Bathrooms

It's a hot topic.  I know what you are thinking?  Will my roomie ever clean the bathroom?  This is especially a problem for males, students, and young persons.

Well, this is how I got my roomie to polish it all up without threats of violence or the supreme court getting involved.

One day I tacked an envelope to the wall.  On it I wrote "Great American Bathroom Sweepstakes", and wrote in the rules.  Every week, each roomie would put a dollar in the envelope and initial it.   The money was free for the taking to whoever broke down first and cleaned the lou.

I hardly saw my roomie, but he faithfully added a dollar to the envelope each week.  On the 4th week I came back from class to a sparkling bathroom.  My roomie smiled and said "I really needed the money".

How to chat

When two whaling ships met out in the ocean, they would exchange information in a session known as a gam. Most of us today travel not by whaling ship, but by car, foot, bike or ATV as the case may be. Now consider this scenario. Person “A” is in a car or ATV, and stops to talk with person “B” who can be moving in any sort of fashion. The first thing person “A” should do is to turn off their motor. This is because leaving it running pollutes, makes it hard to talk over the noise, and results in getting zero MPG. If they are using a motor driven conveyance, person “B” should do likewise. Typically, towards the end of the conversation, person “A” will restart their engine, and let it run while they get ready to leave. This is premature, as a Minnesota Goodbye could potentially drag on for hours. Person “A” should instead wait until all goodbyes have been said and person “B” starts to leave before starting up their engine and proceeding on their way.

Similarly, consider a group of Minnesotans on a typical zero degree day. They are leaving a restaurant. They step outside. The wind picks up. They start a long conversation, and discuss what to do next. Frostbite sets in. Couldn't this conversation have taken place before leaving shelter, not after?

I'll Fly Away

The biggest contribution most of us make by global warming is by flying.  There are two alternatives.  Skip the trip, or take surface transportation.  Despite some planes falling out of the sky recently, flying is very safe.  And annoying.  Like when the stewardess does the safety lecture, and says "In case of a loss of cabin pressure, for a small additional fee an oxygen mast will come down."

Consider the advantages to trains and cars and buses.  You see the scenery, can stop on the way, bring more toys, reschedule without penalties, don't have to track your miles, eat better, and go thru less stress.

There are trips that are easier to take by car than by plane.  These can be surprisingly long.  Let's say you fly 600 miles.  Yes, it only takes an hour or two.  Plus waiting on the tarmac, checking in an hour or two early, getting to the airport, etc.  The time it takes to drive may be pretty comparable.  Then factor in the expense and hassle of flying, taking off your shoes, going thru security, and the 600 miles drive seems pretty reasonable.  And when you get there, you don't have to rent a car and look for your lost luggage.  Depending on your type of vehicle and personal preference, you may choose to drive 1000 miles or more.  See some new places, wind and wend thru small towns, and visit your friends and relatives on the way.  If you avoid Interstates, you can go back in time and gawk at the Norman Rockwell scenes.

To increase the green-ness of a trip even more, you can take a hybrid or diesel, and pack the seats with friends or ride-seekers.

The train routes have nice scenery.  It's too bad it's so hard to go from point A to point B at a convenient time and price.  But one can always hope.

Eating south of the border

When in Rome, eating Romas doesn't take much effort.  Eating south of the border has its advantages.  The fruit grows on trees, the fish swim in the sea, the cows munch on grass.

Camping on the beach, we ate pretty well.

At the fishing village we ate fish.  The trick is to not eat too much of it.  Over time we tried to have fewer dishes on the table, less overall food, and more vegetative dishes.

On the beach we potlucked.  This works itself out, leading to chili, salsa, pineapple, and other real food items.  Spicy rice with carrots was well received.

My personal chef figured out how to make bread on a propane stove burner.  And pineapple upside down cake.  And other fine dishes.  Who needs a house kitchen?

When we dined out, it was at taco stands.  Our favorite would put out guacamole, salsa, cucumber, radish, cilantro, onion, more salsa, cabbage, chips, etc.  With that on the table, why have more than one?  Just an extra tortilla will do.

Back in the over-portioned US of A we've had to resort to meal skipping.

Food Trucks

There is a lot of buzz about food trucks nowadays.  The restaurants hate them, because they offer inexpensive quality home-style food cooked to order.  OK, some of their wares are unhealthy, but they seem a good alternative to sit downs.  The portions are smaller too.  In Mexico, street vendors lack refrigeration, and thus are forced to use fresh ingredients.  You can buy fruit cups, tacos, and all sorts of things.

There are restrictions i the U.S. on parking and selling food.  Are they there for health reasons, or do the restaurants pay the city council to make things hard for the competition?

The other thing you see in Mexico is shacks.  Among then, every 10th shack will have a window and a little store.  Think about it, during the latest recession unemployment got near 10%.   What if every tenth person sold food to his neighbors?  or made food to sell out of a cooler on the street or in the bus?  Whey then, chunk chunk, lets do the math, 10 - 10 = 0, we'd have no unemployment.

What is so wrong about neighbors selling food to each other?  Vested interests try and prevent people from doing a little business and supporting themselves because they don't want competition.

Street food is cheap and often the best chow in town.

Let's eat.

Corporate Food

It's all about money.  Big oil, big ag, big fast food, big business.  That's why our food is artificial and our school lunches unhealthy.

I was reading in the New Yorker that environmentalists are disappointed that Obama wont come out against the pipeline.  That's not the only issue he's weak on, here are ten issues that he has not taken a stand on.  What is the bully pulpit for if you don't use it?

1) he supports foreign wars

2) supports foreign military bases

3) supports drug war and mass incarceration of harmless people

4) supports bailouts for banks and auto companies

5) supports coal, oil and nuclear industry over solar and wind

6) supports ethanol

7) supports agribusiness

8) supports arresting and killing whistleblowers

9) supported gay rights only weakly, and only after "evolving"

10) supports big fences on the border

12) supports the IRS

13) supports corporate welfare

At least Michelle speaks out about food and health.

 

Spreading the Word

What might I do to spread the word of The All-Food Diet throughout the land?

Funny you should ask that...

You can follow this blog.

You can tell your friends.

And like the facebook page.  Only 16% of my facebook friends have liked so far.

www.facebook.com/AllFoodDiet

You can write on the page anything you want about diet, health, food, lifestyle, or what you are making for lunch.  Or tell us where you shop.  How you keep fit.  Your views on the industrialization of the food supply.

You can also share the page onto your timeline. 

Write a  review on Amazon.

www.amzn.com/gp/product/148009966X 

This site not only lets you like, but lets you 'try' and 'rate'.  If enough people do so, the relative rankings appear.  They list several thousand diets.

www.dietsinreview.com/diets/the-all-food-diet/

or like or review on goodreads, or put it on your shelf or lists...

www.goodreads.com/book/show/16145627-the-all-food-diet

You can still like or comment on the Waking Times piece.

http://www.wakingtimes.com/2013/06/28/the-all-food-diet-buy-foods-with-one-ingredient/

One

One is an important number, both in mathematics and in spirituality, not to mention numerology and diet.

How many screens should a movie theatre have?   One.  And it should have an old facade & marquee, serve real healthy snackfood if there is such a thing, have plush seats (one per person please), and have sconces and runway lights, and the piano should pop up out of the stage.  I never go to small noisy smelly modern multiplexes.

How many cars should you own?  Well, an argument can be made for zero, but one could also say no more than one.  Going one step further, many of us could get by on one internal combustion engine, and not own power mowers, ATVs, and the like, unless of course you really need them or have a good reason.

How any houses should you own?  Well again, you don't have to have even one, but consider the inconvenience of having more than one.  You have twice the taxes and maintenance, and how often do you really get to the second house?


How many wives should a man have?  Setting aside a discussion of none being an acceptable choice, and that the bible not only permits but requires a man to have more than one in the somewhat special circumstances that his brother leaves a widow with no sons, I would maintain that even though in a truly free society one can do as you please, the average American might find more than one hard to handle, and indeed given the divorce rate one seems to place an undue burdon on many persons.  Let us momentarily neglect the fact that "42" is the answer to everything.

When you buy food, how many ingredients should the food items contain?

Bags

How much is there to say about bags?  How compulsive can one be?

I have found that vegetable bags have little use.   These are the bags you get at the supermarket produce section.   Recently I've been putting onions and other fresh things straight into the basket.  After all, they are washed and cooked before eating.  Sometimes I take a veggie bag from the fridge and wrap something else in it, but there are few opportunities to use them.

At the markets, I usually put things in re-usable bags, although the name on the bag rarely matches the place I'm shopping at that day.  Putting the canvas bags on the conveyor belt helps the cashier to notice them and award you your dime.  When they say "paper or plastic" I respond with "canvas".

Regular plastic bags, the kind that Ireland and Los Angeles are legislating against, I use for messy garbage.  If I don't have enough, I find someone who has extras.

Paper grocery bags are for paper garbage, or for combining all the trash in the house.  Sometimes I fall short and ask others for extras.  Buying trash bags seems crazy, considering all the influx of bags and boxes into the normal household.

Recycling goes into boxes.  The boxes come from food and other purchases.  Sometimes I re-use them, pouring out the recyclables into their bin and taking the box back into the house.

My favorite bag is my baggallini.  They are made out of recycled industrial pasta, so you have to make sure you don't take them out in the rain, lest they break down.

Traffic and Weather together

Traffic and weather are impediments to biking.  It's the height of our short summer in the twin cities.  It's warm, light till late, and it is neither raining nor snowing.  The weather isn't bad, so let's talk traffic.

I've been riding to St. Paul a lot.   While there is not a single bike path going where I want to go, there are several routes work pretty well.  Much of the route is on a car-free bike path.  Other segments are low traffic.  Only a few blocks involve serious car threats.

Starting at my place, it's down the alley, to the end of the dead end block and onto the bike-crowded but car-free bike path.  I take this till it hits the Mississippi.  Someday they will re-purpose the RR bridge and add bikes to it, but not yet.  Then it's up river road bike path to the Franklin bridge.  Here we encounter cars.  There is  a bike lane over the bridge, and up the hill maybe 1/2 mile to University.  Behind University is a bike/bus only road, with bikable sidewalks as well.  This road curves around and drops you at the state fairgrounds.   While they are terribly crowded 12 days a year, on other days the grounds are deserted.  One route is thru como zoo and the como lake park, but I've been sticking to the fair grounds as far East and North as I can go and then taking a shady low traffic side street to my destination.

You can't always take a zero-car point to point route, but often you can get cobble together a route with a reasonable amount of coffin avoidance.

Big storms and food

Friday was the biggest storm in Minneapolis ever.  Tree limbs 18" in diameter blocked roads.  The power was out all over.

Be prepared.

The power was out, but the gas stayed on.  We were lucky.  There was plenty of hot water.  It makes sense to keep drinking water around, and some washing water too.

Batteries are not very green, but they can be handy in emergencies.  Generators are noisy.  I don't like them.  I guess they make sense for hospitals.  So stock batteries and LED flashlights and a keep a radio handy.  The radio should be windup, or solar, or run on batteries.

My van helped too.  It has a gas fridge, which I didn't need, and an inverter which was quite handy for charging the iPhone.  It wasn't cooking, lighting, eating, or cooling we were worried about, it was internet and phone.

With little or no internet, we got a lot of reading done, and sang,  and cleared some downed limbs, and did some cooking

Now, the All-Food Diet recommends keeping your fridge mostly empty.  When the storm came, we didn't have too much food to worry about.  We made a concerted effort to identify and consume the perishables.  It's not nice to toss Mother Nature's food.  Be creative in using it up before it goes bad.  FIFO.  When it gets to be bad or questionable, toss it.  There is no point in getting ill.

All die hard adherents of the All-Food Diet have little in the freezer.  We managed to cook what needed to be et before it defrosted.

A rally against Monsanto

I bused and biked and arrived at the State Capitol in Saint Paul, books in hand.  Many people were in attendance, of a variety of ages and lifestyles.  Some were in costume, such as the Grim Reaper, who carried a pitchfork with ears of corn attached.  Rabid petitioning was in full force.

After a spell, we marched down into Saint Paul, and I spotted some Morris dancers who had gathered from states far and near.  I talked to some friends, turned around, and the parade was gone.  After wandering to the farmers market and bridge over the Mississippi, I googled and re-joined the rally at the Capitol.

Then there was music and speaking and more soliciting.   Most people I talked to were exceedingly healthy in their dietary habits.   Some ate raw food.  That sounds healthy, but I like it cooked, and we've been cooking on fire for so long that it's in our genes.  Of course there were vegans & vegetarians and gardeners.  I've been a pescetarian three times.   I don't know why I did it the first time, but it came to an end when I discovered that hamburgers were made from animals.   The second time was based on grain shortages, discipline, and peer groups.  After a while my fervor waned and I was less inclined to follow others.  The third time was related to factory farms.  Eventually, I evolved to choose foods based on their intrinsic health value, how they were created, and where they came from.  The All-Food Diet is anything but extreme.  People seem to appreciate being able to cling to their favorite foods in moderation.

It's good to know that people are thinking about food, where it comes from, how it's labeled, and what they want to put into their body.  It's strange to see people agonizing over choosing the very best motor oil for their car, and throwing any old chemical laden fried greasy sugary oily over-packaged fast food down the hatch.

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...