Something we can all agree with, I think.

The New Food Pessimism

Full Article:
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From Readers Digest:

We raise 60 billion animals for food each year – 10 animals for every human on earth. If you grow corn and eat it, you expend 2.2 calories of energy to yield 1 calorie of protein.

But if you process that corn, feed it to a steer, and take into account the other needs that steer has in its lifetime – land use, chemical fertilizers (largely petroleum based), pesticides, machinery, transport, antibiotics, and water – you’re responsible for 40 calories of energy to get that same 1 calorie of protein.

A steak dinner for a family of four is the rough energy equivalent of driving around in an SUV for three hours while leaving all the lights on at home.

The average American meat eater is responsible for one and a half tons of CO2-equivalent greenhouse gase – enough to fill a large house annually – than someone who eats no meat.

Read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_vegetarianism.

It is true.  A Belgium company bought them out.  As much as I did not like the beer, it will be sad to see a part of our history swallowed up by globalization.

Ok, get ready. Are you set? Swallow your coffee or you will spit it all over your keyboard.

Link.

A few years ago the Swiss added to their national constitution a provision requiring “account to be taken of the dignity of creation when handling animals, plants and other organisms.” No one knew exactly what it meant, so they asked the Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology to figure it out. The resulting report, “The Dignity of Living Beings with Regard to Plants,” is enough to short circuit the brain.

A “clear majority” of the panel adopted what it called a “biocentric” moral view, meaning that “living organisms should be considered morally for their own sake because they are alive.” Thus, the panel determined that we cannot claim “absolute ownership” over plants and, moreover, that “individual plants have an inherent worth.” This means that “we may not use them just as we please, even if the plant community is not in danger, or if our actions do not endanger the species, or if we are not acting arbitrarily.”

Hat tip: Rachel Lucas

The plant community.

Who called it? I’ll tell you who. A guy named Gilbert called it in 1904, and I will quote his work at excessive length because I find the entire thing so side-splittingly funny. G. K. Chesterton, in his work of satire, The Napolean of Notting Hill:

The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children’s games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up. And one of the games to which it is most attached is called “Keep to-morrow dark,” and which is also named (by the rustics in Shropshire, I have no doubt) “Cheat the Prophet.” The players listen very carefully and respectfully to all that the clever men have to say about what is to happen in the next generation. The players then wait until all the clever men are dead, and bury them nicely. They then go and do something else. That is all. For a race of simple tastes, however, it is great fun.

For human beings, being children, have the childish wilfulness and the childish secrecy. And they never have from the beginning of the world done what the wise men have seen to be inevitable. They stoned the false prophets, it is said; but they could have stoned true prophets with a greater and juster enjoyment. Individually, men may present a more or less rational appearance, eating, sleeping, and scheming. But humanity as a whole is changeful, mystical, fickle, delightful. Men are men, but Man is a woman.

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I am always spreading the “good news” about homebrewing. I actually have a website explaining the process at the most basic level. I just added a page to it exploring the idea of homebrewing on a budget: Instead of the usual $100 start-up cost for equipment you can use plastic soda bottles to make 2L batches. In addition to the ingredients (which come out to about 50 cents per beer) I estimate you would need about $5 to $10 of equipment to do it this way.

Also:
This website is better than mine.
This place has everything you would ever need and $7 flat rate shipping.
These guys can answer all your questions.

Go forth and tell all nations!

Given Amanda’s recent post on the subject, I thought I’d share these thoughtful posts from “A Thinking Reed” blog.

In order of appearance:
Pollan on the Ethics of Meat Eating

More on Pollan and Vegetarianism: Vegetarianism as Vocation

A Vegan Critique of Pollan

A quote:

Pollan makes the interesting suggestion that one of the reasons we’re so confused in our attitudes toward animals, veering from sentimentality to extreme brutality, is that the mechanization of animal husbandry has rendered unnecessary the cultural framework that helped pre-modern people negotiate relations with their non-human fellows. “[I]t was the ritual–the cultural rules and norms–that allowed them to look, and then to eat. We no longer have any rituals governing either the slaughter or eating of animals, which perhaps helps explain why we find ourselves in this dilemma, in a place where we feel our only choice is either to look away or give up meat” (pp. 331-2).

A more transparent process of raising and slaughtering food animals, he thinks, would force us to come to terms with what we’re doing in ways analogous to our ancestors’ rituals. Factory farms are invisible and inaccessible to most people, who likely don’t give much thought to the precise process by which that neatly wrapped package of meat ends up in the supermarket. But if we saw what was going on, we would have to make changes.”

This is one of the best articles I’ve read about food in a really long time, especially the seven or so suggestions at the end.  If you don’t read the long article, skip ahead to the suggestions he makes at the end and read just those, I promise it’s worth it.

http://tinyurl.com/24dvs2

Also, just in case anyone is interested, and of course I want to know what you all think, I’m going to become a vegan in the next few weeks, and this means no animal products at all, no more leather shoes or bags and certainly no foodstuffs that came from animals.

I really need to refresh and renew my reasons for doing this, and I will certainly do so before committing fully to it, but I’m pretty much a vegan now as it is.

Things I will miss:

Really well crafted leather high heels
Butter
Ice Cream
I worry about going over to people’s houses and being trouble or not being able to eat there.  Meals are about community, for me, and I don’t believe that one’s diet should ever impose on anyone, but can we be autonomous in something so basic?

I just had like a pound of bacon for lunch.

Here is something for all of you Sunday Bloggers. I have been reading a book, What To Eat by Marion Nestle, and according to her, there is not much more nutritional value in Organic food verses conventional food. There are less toxins and the food usually tastes better, but as for nutrition, that is something that is very hard to test. Here is a quote she gives of a coleague of hers, Joan Gussow:

Shouldn’t we hope that people will choose organic foods on grounds more reliable than whether they contain a little more carontene or zinc? Isn’t the most important story that organic production conserves natural resources, solves rather than creates environmental problems, and reduces the pollution of air, water, soil…and food?

That being said, my question is what is better, to buy organic from a big business, from another state or even from another country, or to buy conventional from a local farmer in hopes they will biuld enough capital to convert to organic?

I was tired of studying today so I made myself a nice little snack. Flat bread and Hummus. I thought I would share the recipe with you all just in case anyone was interested.

Hummus

I just found a recipe HERE. It is pretty good, I like to add more garlic and cummin though. Mike’s wife make a mean hummus as well. Oh, if you don’t have lemon juice you can use lemonade as a substitute for the water and juice. If you don’t have tahini, peanut butter is a good substitute, really!

Flat Bread (Piadine)

I found this recipe in one of my books. It is simple and does not use yeast.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon olive oil (the better the oil the better the taste)

7 tablespoons water (room temp)

Directions

Mix flour and salt in a bowl. Add water and oil. Mix with your hands until a dough is formed. Knead for about 4-5 minutes. (I do all of this in the same bowl, including the kneading.) Let the dough sit for about 15 minues with a damp towl over the bowl.  Heat a griddle over medium heat. Cut, or tear, a hunk of dough and roll it out flat, but not to flat. Put it on the griddle and flip after the bottom is cooked. That is it.

http://www.wikihow.com/Get-out-of-a-Car-That%27s-Hanging-over-a-Cliff

 

I hope all of you have a wonderful holiday and get to spend some time in fellowship with family and friends. We are hosting a thanksgiving dinner tonight for some friends of ours and get this, they are NOT meat eaters. So, we are having a turkyless thanks giving with the main dish…lasagna ( vegetarian that is). I made the pasta sheets this morning and my lovely wife bake some pumkin pie, sweet potatoes, some kind of corn stuff, and some cranberrie tea. When she gets home from work is when the mashed taters, dressing (made from vegtable stock) and something else is going to be made. It is going to be a rush to the finish line to get it all in before 6:30, but I think it will be worth it. Once again, happy thanksgiving.

I thought I would update you all on my mad gardening skills. I am teaching myself right now to harvest seeds from a tomato. I bought my favorite kind, heirloom tomatoes, and am trying to harvest the seeds from one. After I dined on the other half that is. I even tried planting some seeds just to see if I can do it. Nothing has sprouted yet, but if they show themselves I will let this eager audience know.

My cheese venture is not going so well. I have read the books, but I just don’t have the space, time, or resources to pull it off. The biggest thing is you have to order cultures from somewhere, and since there is no place in Lawrence to do that, I have tabled that project.

I have been involved in another hobby as of late. That is bread making and cooking random stuff that I find around the house. My wife and I are playing a little game, unintentionally though ( she lost the menu). She plans the menu and buys all of the groceries, and I, without knowing the menu or even what she bought, cook the meals. It is fun to see if I decide to make what she planned. Sometimes I get it right. For instance Tuesday I made Tortillas and beans and rice, mainly because I wanted homemade Tortillas. She had planned that. Wednesday, for lunch I made baked potatoes; she planned that also. I was on a roll until tonight, I repeated the Tortilla idea; I liked them a lot. She didn’t plan a repeat, but we still enjoyed the meal.

One thing I have noticed, and this is completely random, is that if you are not willing to experiment and try new things in the kitchen, you will probably get bored and eat out more than what is necessary. And that means you eat corn.

I have spent the last two days dreaming of these two items. Last night I checked out a book from the local library by Ricki Carrall, Home Cheese Making. It is full of great information and is probably the most popular beginners books out there. Did you know that you can make cheese out of regular department store milk? I thought you had to get it from a farm directly. There is a 30-minute mozzarella cheese recipe in there that I think I will try first. Of course my goal is to make chedder and eventually parmesan.

I also checked out a book on gardening. While I was at New Town visiting Trevor, I met a lady who recommended me read any book from the publisher Rodale. They are an organic gardening publishing company. So I picked up a book called Lasagna Gardening for Small Spaces by Patricia Lanza. It gives a fascinating technique of gardening. You don’t even have to dig! Or Weed! (In theory that is, I have never tried it.) All you need do is find a plot of land you wish to have a garden on, place wet newspaper over that land, then add layers of organic material such as grass, hay, leaves, compost, peat moss, etc. alternating between layers. From the way it sounds, you end up with this 6-24in mound in your yard. Cover it with plastic for a couple of weeks, and bam! You got yourself a garden. The thing I like about it is you don’t have to till the soil. The newspaper kills the grass and weeds below and attracts worms which till the soil for you. It is modeled after the forest floor. I think I am going to try it out and see what happens.

Hi friends. Have you ever consider the crazy amount of corn we all eat day after day?? For real, it’s crazy. Next time you go to McDonalds, consider this:

Soda: ~100% corn (if you take the water out) in the form of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS)
Hamburger: 60%+ corn in the form of corn-fed beef, and HFCS in the ketchup and bun
Fries: Anywhere from 20%-40% corn. You guessed it, corn oil.
Chicken nuggets: 60%+ corn. Corn fed chicken, fried in corn oil, and the chicken is held together by malto-dextrin, a corn product. Plus, they add some HFCS for flavor.
Ice cream: 50% corn. Corn fed momma cow and lots of HFCS.

It’s funny. There aint a bit of corn on the menu but it’s all IN the menu, if you see what I mean. The fun doesn’t stop there either. Take a look in your fridge sometime and observe how full of corn it is. Just about everything in mine, minus some naked vegetables, has corn in it in some form or another. 

So what do you think? Is this a bad thing that we eat so much corn? Eating so much of one thing, especially while SEEMING to eat such a diversity of foodstuffs, seem quite a bit unnatural and, by extension of that, probably a good bit unhealthy as well. Our food culture turns out to be a monoculture in so many ways here in the good ole US of A. Kinda scary imo. 

Plus, did you know that corn is the most heavily subsidized of all agricultural product in America? It’s true. Plus, the way it works actually gives the farmers an ever-increasing motivation to increase their yields every year even if the price of corn goes DOWN. This is the opposite of how most markets work. So, even if the market signals say “slow down, we have enough corn” the subsidies counter by saying “I don’t care! Make more CORN!” 

Hmm…Houston, we have a problem. We are way to corny. In every which way. 

Does anybody else think that MAYBE the cheap fat and sugar calories available in mass due to ridiculously cheap corn has anything to do with our present obesity problem here in the States?