. are still on the loose, and we are still ingesting mineral poor and poison sprayed food grown in depleted soil that had to be artificially enriched.  So, going vegetably must mean going organic/sustainable/biodynamic to have meaningful impact on body and environment.

to be continued...

the meat quandary - in 3 installments

1. on eating meat Humans have been eating protein forever, some ethnicities more of it, some less of it, depending on geographical circumstances.   Sustainable farming and animal husbandry have been practiced in conjunction since we humans became sedentary, using the animal manure as fertilizer for the crops, feeding the animals leftovers and scraps, and eating some (not lots!!) of them, all in a pretty balanced cycle.

The picture only became horrific in the last 50 years or so when we began to produce (!!) meat.  The plight of the animals in CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations), modern breeding aberrations, the realities of modern abattoirs and subsequent meat processing practices (documented ad nauseam (literally) in Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals) are nightmarish. One would not want to eat such meat!

The other problem is that the percentage of meat in our diet has reached addictive proportions with the decrease in meat prices, something that is not good for our body either (unless you were Inuit or Maasai, and then you wouldn't eat industrially produced meat).

Lastly, from an evolutionary perspective, increased meat consumption has been linked to increased brain growth (although I am thinking that our brains may not have grown in proportion with the increased meat consumption of the past 50 years, otherwise we might not be where we are at environmentally).

Dirt Magazine has a brief presentation on meat vs. produce in their May-June issue (article not yet online).  However, the two opinions are too simplified.  So please reserve judgement until you have read all 3 installments.

to be continued...