Comida Natural

Food, in general, is better in Mexico.  I didn’t do a chemical analysis, but just consider…

I get fish from the fisherman as he drags his boat up on the beach.  Lemon’s grow on trees.  When I ask my friends for one, the usual response is “take many”.  I don’t know many lime trees, but I think the natives do a lot of barter and giving between relatives.  The tortillas are sometimes made by hand.  The Mango’s are fresh, or they are not there, but never are they ancient.  The beef is rumoured to be top rate.  I have not spotted CAFO’s, although I have seen many a cow tied to the roadside eating the grass.  I’ve seen tomato CAFO’s, but who ever got mad tomato disease?  The nopales is local.  The remainder of the food looks pretty good to me.  The fast food is fresh and local, quite the opposite of our side of the border.  The stands without refrigeration are forced to use fresh ingredients.  In the interior, the restaurants loudy announce Mariscos, but they don’t have any.  Food is Local, not because they are locovores, but because it’s easy and cheap to use local ingredients.

The price of food

It's seems to be going up.  Dried beans cost several times what they used to.  Going to a yuppie markets doesn't help.  They have good produce, but they get you on staples.  I suppose this is why we go to several markets.  Speaking of produce, my chili called for green peppers, which are decidedly not in season during December in Minneapolis.  And that's why we eat root vegetables in the winter, or break out the tomatoes that were froze during the harvest time.

The battle between corn farmers, GMO companies, Ethanol producers and consumers will come to a head some day.  I don't see why organic food should cost twice as much.  True, there is more labour, but there is less expense for chemicals and the like.  I think it's a matter of scale.  As support for real food grows, the price will come down.  Who know, maybe supermarkets will switch to all organic natural food.

While we complain about food prices, food expense as a percentage of income is historically low in the US.  People in the 1800s spent much of their income on food, and it wasn't gourmet either.  While we can lower our expense by buying seasonally and consuming staples such as rice and beans and potatoes, I feel for the third world people who live on a dollar a day.   For them, a doubling of food prices means a halving of how much they get to eat.  This is the true tragedy of our Ethanol policy.

Prius Envy

They're just great little cars.  Well, they're not unduly small, they're just great.  Great milage.  Warm, cool, good visibility, a stereo.

For some reason some non-owners are fiercely opposed to them.

"The battery will wear out".  But it didn't when taxi drivers put on hundreds of thousands of miles.

"The battery will be hugely expensive".  This is hard to reckon, because the batteries hardly ever fail.  If one ever did fail, there should be plenty of wrecks to cannibalize.

The only drawback I see if price.  They are not cheap, even counting the gas savings.  You don't buy one to save money today.  You buy it because it has way low emissions.  Because you want to walk around saying "I'm so green, I'm so green" to yourself.  Because you think there will not be peace in the middle east and the rest of the world, and that gas supplies may be disrupted, and gas prices may double some day.

What could be better?  Well, the plug-in sounds pretty cool.

Elevators. Just say no.

Here are some reasons:

• Walking stairs is good exercise. While you are at it, use the stairs to do some calf lifts every day. If it’s too many stairs to walk up, just walk down.

• Avoid that awkward time, too short to converse, long enough to be uncomfortable as you both stare at the floor number display.

• Save energy.

• Sooner or later, it’s going to get stuck and you won't be on it. Yay.

• It’s unlikely that the elevator will free fall, but it is even more unlikely that the stairs you are walking on will collapse.

• It can save your life. I had a co-worker who was in good shape. He had a large brood of children and a boyish aspect to him. He liked stairs. On 9/11 he was working in the World Trade Center, and he walked down 40 flights of stairs and out the door, safe and sound.

Food and Politics

I did not stress non-GMO and Organic in the All-Food Diet, even though I think they are find ideas.  There are several reasons for this.  I think the most important thing is eating real non-processed food.  If you go to restaurants, have friends feed you, or shop in a supermarket, you will end up eating lots of non-organic food, and it probably won't kill you.

It's also hard to define organic.  How many years does it take a field to recover from conventional farming?  If I grow an organic garden next to a non-organic one, is the food still good what with wind and contamination?  How is organic defined?  This is a political hot potato.

How do we change the food world?  Some people are 100% opposed to fast food, which is understandable.  But where is their voice?  The organizations they seek to change are not listening to them.

Another strategy is to divide and conquer.   Can consumers convince one grocery or fast food chain to incrementally improve the quality and labeling of their food?  Yes they can.  This is the power of the pocketbook.  This is how change comes about.  Walmart is carrying organic stonyfield yogurt.  Who'd a thunk it?  The non-GMO movement seems to be gaining ground as well.

A few Recipes From the All-Food Diet

There are zillions of recipes out there.  I use google to find them,  It helps to add keywords such as 'heathy', 'natural', or 'whole wheat'.   If I have a few specific items to use up, I'll enter the list into google and see what comes up.

Somewhat unintentionally, I wrote down a few recipes over the years.   These are included in The All-Food Diet.   And here they are:

RECIPES

Pho

Prep/cooking time: 20 minutes

Fill large Pot with water about 2/3 full

Set burner on Hi

Slice veggies to desired size

Stir sporadically as you add ingredients

Add:

Miso or other veggie soup stock base (use sparingly)

Hot Sesame oil (or other oil), many drops

Lime. Squeeze lots of lime in till stock tastes sour

Serrano or Jalapeno pepper

Pepper, to taste

Bundle of green onions

Lots of soy sauce or tamari, to taste

After veggies are cooked, add:

Package of hard (or firm) tofu

One Roma tomato

Package of rice noodles

Rice noodles will be cooked in about three minutes

Serve when they are soft

Serve with basil and sprouts

Curry Rice

Fry a green onion in hot oil

Optionally, Add:

Bits of sliced veggies, such as cabbage or bok choy

Tofu

Peanuts

Add:

Rice

Curry Paste (there must be a way to make your own, can someone post it)

Sliced Roma Tomato

Cubed jack cheese (optional)

Cook till hot and serve

Mexican V8 soup

In a medium saucepan, put 1 to 2 cans of Jugo de Verduras Ocho. In a pinch, substitute American V8. Fill pan with water till it’s ½ full. Put on High.

Add:

Pepper

Hot Pepper oil (a few drops)

2 Sliced Anaheim chilis

Several green onions and/or regular onion

Lots of cabbage

Lots of potatoes

Other veggies as desired

Serve with bread

Salad and Potatoes

Left side of plate:

Pour some peanut sauce on romaine lettuce

Right side of plate:

Slice some unpeeled potatoes real small

Boil till soft

Serve with butter and soy sauce or tamari

Note: Peanut sauce can be made from peanuts, coconut milk, spices and a few other things. I've never done it though.

Pasta with veggie garnish

Use small quantities of everything

Cook in hot oil:

Green onions

Roma tomato

Cabbage

Optional ingredients

Broccoli

Black Olives

Put on top of pasta

Yuppie pasta or angel hair work well

Tacos Veracruzana

Protein can be eggs, fish, or shrimp among other thing

Or you can use cabbage instead

Fry in hot oil:

One Jalapeno or Serrano pepper

Anaheim pepper (optional)

Add Onion

Red pepper (optional)

Wait

Add lime & romas

Add protein

Heat tortillas on top, one by one

Coconut Curry

Canola Oil

Curry

Onion

Anaheim pepper

Cashews, Almond slivers, sunflower seeds

Pea Pods

Red Pepper

Corn (cut from cob)

Coconut milk

Curry paste

Pepper

Hot sauce

Soy sauce or tamari

Add and stir fry in order given

Serve with rice

Fish Chowder

Cook an onion in oil

Add potatoes

Cook a bit longer

Add milk

Add cut up Tilapia

Add salt, pepper, and cumin or curry powder

Thanksgiving

I used to be a pescatarian.  While we never had a Thanksgiving fish, I was always happy with the spread.  Scratch the turkey, and that leaves only 11 vegetable dishes.  Yum.

It's hard to get hyped up for an entire month about food and not have a letdown.  There is only so much you can eat.  There is only so much you want to eat.  Fewer smaller portioned dishes are in order.  I do hate to waste food.  I try and use up all my leftovers by having a cupful twice a day for days on end.

This year will be a smaller gathering.  I've recommended that 'the bird' be a hummingbird.

Animal Farm

I just watched Food Inc.  What a scary movie.  We all knew that CAFO's were out there, but the devil is in the details.  No wonder there are so many vegetarians.  I should be getting a discount from my health care plan, as one of the few who doesn't have a diabetes prone diet.

Vegetables aren't safe either, because the animal farms produce mass manure runoff.  It seems like everything about the food industry is wrong.  Quality is often not a factor, and large amounts of water, fuel, antibiotics, pesticides, and fertilizer are used.

Family farms are good.  Grass fed beef.  Vegetables.  Local food.  Seasonal food.  Farmer's markets.

Fast food is bad.  Restaurant food.   Processed food.  Supermarket food.   Meat.

Ever since the black death, each generation has been taller, healthier, and has lived longer lifespans.  Modern food and sedentary lifestyles have reversed this trend.   Childhood obesity and diabetes are leading the current generation to be less healthy than their parents, and prone to die young.

Now if everyone bought foods with one ingredient and had a cow and chickens in their yard...

Tax Treats?

Now I'm hearing about a fatty foods tax.   We already have a large soda ban .  Where will it end?  I could make a long list of unhealthy foods.  Do we really want to tax donuts, white flour, and junk food?  Should we tax CAFO's, GMO food, non-organic food, meat, and butter?  Any tax on fries with that?

Even though the government is discouraging a few unhealthy things, many are encouraged with favorable tax treatment.  Big AG is supported, as is tobacco, ethanol, sugar, and oil.

Let's let the citizens take responsibility for their own diet, and stray when they deem it desirable.

Update:  The French are looking at a Nutella tax.  What can you do?

Nature's Way

Sometimes you have no science backing you up.  You just go by intuition.  Mine tells me that natural is good, and conversely, artificial is bad.

At one point they thought Radium was good for you, and DDT, and Thalidomide.  And C-sections.  Later it becomes apparent that they were wrong.

Why not jump the gun, and avoid household cleaners, GMO foods, excessive medications, and Teflon even before the science comes to light?

The New Yorker had a piece on biotics recently.   It seems that the good creatures in our guts are being wiped out by antibiotics.  This may cause overeating, asthma, and allergies.

Who knew?  I didn't, but I'll try to live natural on a number of fronts.  May as well get ahead of the curve.

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Meanwhile, the All-Food Diet has been released to CreateSpace, and is coming soon to Amazon.


http://allfooddiet.blogspot.com/

https://www.facebook.com/AllFoodDiet

Before and after Science

It's remarkable how many things are done in the worst possible way that ignores ancient natural cycles.

Take lawns.  They need water which is scarce, and power mowing which consumes fuel.  Then you can't just let the leaves lie as they do on the forest ground. No, they go to the dump.  And some lawns need weed killer and other chemicals, that end up contaminating the ground water.  Contrast this with a forest or a rock garden.


Take ethanol, one of the worst ideas ever.  It results in less food, impoverishes 3rd world farmers, raises food prices for the very poorest, uses water and fuel, pollutes, hurts your car.

The way we produce and distribute food is equally un-natural.  And so goes our entire society.  We irrigate the desert, air-condition metal boxes, live far from work, become dependent on fossil fuels, etc.

We all knew these things, but perhaps were unaware of the the overall pattern, which is quite disturbing.

Third World Food

It's been known for a long time that western (i.e. American) diets cause a decline in health.  Native peoples that move up in the world tend to start eating bad food as soon as they can afford it.

In a reverse of this trend, I am eating on the beach in Mexico.   I have no cans with me, and no freezer to speak of.  We are potlucking vanagons, consuming local fish, crab, avocados, corn, tortillas, salsa, fruit, broccoli, and other native ingredients.

Things are changing, but many of the food providers cannot afford unhealthy western food practices.  I saw chickens crossing the dirt street, and cows wandering the desert foraging.  One would hope that the fruits and veggies are raised more naturally than in the US.