Amy Middleton Loves New York

Recently I decided to try a raw foods diet. Mainly because it scares me. As a long-time vegetarian and a lover of butter, chocolate, and lentils, I wasn’t quite sure what I would eat if I eliminated not only dairy and eggs, but also grains and anything… you know, cooked. If you take my normal diet and remove anything that is not a raw fruit or vegetable, you aren’t left with enough to subsist on. Which is exactly the challenge: I wanted to re-think my approach to raw the same way I encourage meat eaters to re-think their approach to vegetarian. It’s not just about omitting, but replacing, discovering, and enjoying.

I will tell you some sites that I’ve found helpful: Kristen Suzanne’s Kristens Raw and Esme Stevens’ The Best of Raw Food. Mostly I’ve been having smoothies and juices, and I’m introducing new foods to my diet and magic bullet.

Here’s the tally so far, after about a week and a half of being mostly (not completely) raw, but avoiding refined sugar completely:

• I already have lost a craving for processed foods. Bananas seem overly sweet to me.
• With a few notable exceptions, I can enjoy almost anything I make in the magic bullet. Kale, spinach, and carrot smoothie? Bring it on. I don’t love eating salads but I really don’t have a problem with liquefied veggies.
• I had faux oatmeal yesterday that left me happy all morning. Banana, apples, flax seed, and cinnamon- it was delicious.

Today I made this salad.
I call it antipasta salad. Here is my recipe:
1 zucchini squash
1 roma tomato
some pinenuts
some hemp seeds
a splash of oil and vinegar

I shredded the zucchini using some sort of device that just happened to exist in this kitchen of dreams where I live. I was expecting it to taste slightly unpleasant, which is why I went heavy on the nuts and oils. But it was absolutely great and I was wishing for more of the zucchini. Next time I might just eat it plain.

Also of note: I was just looking back at some old posts and I saw this from 2005. I had forgotten what a deliberate goal it had been of mine to learn to prepare food. It’s all the more satisfying to remember, and motivation to continue.

I got an email from Food Democracy Now asking me to join their petition to “tell the FDA and the USDA that Froot Loops® is NOT a Smart Choice for our children.” I certainly agree with what they are saying, but I don’t know that I want the FDA giving the thumbs up or down to every label out there. Mainly because I don’t think we should place credibility or confidence in any processed food that could keep the label. I don’t want to give the FDA–susceptible as it is to lobbying, biases, human error, and general non-omniscience–the power of judicial review to be saying that Twix is not a smart choice but Twix in a 100 calorie package is.

The Smart Choices Program website states:
Because shoppers are often strapped for time and need to make choices quickly, the Smart Choices Program provides at-a-glance information on the front of the package. This includes: A symbol to help you make smarter food and beverage choices within product categories.

Here’s what Dr Eileen T. Kennedy, president of the Smart Choices board, had to say about the checkmark in this NY Times article:

“The checkmark means the food item is a ‘better for you’ product, as opposed to having an x on it saying ‘Don’t eat this,’ ” Dr. Kennedy said. “Consumers are smart enough to deduce that if it doesn’t have the checkmark, by implication it’s not a ‘better for you’ product. They want to have a choice. They don’t want to be told ‘You must do this.’ ”

Dr. Kennedy, who is not paid for her work on the program, defended the products endorsed by the program, including sweet cereals. She said Froot Loops was better than other things parents could choose for their children.

“You’re rushing around, you’re trying to think about healthy eating for your kids and you have a choice between a doughnut and a cereal,” Dr. Kennedy said, evoking a hypothetical parent in the supermarket. “So Froot Loops is a better choice.”

So, to review, Froot Loops is a better choice WHEN COMPARED TO A DOUGHNUT. That’s amazingly helpful. When I lived in Belize, the women I knew there thought it was ok to fill baby bottles with Coke. The argument could certainly be made that it’s better than alcohol. You can always find something worse than what you’re doing, but that has no bearing on whether what you are doing is indeed “smart.”

However, if we as rushed consumers deserve to be making informed choices, and the clearly subjective checkmark system works, I have a suggestion to make it even more informative: put a graphic of the food it is better than next to the check. A box of cereal would have a picture of a doughnut so that those consumers can feel good about their decision to not start the day off with a greasy pastry. A doughnut could come in a box with a picture of, say, a dozen doughnuts. Or a turducken. The turducken could have an image of lead paint. And the lead paint stands alone.

The Smart Choices Program website also felt it important to include this kid cereal endorsement:

On average, only about 5% of the sugar consumed by U.S. children comes from ready-to-eat cereals, according to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Pre-sweetened cereals have been demonstrated to be a good source of vitamins and minerals for children. Studies around the globe have consistently shown that kids who eat breakfast have more physical and mental energy than those who do not. Cereal eaters are also more likely to have healthier body weights and greater vitamin and mineral intakes.

Again, it is significant to note what is being compared here. First, sugar cereal is compared to a poor national diet so full of bad food choices that it is only 5% of the problem. Nice work, America. Next, it is compared to a meal plan in which breakfast is not served. So basically eating is better for you than not eating, and if your kid has juvenile diabetes anyway, better to give him Count Chocula than a bowl of corn syrup and a can of Mountain Dew.

I’m not a perfect eater- I’ve had doughnuts for breakfast before and that’s not the worst decision I’ve ever made. A lot of us knowingly choose to be unhealthy, and I wish it weren’t so convenient or casual to do that, but that’s what we’re up against. My concern is that so many people don’t know. We are misled by claims, sponsored research, inaccurate reporting, and a false belief that if something were bad for us, the FDA would intervene and stop it. Froot Loops may not be the leading cause of obesity, but if we’re being told it’s a smart choice, we deserve to know, right on that same label: compared to what?

In a TED talk given earlier this month, Ms. Fresco makes a compelling argument for “wonderbread” and its power to free us from agricultural labor. A few of her well-taken points:

• We’ve become very removed from what our bread really is.
• A fallacy comes from idealizing a past that we’ve forgotten about.
• Small scale (farmers markets) is a luxury solution for those who can afford it if we want to afford it.

While our preference for artisan bread may not rescue anyone in developing nations, I fail to see how our purchase of processed bread helps with such an initiative. Meanwhile, artisan bread is sold at a premium and generally involves no exploitation of persons or resources. I appreciate her greater vision of local energy-generating solutions. But the evangalism of white bread to a first world nation escapes me. Thoughts?

Today I went to a DIY Urban Agriculture workshop on Alternative Planting Bed Construction. For this post, let’s look at the purposes of raised planting beds. As previously reviewed, good soil gives your plants the right nutrients. But what happens when your soil is malnourished? As with humans, giving your soil proper nutrients does not produce immediate results, it happens over time.

Raised beds are one way to give your garden a “do over.” Rather than making changes to the land (or perhaps coupled with that), you can “build up” by bringing in a planter and filling it with high-quality soil.

Advantages of raised beds:

• provide a soil “do over”- start with high quality soil and easily add compost and organic matter
• prevent soil compaction (you aren’t compacting the soil by walking on it)
• allow for better sun, air circulation, and drainage
• extend the harvest season by warming up earlier and staying warmer longer
• are easier to maintain due to elevation(especially for gardeners with bad backs or pains)
• are good place to grow invasive plants
• serve as barrier to pests and bugs

Raised bed designs:

Tire Bed (picture found on this adorable blog)

Raised Beds featured in Gardenweb.com

Cold Frame Raised Bed available at Hawthorns

Tiered Raised Bed from mastergardenproducts.com

More to come on:
What kind of soil and matter to use
How to build a raised bed from recycled materials

I’ve been trying to grow an apartment garden for the better part of 2008–partly for fun, mostly to provide a foundation for my hopes of eventually cultivating a sustainable garden. The basil grows steadily, the noble attempt to rescue dying strawberries never stood much of a chance. Potted lemon and lime trees (mutant leaves jetting from awkward branches) fight for sunlight with a tomato plant tied to the window, towering above them. None of them bear fruit. For a while it served as a disturbing metaphor for my life; in spite of my desire, attention, diligence, and labors, my garden was barren. My personal law of the harvest was a broken one.

What do you do when all you want to do in life is to produce fruit, and you are not in the position to do so, and you have no evidence that suggests you will ever be capable of doing so? For as frustrating as it is, you become humbled and grateful for the littlest of wins, the tenderest of mercies. Had it not been for the desperateness of the situation, I may have been disappointed in my meager harvest of one small tomato. Instead, it serves as a small miracle, proving that there is cause to hope and even rejoice, and reminding me that life finds a way.

Today’s addition to the sustainable living dream: one hive of bees. Pros: honey. Cons: bee stings. Hmm. On the subject of honey, I realize I never posted my pic of my 12 lb jar. Behold its majesty:

A few weeks ago I patronized the “Potato King” street vendor, and soon after was craving food that wasn’t starchy and burned (so sad…such potential). I saw people with Jamba Juice and tried to follow their trails, but never found anyone who wasn’t on a cell phone that I could safely ask the location of their purchase. I wandered around several square blocks before finally returning to my office empty handed (yes I know there’s one on 42 and 5th but the line there is TOO long and there was clearly one closer than that).

Once back at work, I went to the Jamba Juice store locator. I typed in my address. It returned my address. No, not “where am I starting,” I want “where is Jamba Juice.” It happened again. So… it turned out that my employment shares an address with Jamba Juice. That’s right. Same building. Um, I knew it was closer than 42nd.

This year marked my 6th annual July 11th trek across the George Washington Bridge. Back when I moved to NYC, there were no 7-11s in the city, and in order to take advantage of the Free Slurpee offer on 7/11, I crossed the GW Bridge with some friends for the nearest 7-11 (New Jersey). The tradition lives on even though Manhattan now boasts its own source for Slurpees.

We had a double-digit turn out this time, making it the most well-attended pilgrimage I’ve had yet (though loyal, we are few in number). Moments are made in crossing that bridge.

Several of us stopped at a diner on the way back. I said that if the paper menu poem we wrote was any good, I’d post it. It wasn’t really, but here it is anyway.

“Hi, This is Syrup”
by Amy, Soo, Cristi, Aja, Megan, Nesha, Gaby, Seth, and Ryan

Sitting at a well-lit diner,
having Cristi showing off her Japanese pens,
wondering, “could life be finer?”
with seven women and two mens.
Diner, you make me so high I could fly across the river.
What is left to happen tonight all depends…
On culinary trends chewed over with friends.
Gradually, my mind begins to wonder,
…How do I make my life “Deluxe”?

I’m looking into getting more real about food storage and am grossed out by the whole canned vegetable thing. How can you have a good food storage that is not entirely grain based. Should I just get over it and figure that, in an emergency, canned is better than nothing. I know we’re supposed to store what we use, but aren’t we also supposed to eat fresh foods rather than packaged (typically high sodium and preservative packed) foods. I don’t want 114 boxes of Lucky Charms, but I’m sure that will keep longer than my organic granola. Maybe I’m looking at this all wrong. Feel free to contact me “offline”. What ever that means.

Dear Hillary,
I think you’ve just expressed the Great Food Paradox of our culture. In trying to address this, I hope that I don’t sound too preachy, too ignorant, or a horrid combination of the two.

While reading Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal Vegetable Miracle, I realized that I–like most people I know–view food as something that comes from a store. Food comes, however, from the earth. A sustainable food system does not involve enormous, subsidized fuel-consumption transportation efforts to move produce from one side of the globe to the other.

Imagine if you were to make the switch to local foods, consuming only locally-grown produce, only from local farms and farmers’ markets. You would experience seasons of abundance and seasons that leave you longing for seasons of abundance. You’d see immediately the advantage of storing the surplus of summer and enjoying it during winter’s want. Applesauce and canned tomatoes would be a welcome alternative to empty cupboards, or scurvey. The blessings of storing food would be instantly apparent.

The question, then, is whether those of us who haven’t adopted a locavore diet would benefit from supplementing store-bought produce with store-bought canned or frozen goods. I think the answer is still yes.

Working backwards, if something were to happen to crops, or if a transportation strike kept grocery stores from stocking produce, you’d have something to survive on. For catastrophic purposes, it makes sense to have a reserve.

Next up would be “personal emergencies.” An employment gap is an obvious example, and while I have experienced that (and, as you are well-aware, an identity theft incident that left me without access to any sort of funds), far more common for me is a last-minute need to prepare additional food, for events or for sudden dinner guests, quite frequently on Sundays.

Thankfully, gone are the days of staring at soy milk, cereal, and a lone bag of rice, wondering what sort of loaves-and-fishes miracle would need to happen in order for me to feed others. Instead, I have a nice variety of whole grains and legumes on hand which I know how to prepare. There’s always something in the crisper drawer that can be augmented by the seasonings, seeds, and nuts we keep. Canned vegetables do not replace fresh ones, but supplement main dishes (including soups, chili, pilafs, pastas, etc). Canned beans also speed up meal preparation if none are soaking.  Knowing how to cook with TVP (which involves only buying it and remembering to throw it into a pot) adds additional texture and protein to whatever we end up making. It has taken some effort to get to this point, but it is such a blessing to be able to regularly prepare entire meals without needing advanced planning or additional trips to the store.

If the thought of even buying canned vegetables grosses you out, then don’t do it. You are very industrious and know how to prepare and store large quantities of food. (Don’t you already own a vacuum sealer?) Factory-canned, freeze dried, and dehydrated foods are not the law or even the ideal way to store fruits and vegetables. The closer we get to the source of our food, the better we’ll be at enjoying it appropriately in its season and storing it appropriately for times of want.

In a search query unrelated to food storage, I promise (it had to do with validating my claim I’d seen a commercial featuring a child telling his friend that his mom buys his cereal in a box rather than a bag because she loves him more), I came across a blog about a woman who purchased 114 boxes of cereal because they were cheap. Ordinarily, I might feel a little smug when I read about ridiculous efforts with minimal results. But I thought the entire story was rather creative, it WAS a good value for storing items her family actually enjoys, and everyone had fun with it. I was going to link to her blog but I can’t find it now. It’s like Brigadoon I guess. Maybe I should go back to searching for that commercial.