New personal blog.

Not food related, just me talking. If you're one of the 5-ish college friends I sent the link to, you'll probably be more interested in this one (if you're not, you probably won't). Happy Easter everyone!

http://illtellyouanyway.blogspot.com/

Food needs to start costing more.

Make no mistake: I like my food cheap.

I'm willing to spend more than the average American 10.7% of my disposable income on food, in the name of not being poisoned, but I'm not about to walk into a supermarket and say, "Here's $20 for my block of tofu, keep the change." Like most people, I have bills, student debt, and dumb stuff I want to buy.

But, lo and behold, our American supermarket- with all its variety, convenience, and inexpensiveness- is actually a hot mess. If you had asked me a few months ago why Doritos are so cheap, I would have said it's because so many people demand them and competition keeps the prices low. Worse things have happened.

What I know now is that the issue really lies in farm subsidies, and the overproduction of corn, soy, and wheat (for which struggling farmers are paid based on quantity, not market prices, encouraging them to produce higher yield/lower quality commodity crops that wreak havoc on our environment). Our food system needs to use up the surplus somehow, so those commodities find themselves in everything under the sun, in truly creepy forms that in no way resemble nature. With such an abundance of long-lasting, far-traveling, highly preserved trash in supply, manufacturers- and retailers- can keep everyone full on a tight budget. This comes at a heavy cost to our health (let alone the environment) and explains why everyone is so damn fat.

The response is always, "Well, poor people need to eat, too." Clearly. But creating and supporting a system in which all that low-income people can realistically afford is highly processed, cancer-inducing, belt-busting junk can't possibly be a blessing in disguise. "Here's your TV dinner for $2, with a side of Type II diabetes."

I know some steps are being taken to improve our food system, particularly with school lunches and beverages... But still: why aren't more people outraged?

The diet soda rundown.

I always thought diet soda was something that could be plausibly ingested, but I recently (mistakenly) took a look at the label on a can of Pepsi Max.

Honestly... I don't know what I was expecting. It's not like you look at Pepsi and see some semblance of a food product (I mean, even Sunny Delight could conceivably be an orange).

So, I decided to break it down, for my own edification. Thank you Wikipedia.

Carbonated water: Fair enough.
Caramel color: Synthetic food coloring derived from corn.
Phosphoric acid: Low-cost, mass produced chemical controversially linked to lower bone density.
Potassium benzoate: Deters mold and bacterial growth, commonly made by oxidizing tolulene- which, apparently carries the "typical smell of paint thinners". Nice.
Caffeine: You love it, I love it, but we probably shouldn't drink so much of it.
Natural flavor: Does anyone even know what this means? Ever?
Acesulfame potassium: An artificial sweetener and potential carcinogen.
Citric acid: Typically derived from corn, linked to the erosion of tooth enamel.
Calcium Disodium EDTA: Ironically, a way to decrease your chances of getting cancer (from the reaction between potassium benzoate and ascorbic acid which... well, gives you cancer).
Panax ginseng extract: This is random, and I really have no idea what it's doing in here. Probably the "Max" part of Pepsi Max.
Phenylketonurics: contains phenylalanine: Actually a warning label for people suffering from PKU, a metabolic disorder that makes it hard to process phenylalanine (an amino acid used in artificial sweeteners).

Why does it surprise me that diet soda is a nothing but a chemical nightmare? It shouldn't, because like I said before, what else could it possibly be? What surprises me less is the well-worn response from the die-hard consumer: "Whatever, everything gives you cancer these days."

Can't say that makes me any more excited to drink it.

This localvore is hungry.

Since my culinary skills have, until recently, been confined to the microwave, my food vocabulary is pretty bare-bones. Lucky for all of you, it's seeing some exponential growth (but please continue to bear with me).

My favorite new word though is not exactly a word: localvore. For me, it just draws up this image of a big long-necked dinosaur lumbering around a farmers market with a reusable hemp shopping bag. Which I love.

A localvore is what I aspire to be. Vermontlocalvore.org offers some pretty compelling reasons for keeping your food dollars within the community. Dramatically reduced fossil fuel consumption, food-borne illnesses, and questionable preservatives and GMO's are enough to pull me away from conventional supermarkets whenever possible. Farmers markets also seem to be the only place to find truly free range, grass fed meat (a post on my obsession with this forthcoming).

I have noticed one thing, however: eating locally is enormously difficult. Where I live there is a farmers market nearly every day of the week, but the selection seems sparse, repetitive (do we need 4 vendors selling apple butter?), and even worse: not very local. The southwest is hot, but there is just no way mangoes are in season here. When I finally pin down the vendors that are genuinely local and organic, all I have to choose from are red peppers, lemons, and a beeswax candle. What kind of meal is that?

My problem might be location-specific, but I'm inclined to think it's not. Is it a problem of demand- not enough people at these markets to justify the costs of attending? Or is it a problem of supply, as suggested by this NYT article. Maybe it's both.

What is "healthy", really?

It seems like everyone has their two cents on nutrition and healthy living, and even with one hand in the Cheeto bag, most people I've met like the idea of "healthy" in its most abstract form. Salad = good. Moving around = good.

I optimistically (foolishly?) believe that when people have fewer stressors hampering their self-control, and more resources like time, money, and support at their disposal, they gravitate toward a healthier way of life.

But what is healthy, and how healthy is healthy?

Have you ever been watching a TV show, or listening to a friend, or flipping through a magazine, and thought that a suggestion for better nutrition/fitness/wellness was kind of... weak? Then you step back and realize that it is in fact a drastic improvement over the norm. I've noticed that the more passionate I get about clean eating, the less I find everyday foods acceptable, and the more I find specialty foods a necessity.

For instance, when I was watching Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution I was a little taken aback by the ostensibly fresh, healthy meal he prepared for the family (as an alternative to the deep-fried Everything they were eating): spaghetti. Or, for that matter, the dish he cooked up with the son: chicken stir-fry. Neither seemed particularly healthy. Why was I somehow expecting a pile of raw veggies, some kind of flax seed/Greek yogurt smoothie, and a loaf of sprouted grain bread- or at the very least, whole wheat pasta? I mean, Jamie Oliver's a celebrity chef, not a rabbit.

That had just become my new notion of "healthy". Which is kind of weird.

I thought about it a bit, and realized that a couple years ago I would have thought spaghetti and salad was healthy, without question. Then, a couple months ago I would have thought anything whole-wheat, whole-grain, etc. was just fine regardless of additives and preservatives. I'm aware that the relativism runs in both directions; right now I eat clean/local/organic whenever I can, but it's not a stretch to think that a raw food vegan would look at my dinner as quizzically as I looked at that spaghetti.

It's clear to me that there are no absolutes when it comes to healthy eating, and there are always ways to improve. Even if your diet has a perfect balance of carbs, proteins, and fiber, it could be more sustainable (and nutrient-rich). Is true healthy eating something of a myth, a bar that we set impossibly high so that we can at least approach it?

Nobody gets it.

Michael Pollan and Christian Lander agree: eating organic is a pretty solid way for the yuppie to get the warm-and-fuzzies. Once starvation is no longer imminent, people are free to care about:

• How happy their beef patty was.
• If their shrimp cocktail was bred to eat corn.
• If the potassium bromate in their bread will give them cancer.

For this reason, many people have acted like my newfound clean eating is some sort of elitist streak. Like I'll come to my senses when I stop feeling so good about myself. Or, alternatively, when I seek professional help because I must have some kind of eating disorder.

"I'm avoiding processed foods."
"....But you're so skinny!"

...What?

A reaction that is slightly more on target, but still woefully-off, is that I am some kind of stiletto-wearing hippie trying to save the world one free range chicken at a time, making each market run an extension of my socialist agenda. First of all, I know too much about human psychology to think that's a viable option. Second of all, I'm liberal but I'm not super-liberal. However, I do believe that eschewing most of the trash that our current food system puts on the shelves is a political statement of sorts, and I would rather be seen as an activist than a yuppie-on-a-diet.

At the moment, of course, it seems like I'm neither. For now I'm just a new blogger who wants to see more happy cows.

Malto-what? An introduction.

This is not your typical eco food blog.

For starters, I can't claim to be a foodie/fervent cook/restaurant enthusiast, at least not yet. At present, I'm just an avid blog reader of people who can.

After a couple batches of pasta (burnt) and boiled eggs (golf ball properties), my parents decided that their young daughter was no budding chef and subsequently exiled me from the kitchen- a matter of public safety. There was quite a bit of self-exile there as well, since I started viewing food as strictly nourishment and calories-in/calories-out, and taste was sort of tertiary. I could probably find my way around a drawer of surgical equipment faster than a drawer of cooking utensils... Or, perhaps, confuse the two.

Secondly, I was never much of a tree hugger. I spent twenty-odd years in mainstream America, under the illusions that water was in infinite supply, diet soda was diet-friendly, and "yoga" was just another word for strength training. I had moments of clarity throughout my adolescence, but it wasn't until college (and Al Gore) that I started realizing what kind of mess we had all gotten ourselves into.

Anyway, as a recent college graduate and newcomer to the real world, I had reason to start fresh when it came to the kitchen. That could have meant learning a new recipe, but instead it meant becoming uncomfortably aware (read: outraged) of our broken food system and what it was doing to my breakfast. What were all these alien additives doing in my oat bran? Malto-what? Until Netflix suggested I stream "Food, Inc." instantly to my laptop, I had no idea the extent of it. When I surveyed those around me, I realized they didn't either; worse, they didn't care.

Enter a flurry of Michael Pollan books and related documentaries ("King Corn" is a good one). I realized that this was not a matter of staying slim and trim, or even protecting one's heart or cholesterol levels. This was a political, economic, and ecological disaster.

My friends and family don't want to hear me going off about commodity corn one more time, so this is my new outlet. Please join me as I figure out what the hell is going on in my food and the industrial system that put it on my plate, while learning to cook for the very first time- in the simplest, cleanest way I can find.