Food is not medicine

One part of the U.S. National Eating Disorder that has always baffled me is the tendency to eat foods we don't like, or that upset our stomachs, just because we believe that these foods are healthy. I personally believe that a varied diet is a generally good idea, not just for health reasons, but for enjoyment of life, but why does that diet have to include things that actually taste bad to us? Things that make our digestive systems complain?

I suppose part of it is rooted in the mealtime conflicts, where children are threatened and cajoled into eating vegetables. Since these children were forced to eat things they actively disliked, they grew up thinking that a little culinary misery is necessary for a healthy diet. After all, if it isn't necessary, then that means mom or grandma didn't have a very good reason for doing what they did, aside from pure sadism, right? Or just not knowing any better, and it's difficult to view your mom that way.

I would wonder, how many people reading this (tell me, I do want to know!) were ordered to "fill your plate!" then ordered to eat the entire plateful practically at gunpoint? I was lucky enough that my mother rightly recognized this as a seed of later food- and eating-related mental issues, so she did not demand that we eat a particular quantity of food, nor insist that we eat particular items of food.* My grandmother, however, did and still does henpeck everyone at a family dinner if they have not piled high and subsequently eaten every bite, and she has never been respectful of my vegetarianism. Since I didn't get this treatment at home, I found it intrusive and offensive, and recognized that I was extremely lucky.

I was especially fortunate in that, because vegetables were not treated as a nasty medicine that must be eaten at all costs, I never viewed them that way. That, coupled with my parents' decent culinary skills, allowed me to enjoy vegetables, from Brussels sprouts to winter squash. I guess I was also a lucky child in that broccoli and Brussels sprouts did not taste bad or bitter to me; many children are sensitive to bitter flavors, making it more cruel when they are forced to eat vegetables that really do taste awful to them. Sadly, many parents do not know or care about this tendency, so by the time a child's taste buds have changed to tolerate broccoli and cabbage, they've been so traumatized by these items that they won't try them in adulthood.

Even so, many adults these days are conditioned to not just believe that it's required to eat food that tastes bad, but they feel guilty for enjoying foods that don't. Food isn't nourishment, it's medicine. You eat tomatoes for their lycopenes. Wine is consumed not for enjoyment, but because it contains reservatrol. Don't you dare enjoy that cup of tea, you're drinking it to get your antioxidants! Same thing for chocolate! And your birthday cake? You need to leave out the flour, butter, eggs, milk, and sugar--even if you aren't diabetic or suffering from celiac disease, because, well, because. Give me a break.

Can we stop this stupidity? If you don't like the way a food tastes, don't eat it. It's okay to have foods that might affect someone else badly--their medical conditions do not have anything to do with you. I'm allergic to peanuts, but millions of people eat them every day without a problem. So eat your peanuts if you can. I also can't eat bell peppers (although I will spare you the description of why), but you go right ahead and enjoy them. Meanwhile, I'll be having a slice of cake while taunting my friend A., who has celiac disease :)

Eat what you like. Don't eat what you don't. Stop using food as medication. Please?

* Please note that later eating issues were absolutely NOT related to food or weight. Seriously.

omg vegans and vegetarians eat stuff that isn't meat! HOW DARE THEY!

Yes, yes, I know I should avoid Fark.com, but sometimes I find useful stuff in the discussions.

Their pissing and moaning about Tofurky, however, was just idiotic. Poor them, having to live with the knowledge that people are eating meatless meals in their own homes for Thanksgiving! In fact, there are people eating foods that these guys haven't tried, but KNOW are horrible and disgusting, and it's just plain wrong! That, and, omg, sometimes the people eating this disgusting Tofurky stuff are occasionally FAT! That's, like, even worse.

Because, y'know, it's totally their business what I want to eat, and whether or not I'm fat.

This kind of bitching and moaning leads me to believe that such complainers are not totally comfortable with their own choices. Many of those I know who aren't nasty assholes to me about being a vegetarian are people who are conscious about their diet choices, and have come to terms with them.

But, hey, let me answer some of the stupid-ass questions raised:
"If you aren't eating meat, why are you trying to replace it with meat substitute?" This to me seems like something they could figure out with a couple of brain cells, but let me answer it anyway: Because sometimes, people are vegetarian or vegan because they don't want to kill animals. Eating fake meat means they can have the easy, convenient source of protein without the whole animal torture and death bit. Duh.

"Why are people fat if they are vegans?" Because being fat isn't wholly dependent upon diet. Genetics, medications, and other factors come into play. Body fat can be made from all kinds of foods, not just meat and dairy. Also, see above about it being an animal rights thing for some people. Health may or may not be a consideration.

"But tofu tastes bad!" Okay, well, that's an opinion, you see, and not everyone shares that opinion. Besides, Tofurky is made from tofu, but it doesn't taste like tofu. Also, tofu can be prepared well, or it can be prepared poorly. Most people who have eaten my tofu like it.

"zomg lol plants are alive too!" People who bring this up are generally just being deliberately obtuse. If you cannot figure out that a squash is less likely to suffer than a cow, then I really can't help you. Of course, I will dignify this by also mentioning that each cow must eat many times more plants to process them into meat than if someone just eats the damn plants--and this becomes a huge problem when cows are fed grain instead of being allowed to eat grass (incidentally, grass is helped by proper grazing by cattle, so the factory farming process of stuffing them with corn has a bunch of problems that I won't go into here).

"But I totally knew this one vegan who was snotty to me about my diet, and stuff, so how dare anyone be a vegan!" That's nice. I hear this used quite frequently as an excuse for people to be assholes to vegetarians and vegans. How about this: Don't be a dick to someone who hasn't actually done this to you, regardless of your experiences with other people in the past? Why is that such a difficult concept? I'm not responsible for the actions of others. Maybe I should be an ass to you because a meat-eater who wasn't you was trying to sneak sausage into my lunch? Would that be fair? I have come to recognize this excuse for what it is: An excuse for intolerant, asinine behavior that the people would have engaged in regardless of their past experience. I make you uncomfortable, so you want to lash out at me, and this gives you what you believe to be a good rationalization for doing so. Only, it isn't. So stop being an asshole.

"I knew a vegetarian that only ate potato chips and candy!" Okay, and? For one, their dietary choices aren't any of your business. For another, they're someone else, not me, so why does this relate to me at all?

"BUT OMG WE HAVE CANINE TEETH!" Yes, we do. And even if humans are "supposed" to be omnivorous, some of us choose otherwise because of a desire to reduce the suffering of animals. Our teeth really don't have anything to do with it.

"BUT YOU NEED MEAT!" What people really mean by this is, they cannot imagine how THEY would eat without meat in their diet. Because it is incomprehensible to them, someone who does otherwise is frightening and/or disturbing. Remember, though, that just because something seems difficult or impossible to you, it doesn't mean that others find it so.

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I suppose I should be less bothered by them, I should be accustomed to it, but sometimes I just get overloaded with annoyance. I did read one book a while back that helped a lot, though--and the recipes in it are very good: Living Among Meat Eaters: The Vegetarian's Survival Handbook by Carol J. Adams. Some people are uncomfortable with her suggestion that antagonistic omnivores are likely subconsciously (or consciously, for that matter) conflicted about their meat-eating, and instead of dealing with it, lash out at people who have made the choice to remove themselves from the conflict. However, even if you do not agree with that idea, her suggestion to view antagonists this way is helpful in dealing with their unpleasant treatment of you. She offers excellent advice in dealing with a number of situations, prioritizing respect of others' choices, even if you disagree with them. I cannot recommend this book enough, especially for new vegetarians who are becoming frustrated with the way they are treated.

Update on me

I've been very busy lately, and not feeling terribly great.

I've had a hard time actually wanting to eat anything these days. I manage to get just enough to stop the hunger pangs; I seem to get full very quickly, on a very small amount of food. And no, for the trolls out there, I am not eating McDonald's. I never eat there, as they don't even have vegetarian fries--I do occasionally get an unsweetened iced tea via the drive thru, because they are one of the last bastions of freshly brewed iced tea. I love iced tea, but the from-concentrate nasty crap that most restaurants have switched to is just intolerable. And, I know the southerners are going to burn me at the stake for this, but I don't like sweetened tea. I feel it ruins the taste of the tea. I just adore the flavor of black tea, and we brew gallons and gallons of iced tea here at home, in addition to cups of hot tea in the winter to warm our hands and lips.

I'm finding that a balance of protein with a bit of bread is the best way to satisfy my hunger without being too much of a chore to eat; a soy burger on a bun with a bit of ketchup fills me up--almost too much--and gives me enough nourishment that I'm not hungry later. I've never been able to eat large amounts of food, but my appetite has just disappeared lately.

In other news, my husband and I decided to become foster parents--to three beautiful kittens. We're fostering for Robin's Nest, a local cat rescue that also does spay/neuter programs for needy families. Our little girls came out of a poverty situation, where their mother had become pregnant in a household that could not afford health care for their cats. The parents have both been fixed. The girls came to us at 8 weeks old, covered in fleas, and absolutely adorable. They're FELV/FIV negative, vaccinated, wormed, and treated for fleas and ticks. They will be spayed before they are adopted out, which will be done when they are 4 lbs each. Robin's Nest spays or neuters EVERY cat before adoption.

I am also volunteering at their adoption center, cleaning cages, socializing cats, assisting with blood draws and vaccinations, and helping with adoptions. They are a very positive organization, with extremely experienced and knowledgeable folks in charge of things. If anyone is inexperienced, there are several wonderful people who make great mentors. I signed up to help with fundraising, too, and I'll be renting a booth in the craft fair this weekend, where I will sell photography. I've also donated the remainder of my wedding favor spoons, which will be packaged with the Robin's Nest Cookbook to encourage sales.

Of course, you're all saying, "That's great, Rio, but enough talk about the kitties, WE WANT PICTURES!" Ask, my friends, and you shall receive! I have many photos and videos of the little darlings.

The long-haired one is Charlotte (the sweet one), the white one is Ptera (she's got extra thumbs!), and the short-haired buff colored one is Anya (the wild one). Enjoy the photos and videos!

Click on the thumbnails for larger pics:



Videos:

The Fatophobe's Dilemma

I recently wrote about my difficulty reading The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan.

I had a hard time getting through this book, mainly because early on, the author plunges into fat fearmongering (fatmongering?). He even brings up the "omg type II diabetes in children!" That particular topic really irks me; it's complicated, but, essentially, there aren't more kids with Type II diabetes, necessarily, it's that nobody was actually looking for it until recently. Now that they ARE testing kids for it, they're finding insulin resistance (and therefore high blood glucose levels) in kids undergoing a growth spurt.

Why? Okay, basically, growth hormone induces insulin resistance, so when kids have a lot of growth hormone going through their systems--and this is especially strong right at puberty--they are going to have a higher blood sugar level than they did prior to the growth spurt. Now, with the "omg kids are fat" scares out there, they're testing as many kids as possible (especially if they aren't skinny) for fasting blood glucose. And, as you can guess, when the kid hits a growth spurt or hits puberty, suddenly his levels are higher than before. Instead of saying, "Hey, this kid is having a growth spurt," the child becomes a patient--one that conveniently needs expensive monitoring and medication--for the rest of his life. Oh, and, there's no telling what effect it will have, long-term, to be dicking around with these kids' biochemistry. I guess we'll find out, right?

So, anyway, that's not the least of this book's obsession with yucky fat people, but it's one of the problems I encountered early on. It's interesting, by the way, that he places an immense amount of mistrust in the corporate food chain, but doesn't even blink when spouting off medical statistics that were likely funded by the pharmaceutical food chain. But I digress.

There are a LOT of good points in this book. Modern corporate farming is unsustainable, almost irreparably damaging to the land, and not giving us much variety in our diets. It's true that most of the North American food chain begins with genetically modified, petroleum-fertilized, monocultured corn. It's true that the meat in North American grocery stores has mostly come from animals that were fed lots of antibiotics, garbage (literally), and hormones, and that they suffered immensely (although, Eric Schlosser did a better job of describing the factory farmed animal point of view in Fast Food Nation).

It's also true that the Organic movement has become a few rules shy of the same industrial farming that it was intended to improve upon. Once it went corporate, "organic" is too often about doing the very least you can do in order to legally use the label--in other words, industrial farming techniques are tweaked just enough to get that label, without sacrificing the "efficiency" of factory farms or industrial crops.

I was glad I stuck it out to the latter half of the book, where the author visits an extremely sustainable farm that produces a variety of foods without the need for pesticides, fertilizers, antibiotics, or even animal suffering. I will say that this section makes the book well worth reading, and it would be great if he'd write a follow-up (without the fat-hate!) discussing how to implement such techniques across the nation. It's farming, the way it once was, and the way so many people have forgotten, as they suck the corporate teat and become addicted to the chemical "blessings" contained therein. Working with the nature of plants and animals, instead of regarding their biology as something to be conquered and worked around. Harnessing their ecology instead of tightly micromanaging their every life's moment. It's a beautiful thing, I'll admit.

The last part of the book was kind of, well, ridiculous and macho. I was very put off by his exploration of vegetarianism, which seemed to last for about half a day, where he read Animal Liberation and responded angrily to parts of it that suggested that animals might have the ability to suffer. He eventually decided that animals evolved to be our livestock in order to take advantage of our ability to culture them and ensure the continuation of their species. In fact, throughout the book, he assigns a consciousness to evolution, going so far as to claim that corn took advantage of human beings. This tells me that he really doesn't have a firm grasp of evolution, and I disagree that success for a species' continuation is a good enough reason for the enslavement and torture of its individuals. The question he failed to ask here is whether or not he would endure suffering in order to continue on the family name, if he knew for a fact that his offspring, and his offspring's offspring, and those thereafter, forevermore, would have lives of unabated pain and suffering.

He quoted someone (but did not name the person) thusly: "The pig has a stronger interest than anyone in the demand for bacon." Perhaps "The pig" as a species--but a species does not have a consciousness. It does not suffer. It is simply a construct that we have created to help us define a group of living organisms--and it is not even as rigid a construct as some people believe. The edges of a species can blur with its range (like North American rat snakes, hoo boy), and a species can change over time, dividing into multiple species (as with African cichlids), or dying out (mammoths, passenger pigeons). To assign a species some sort of will and consciousness is a human fancy, an anthropomorphizing of a concept that serves only to rationalize the author's desire to eat animals without having to be concerned for the way that animal lived and died.

So, in that regard, he is remarkably shallow, and I was put off by his later implication that vegetarians who avoid the guilt of eating meat are less spiritually aware than those who face that guilt and live with it, like we're some kind of naive little children who are putting the responsibility on other people by our choice not to bear the burden ourselves. He seemed to think that, with his one day of being a "vegetarian", he suddenly knew what it was like. There were tedious complaints that being a vegetarian alienates a person, making them a difficult guest, and practically anti-social, since vegetarians reject what "helped make us what we are in a physical as well as social sense."

You see, because cavemen gathered together around a fire to cook and divide the meat, those who don't participate in this ritual are hacking away at the fabric of society. Or something. And that we might as well give up sex, since, due to modern technology, we can live without eating meat and reproduce without having sex (because, you know, having consentual adult sex is a form of pleasure that causes all KINDS of animal suffering--which could be prevented, by the way, if the cats would just stop staring; it's their own fault they suffer!).

Anyway, I digress yet again. The last part of the book describes the author's foray into mushroom hunting and wild pig shooting. Wild mushrooms are all kinds of wonderful, and while they are difficult to obtain, I won't begrudge the author's enjoyment of them. However, I take exception to his notion that hunting anything with a gun (especially today's fancy-pants guns) makes him a primal manly man. Sorry, dude, but you're 100% modern techno-hunter. Get over it. It also doesn't mean you're "off the grid", because the gun was probably made in China or someplace like that, and your ammunition came from a cardboard box. You certainly weren't out there in a loincloth, so all that hunting gear had to come from somewhere.

I'm not making a statement that hunting is evil or anything like that; I'm just saying that going out and shooting your own food does NOT mean you haven't tossed money (and probably a lot of it) at a corporation somewhere. I fully acknowledge that, because we've introduced pest species (like the wild pigs in the south and in Northern California) and eliminated apex predators, there is a need for it. So don't get on my ass about that.

To sum all this up, there were a few parts of this book that were worthwhile. There was a lot of it that was navel-gazing bullshit that made me roll my eyes. There was also a lot of it that pissed me off, either because of the fatphobia or because of the anti-vegetarian stance. I would recommend that, if you read this, check it out from the library instead of wasting your money on it.

A good relationship with vegetables

For my family, Thanksgiving has always been the day to get the foods you love best. Mom's amazing potato recipe, asparagus with lemon butter, acorn squash, pumpkin pie, and the family recipe pasta salad (filled with broccoli, carrots, garbanzo beans, tomatoes, and other stuff), and home-made honey wheat dinner rolls. The menu fluctuated according to our changing tastes and adventurous palates, but there were always good vegetable dishes. Our daily life, too, saw excellently seasoned vegetables of all kinds, from buttery brussels sprouts that were green and slightly crunchy, not gray and mushy, to lemony, peppered broccoli that was always just the right amount of soft and crunchy. There were very few vegetables that I didn't like, and they were the ones that tend to be all or nothing anyway, like beets and sweet potatoes. My parents both have a knack for seasoning and perfect timing, so the vegetables I ate during my younger years were usually delicious.

Fast forward to my first marriage, and family gatherings with the in-laws: Thanksgiving dinners seemed more focused on quantity rather than quality; enormous bowls of cooked, unseasoned frozen corn, green beans, and peas were passed around. Mashed potatoes were, sadly, similarly uninspired. While I was urged not to bring anything to the meals by well-meaning aunts, I soon learned that if I wanted something that tasted good, I would have to ignore their instructions and prepare at least one or two items--and I brought home empty bowls every single time. I wondered, if these dishes were their "special" meal, what were they serving on regular days? And how many of their kids thought that vegetables were gross, boring, or practically inedible? My unfailingly disappearing offerings were proof that these people were not actually allergic to flavor; they just didn't have any clue about seasoning. If my parents had fixed me those items daily and hounded me to eat them, I'd have grown up hating vegetables, regarding them as a particularly weird form of torture--and, in fact, that is how my former spouse seemed to feel about them. He wasn't really even willing to try the vegetables I made, except for potatoes.

Moving into the present, I now have in-laws that can actually cook. Brian's mother tries out new recipes all the time, and we've had some pretty tasty and unusual dishes during holidays at his family's place. Consequently, Brian loves to eat vegetables. I have tried almost every vegetable on him, including the much-hated brussels sprouts, and he has not rejected any of them. I also have a feeling that his parents didn't hound him to eat everything on his plate--doing so can cause a number of food issues in the future, and I've really found that, if you don't actually make a big deal out of the food being served, kids are less likely to reject it. It also helps if you make food that tastes good. I don't blame most of these kids for rejecting their parents' unimaginative cuisine.

The sad part is, it actually isn't that hard to make food taste good. I believe that a steamer is an important tool for preparing delicious vegetables. Broccoli, for example, gently steamed, then seasoned with lemon pepper and a hint of butter, is delicious. Green beans are fantastic with a simple sauce of orange juice, soy sauce, ginger, thyme, and garlic--steam, then stir fry them instead of boiling them, and add some sliced almonds to the pot if you have them. Mashed potatoes are a great deal better with any number of mix-ins, including rosemary, garlic, bay leaf, and lavender (try steaming the potatoes instead of boiling them, and add the herbs to the steame in a cloth teabag or metal tea ball). The payoff of a good relationship with vegetables is more than worth the marginal time and expense it takes to make them taste good.

Note: I use this steamer, which is very simple to use, and it has a scenter basket that allows you to put herbs on a screen to flavor the vegetables. This is especially useful for herbes de provence, rosemary, lavender, and bay leaf. I absolutely love this item; it was a gift from my grandmother nine years ago, and it's still going strong.

Let's talk about teeth

Edited to add:
Apparently, some people lack reading comprehension, and proclaimed this article to be "dumb", "irrational", and says that it makes vegetarianism look bad. Aside from the obvious projection going on, let me say this: Nowhere in this blog entry do I tell you that humans are or are not naturally herbivores. Nowhere do I say that you should become a vegetarian. It is simply a humorous way to respond to those pain-in-the-ass people who come up with silly arguments like this. If you take it as anything else, then you're reading way too much into it. If you are upset by this, then click on something else and go on with your day. There is no reason for you to be a dick to me over what you read in this article.

Edit #2: I've gotten a lot of feedback stating that hippos are omnivores. While there are occasional reports of carnivory, cannibalism, and carrion-eating, these reports are few and far between, and it is generally accepted that this is the result of abberant behavior or nutritional stress. During shortages of their preferred grasses, they typically first turn to aquatic vegetation and elephant dung as an alternative. If, during the drought season, they do eat meat, seemingly out of desperation, it can have disastrous consequences in the form of diseases such as anthrax. In zoological parks, they are fed herbivore diets, and this is the absolute healthiest diet for them; it is what their bodies are truly designed to digest. Think about it this way: Rendered meat products have been added to cattle feed for a long time now. This does NOT mean that cows are omnivores, or that it is healthy for them; it just means that most very hungry warm-blooded creatures will eat what's available if the other option is starving. It doesn't mean their bodies are designed for that; it means that they're desperate. Every available resource, including zoos and textbooks, will tell you that a hippo is an herbivore, and I agree with that.

If there's one thing I'm sick of, it's anti-vegetarians howling, "But, see, we have CANINE TEETH, and them's for eating meat!" So, let's talk teeth, and why your pathetic, flat, short little canines are barely worthy of herbivory, let alone killing animals and rending their flesh. I'm going to cover mammals, because it's irrelevant to discuss more distantly related animals, including turtles, whose beaks are the same from carnivore to herbivore to jellyfish-ivore, or carnivorous frogs, whose few teeth are designed to keep prey from escaping their enormous mouths.

First, let's talk about omnivores. Raccoons, pigs, and bears all have sharp, pointed canines that are useful for killing and tearing flesh. You probably have a good idea of what bears' teeth look like, so here are the others.
Raccoon:

Pig:


See the pointy teeth? How they're significantly longer than the rest, and that they are round, for puncturing? They are proportionately much larger and sharper than human canine teeth.

Now, let's have a peek at a chimp's skull. A Chimpanzee is one of our closest cousins. They are omnivorous, eating mostly fruit, with about 5% of their diet (and ranging anywhere from 4 to 10% with seasonal variations) comprised of animal matter. While they eat a lot of insects, especially termites (yum yum!), a major vertebrate prey species for them is the red colobus monkey. So, here's the skull:

(Image from Bone Clones, who is linked from the image)

Note the very large, round, canine teeth. Teeth that, incidentally, are not used to kill prey! They grab their prey (again, usually baby colobus monkeys) and fling them repeatedly against the ground or a tree limb until they are dead. Also, hunting in chimpanzees appears more related to impressing chicks than it does to obtaining protein.

Chimps and humans are the only great apes to eat a significant quantity of animal protein; the rest, including bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans are primarily herbivores, opportunistically eating some insects. The lesser apes (gibbons) are primarily fruit and insect eaters, with some of them taking in tree bark and leaves as well. All of the great AND lesser apes other than humans have large, pointy, rounded canines. Here's a gorilla skull with a human skull for comparison:


Now, they sure don't need those canines for killing termites, but compared to humans, their mouths are positively fierce. But, let's not just pick on our relatives, let's have a look at the very herbivorous even-toed ungulate known as the hippopotamus:


Whoa! Fierce! Rawr! Hippos have long, sharp canines! They are widely considered to be the most dangerous animal in Africa, partly because their 8000-lb bodies can reach land speeds of 18mph (faster than you), and partly because they can bite off your head and shoulders with one angry chomp. They're fiercely territorial, and they use those big nasty teeth to fight, both with one another and with potential predators.

So, there you have it. Canine teeth are present in a number of different mammals for a number of different reasons. For many herbivores, they are used to fight off predators and competitors (and they're great for tearing the flesh of FRUITS!). Most of our closest genetic relatives are omnivorous only to the extent that they eat insects, but I don't see any of these chest-beating meat-eaters clamoring to chow down on a termite colony. Compared to true omnivores and many herbivores, our own canine teeth are quite puny, not well-shaped for hunting or even defense.

So why ARE our canines so small and flat? There are a few theories on this, one of which is that we adapted mouths that could allow us to hold our breath (perhaps to dive for shellfish during a coastal phase of evolution), and to enable sucking (fruit juices, insects and seafood from their shells, that sort of thing). These changes eventually allowed us the ability to speak; if we had big canine teeth like our cousins, we would have difficulty making all the sounds we need for communication.

I'm not telling you to go vegetarian. That's up to you. I am asking that you stop pointing to your puny-ass canines and pretending that they make you a meat-eater. Also, our new house came with a termite problem, so if you're really proud of being an omnivore, this vegetarian homeowner could really use your help!