Welcome to the blog for Colgate University's interdisciplinary course on food. This is the place to keep up with what students in the course are experiencing in their work at Common Thread Community Farm and through their everyday encounters with food.

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Getting Dirty

I live in a house with roughly 35 other girls, so there is always somebody in our dining room. On Thursday afternoons when I get back from the farm, my housemates have taken to their favorite game to play over their grilled cheese lunches: "what was Sonya doing today?" They can usually make these judgements based on a number of indicators. Red hands? She must've been picking beets. Smell like garlic? Getting garlic ready for seed. Soaking wet? Hosing down buckets and baskets for produce... the list goes on.

This Thursday when I got back from the farm, the only guess my housemates could muster was: rolling around in the mud? It's true- I had been digging potatoes and I was downright dirty. There was mud caked onto my jeans, dirt underneath all my fingernails, and even some mud streaks on my face. I might've been wrestling with the pigs.

All of this dirt got me thinking about one of my favorite aspects about working on the farm--the physical labor itself. In a regular semester on campus I am always in and out of the gym, trying to stay active, but the activity on the farm is something different. There is something deeply satisfying about spending a few hours working with your hands and allowing your brain to take a little bit of a rest (or, depending on the day, giving it a little bit of time to think on its own). This is one of the things I love most about the farm, and one of the things I will miss the most as the snow creeps in. The simple satisfaction of digging hard, letting my brain relax, and finding buried treasure in the form of a potato.

Low-Fat

I really like cottage cheese. I like it with a little spot of raspberry jam. And I eat enough of it that I decided maybe 4% milk-fat, the equivalent of whole milk, was not the way to go for my health. So I decided to give low-fat cottage cheese a try. I like 1% milk well enough, why not try 1% milk fat cottage cheese. I figured it would be more or less like my regular cottage cheese, just missing a little of its fat-soul.
This was the biggest mistake I have made in at least 6 weeks.
I tried it and it was the worst taste experience ever. It was chunky (obviously), but sour and bland at the same time. Luckily was standing alone in my kitchen because I made that surprised, horrified face a baby makes the first time he is forced to eat strained peas.

But this got me thinking about the role of fat in our food. Beyond the role of fats in our health and what they do to our bodies, what does fat mean for taste? As we have discussed in class, there is a biological imperative that drives our preference for high-fat foods. At 9 calories/gram (compared to 4 calories/gram for both protein and carbohydrates) fat is the most energy dense nutrient we can consume. This was important back when we were spending massive amounts of energy hunting wildebeasts, but maybe less so nowadays. Anyhow, we want fat, try as we might to deny it. When food manufacturers design low-fat foods, they try their hardest to mimic the mouth sensation of creaminess, using thickeners and the like because that is what people respond positively to.

But what about a grease-drenched burger? Few people look at that burger and say "mmmm grease". Think of the last Burger King ad you saw. Fast food advertisements go to great lengths to show their food in its most pristine form, and that does not include pools of grease on a crinkled up wrapper. It is as though we like fat, but we don't like the fat we're consuming to be shoved right in our face. I'm reminded of David's comment in class a few weeks ago when he talked about working in a restaurant. The restaurants food was sooo good and everyone wanted to know what the secret was, and it was quite simple. Fats were used in almost every stage of cooking.

The rise of obesity and changes in lifestyle that have occurred in the last century have made our relationship with fat much more complex than ever before. Fats certainly have been villainized, and not without some cause, but it is hard to deny that the human animal craves fat. For better or worse, fat tastes good. So if you are a big fan of low-fat cottage cheese, there is an almost-full container in my fridge that you are welcome to. I'm sticking to full-fat.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

King of Chicken Nuggets

Since Rachel has already re-directed us to YouTube, I cannot help but share with you a video Holly introduced me to featuring King Curtis- who’s definitely sending a different message to the younger generation than the milk rappers promoting organic and craft farming. King Curtis indulges himself witch chicken nuggets several times daily and serves to promote the industrialized and processed food market. It’s a little lengthy, but I think you will be very amused by King Curtis and his fight against balanced meals and physical fitness.

The emergence of the chicken nugget plays well into several trends we’ve discussed in class. Invented in the 1950’s by a food scientist at Cornell, the chicken nugget is a prime example of post World War II industrialization and production. McDonalds mainstreamed the chicken nugget in the 1980’s, turning “McNugget” into a word recognized in every American home. Prior to 2003, McDonald’s McNuggets were made of half white meat and half dark meat. Similar to Wonderbread, the McNugget became an all white meat product in response to public scrutiny. Chicken is not the sole ingredient, however. MSN profiled and cites seven primary ingredients: chicken, water, dextrose, sodium phosphates, wheat starch, safflower oil and autolyzed yeast extract. Twenty more ingredients are found in the breading that coats each McNugget.

Transnationality has made the McNugget global, and many marketing campaigns have attempted to connect the McNugget to diverse cultures and essentially “localize” the global commodity. Launched in 1986, Shanghai McNuggets came with a pair of chopsticks, a fortune cookie, and Asian-influenced dipping sauce. The Fiesta McNuggets launched in 1988 were packaged in an exotic box and came with a collectible fiesta coin.

Fueled by the counterculture, McDonald’s has worked to promote a healthy image of the fried chicken product. McDonald’s hoped to capitalize on the growing vegetarian sector and created the short lived Garden McNugget, made of beans instead of chicken. In a similar vein, McDonalds attempted to link the McNugget to athletic success by claiming it to be one of the most popular foods among athletes at the Olympics and developed an ad campaign highlighting this fact for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

With 4.8 billion McNuggets sold annually at 48 calories a pop, McNuggets are here to stay. Check out this woman in Toledo, Ohio, literally willing to fight for her McNuggets, giving King Curtis a run for his money (or thrown) as King of Chicken Nuggets.

Yeo Valley Music Video

A new ad for a British dairy farm, Yeo Valley Organic uses rap music, cows grazing in sync, a hopping tractor, and a group of young hip adults to convey its message. The Yeo Valley way of life is about “living in harmony” according to their website. The hope is to bring attention to organic farming, particularly to a new subset: the younger generation.

Filmed on location in Somerset, England, the artists are not rapping about their bling, girlfriends, money, and cars, but rather their cows, tractors, and delicious fresh dairy projects. The fresh milk being slowly poured into a tall glass while lyrics like “This isn’t fictional farming…It’s realer than real” are sung, make me want to grab a glass instantly. The rap comes off catchy and smooth and I think it does a great job bridging organic farms to youth in a funny, humorous way. As a writer in USA Today (2010) writes, “Who says organic farming can't be hip?”

I think this marketing campaign is really interesting because it is one of the first times I’ve seen advertising for organic farming on a TV ad aimed directly at 20-40 year olds. It’s important to inform people of all ages of the benefits of sustainability and whole foods. Lyrics like “The air is clean,” “We just enjoy the results of what we do on the land,” and “We treat [the animals] good” help support this idea. Also, I think it will definitely help put not just Yeo Valley Organic on the map, but other organic farms with the same purpose. However, I do have to admit, it was a little weird watching shots of the cows grazing in unison and the tractor bouncing to the beat.

Ben Cull, Head of Brand Marketing at Yeo Valley said: “The campaign is a new direction for Yeo Valley, not only being on TV for the first time, but really shouting about our sustainably produced, quality organic food…the ad creative supports our belief that organic produce should be accessible and affordable to all. It uses humor to show we don’t take ourselves too seriously, but that we’re an authentic, family run business that believes in making dairy products in harmony with nature.” Depending on the scope of the marketing campaign, I think it has the potential to imply that farming is progressive, contemporary and pertinent to all individuals.

I wonder how others will perceive the video and its effectiveness. With already close to 800,00 views of the music video on YouTube, time will tell soon enough.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Candy Corn

I've been a little behind on my blogs lately, so I'm using the short break in work this week to catch up. However, 15 minutes in the Geography study lounge has yielded no ideas and my unconscious consumption of an entire bag of candy corn. So, in the spirit of Halloween, I thought I'd share a few wikipedia facts about food consumption on Halloween.

Trick or treating was not a popular activity in the United States until the 1930s, when children began the tradition as we see it today- dressing up in costumes and going door to door asking for candy. The tradition vaguely resembles the medieval tradition of peasants going door to door on Hallow's Eve asking for food in exchange for prayers to souls passing from this world to the next. The tradition has been modified since then and combined with the tradition of dressing up on Hallow's Eve to scare away dangerous spirits. Though the practice is not so common today, the tradition of saying "trick or treat," stems from the days when failure to deliver a treat would really incite some kind of trick.

Candy corn, the processed-food wonder of Halloween, also has a surprisingly old history. It was first introduced by the Wunderlee candy company in the 1880s, when it was made by hand. Workers combined sugar, corn syrup, and water to create a slurry, and thickened the concoction by adding fondant and marshmallows for textures. The pasty substance was then molded into corn-kernel shapes and dipped three times to ensure the classic color. While machines have been invented to carry out these processes now, the process is essentially the same.

So, enjoy the week of tricks and treats, and I'll do my best to save some candy corn for the rest of the world.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Food Blogs

I know that it is ironic to title my post today "Food Blog," considering that that's what this is, but what I want to talk about today is the world of food blogging. This summer my brother introduced me to the fabulous website www.tastespotting.com. It is now my homepage, and I have spent more time procrastinating on it than I ever have been able to waste on facebook.

Tastespotting is a wonderful website that brings together all of the best recipes from the best food blogs across the internet. The world of food blogging is a rising one, and for good reason. What better way to celebrate food, share recipes, showcase pictures, and just plain talk about eating than on the internet? I have read food blogs about cakes, vegetables, cooking with kids, cooking for athletes, cupcakes, pastries, vegan cooking, vegetarian cooking, gluten-free cooking... the list goes on and on.

Perhaps my overall point is that the day of the church cook book is slowly dying. Today, if I want a recipe for a great chocolate cake, I just head over to my favorite cake blog and see what it's got to offer. I have threatened my computer with death by butter and flour several times over from using it as a vehicle to see my recipes, and this trend is not going away. New blogs pop every day, and different people with entirely different reasons for blogging are posting away. Our class has certainly take a liking to Jim's pancake blog, and I'll be sure to keep an eye out for the next creative thing.

In the meantime, I plan to continue my search for the best food blogs out there, and appreciate the wealth of recipes available to me online for free. I hope to enjoy many more popcorn balls in the future of my food blog hunting.

Reese's Dark

I love reading the ingredients list on packaged food. The more heavily processed the better. Ever since I was young I had this morbid curiosity about the components that make up my favorite shelf-stable snack items. So for today's post, I'm going to be running down the ingredients list of my friendly bag of dark chocolate Reese's cups and trying to shed a little bit of light on someone of the more mysterious ingredients.
Here's the full list:

Semi-sweet chocolate (sugar; chocolate; cocoa butter; milk fat; soy lecithin; vanillin; artificial flavor; PGPR; milk); peanuts; sugar; dextrose; salt; TBHQ.

I'm going to pick out a few of these to highlight since there is not a whole lot of intriguing mystery around ingredients like 'milk' or 'sugar'.

soy lecithin: This is lecithin from soy. Mystery solved. Okay, fine. Lecithin is actually a broad term that applies to "any group of yellow-brownish fatty substances occurring in plant or animal tissues" (thanks, Wikipedia). So for our purposes, it is a fat, insoluble in water. I'd be willing to bet that in my Reese's it is acting as an emulsifier. The job of an emulsifier is to stabilize an emulsion, a mixture where two "unblendable" substances are blended together, typically a fat with a nonfat. In order to keep the fats from congregating together (fats love hanging out with other fats), they are coated with an emulsifier that essentially lessens their attraction for eachother. So the soy lecithin in my Reese's cup is keeping it from becoming a greasy mess.

PGPR: This stands for polyglycerol polyricinoleate, another emulsifier! It is derived from castor beans and it is primarily used in chocolate, usually in conjunction with a lecithin (like soy lecithin!). It can also be used to replace cocoa butter in chocolate, which is a significant cost saver since cocoa butter is a more expensive raw material.

artificial flavor: Could this be any less descriptive? What flavor are they trying to convey with this artificial flavor? Why is it "artificial" while some flavors are "natural"? It seems to be that our artificial flavor here is probably mimicking chocolate, since it is listed as one of the ingredients of chocolate. And as far as artificial vs. natural, the difference is one of origin. A natural flavor is derived from an actual plant, like a mint leave or a vanilla bean. The amount of processing it undergoes before it reaches your "all-natural" ice cream isn't accounted for. An artificial flavor, on the other hand, is a chemical mimic of the dominant molecule that makes up a certain flavor. Natural flavors are incredibly complex combinations of different flavor molecules. Artificial flavors approximate the general idea of these flavors, which is why fake strawberry tastes fake.

TBHQ: This is the merciful abbreviation of tertiary butylhydroquinone. This is a preservative, particularly for fats, to prevent them from oxidizing and becoming rancid. This makes perfect sense in the context of our Reese's since they are largely fat. High levels of TBHQ fed to lab animals seemed to result in malignant stomach tumors, so if your pet rat has a weakness for Reese's maybe you should tell him to lay off the TBHQ.

Well I've found this very interesting, but somewhat tame. I now feel compelled to seek out the strangest, most out there food additives I can find. I'll get back to you after my next trip to Price Chopper.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Back to the Baby Carrot Campaign

As we mentioned in class a few weeks ago, companies are now branding baby carrots as junk food in an effort to get children to eat more vegetables. Carrots have entered school cafeterias across the nation, taking the place of junk food vending machines. Most are sold in small-sized bags, labeled with the catchy phrase “Eat ‘em like junk food.” The introduction of these vending machines in schools has been met with some success, but there are some things to consider about marketing them in this way. Are kids eating them because it’s the only snack option and they look like Cheetos, or is it because they realize that carrots are nutritional powerhouses and tasty, too?

I found the following quote by advertising psychologist Carol Moog interesting. She writes, “they need to make carrots more fun — like, perhaps, putting an orange (but natural) dusting on carrots that mimics Cheetos.” This suggestion sounds a bit backward thinking to me, but if it’s getting our youth to eat them, then I suppose it’s a good idea, right?

I think this campaign it is a good starting point for getting children healthy. However, it represents just one step up a long ladder towards bigger, more meaningful change. The issue boils down to the following questions: Why don’t most kids like to eat vegetables? Is it because their parents and other adults do not eat them? Is it the feel, the flavor, or how they are prepared and presented to them? We must find the source and then create change from within rather than adopting the junk food marketing techniques. Valuing healthy, sustainable food will take longer and will require educational efforts for both children and parents, but it will definitely be worth it in the long run.

We must also acknowledge that not all eating habits are set in the school—we need to look at the home environment. They way we eat, our habits, behavior, social skills and values all start there. Familiar phrases I’ve certainly heard growing up like “Eat your broccoli and you can have ice cream for dessert” as a tactic teaches our kids that broccoli and other vegetables are less appealing (since eating them requires a reward) and that dessert is the highly valued prize. Therefore, education, on all levels, will hopefully encourage kids to develop a lifelong taste and liking for vegetables.

Joys of Satiation

When I could not finish my dinner but still wanted dessert, I told my mother I had a separate dessert stomach. She thought it was cute. Turns out, my clever ploy to appease my sweet tooth is rooted in science!

In “High Satiety,” Steingarten points to an experiment in which animals fed bland “laboratory chow” did not gain weight although permitted to eat as much as they wished. These same animals, when offered a range of snacks, ate a higher number of meals and more food at these meals. This phenomena is sensory-specific satiety, which Steingarten describes as “When a human or a rat has filled up on one type of food, and you present him, her or it with another food that differs in taste, aroma, texture, or even temperature, eating begins all over again” (151).

I am immediately reminded of Frank. I remember a campaign at Frank to change the language from “all-you-can-eat” to “all-you-care-to-eat.” Frank has a wide array of selection. The Vegetarian/Vegan station, Pizza/sautee station, Grill station, Entrée station, Deli bar, Salad bar, and soup station….with all these choices and stimulations, I care to eat a lot!

The campaign, however, was an attempt to promote sustainable practices by decreasing waste. Groups like “scrape the plate” have come to meals and used the visual stimulation of piles and piles of wasted food to drive home their message…. But they’re working against the science that fuels cafeteria eating! Other groups have tried to eliminate the use of the trays, which allows our hands to carry as much as our eyes want but stomachs cannot eat.

Even without the trays, however, I can remember countless times burning hours in Frank among friends, asking each other, “What should I get next?” We were willing to stand up from the table and take a walk around the stations, evaluating each food item and making a new choice. The trays may facilitate our need for satiation, but the removal will not stop it.

Frank could alter the menu in order to decrease waste. The guiding mantra could be “the tendency to feel full and stop eating stems from limited flavors.” I wonder the student outcry when the only option for dinner is boiled potatoes…. Turning to bland food in order to restrict overeating and waste undermines the very joy of eating!

Sensory-specific satiety is likely contributing to obesity. (Freshman 15?) Apart from cafeteria style eating, is this due to the unlimited (and growing) number of “edible food like substances?” Though the packaging may vastly differ, the root of our overstocked grocery aisles is all corn and soy… so what’s stimulating us to overeat?!

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Apple Picking

Since I saw the first apples at the Hamilton Farmer's Market, I've been begging my boyfriend to go apple picking with me, and this weekend he finally caved in and accompanied me on a trip to O'Neill's apple orchard, about 45 minutes east of Colgate on Route 20.

The trip began beautifully, because the drive along Route 20 is gorgeous this time of year. Hillside after hillside was covered in bright reds and oranges, and we tried to soak in as much of the fall colors as we could (the morning frosts that have been covering the lawns have been an ominous warning that these colors will not last much longer).

I had not picked out O'Neill's as our apple picking destination from the beginning; I only knew that East of Lafayette was Orchard Valley, home to many beautiful upstate New York orchards and the famous Lafayette Apple Festival. See http://www.lafayetteapplefest.org/ for a better idea of this miraculous annual event. O'Neill's stood out to us because you could smell the apple fritters from the road-- we got right in line.

Our apple picking venture started out rocky-- the orchard's owners explained to us that a snow in May had wiped out much of their harvest, and that the trees were pretty picked out at this point. However, we weren't discouraged. We found a whole bag full of apples, and relished in the challenge of getting the only ones that were left, which hung at the very tops of the trees. Once we had exhausted ourselves climbing and picking raspberries in the raspberry bushes that line the trees, we sat down at a picnic table to a delicious dinner of hot dogs, apple cider, apple fritters, and cider doughnuts. So satisfying.

At the end of the day, I walked away from O'Neill's U-PICK apple orchard with a bag full of huge, delicious apples and the satisfaction that I really knew where they had come from. I had shaken the hand of the man that grew them, I had seen them on the trees, and I had picked out the most beautiful and the best for my apple bounty that day. Sodexo, it'll be a long time before I need to eat any more of your shiny California apples.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

My sister got some vinegar in her ear; now she has picked hearing.

Ha ha ha. That's a nice little food joke for you. But today I want to write a little bit about food humor. I've had a lot of fun clicking through the following two sites that document foods that has gone horribly, horribly wrong, accompanied by the requisite snarky comments. Food and eating are such important components of our life that is is especially funny to see it go awry. Its kind of like watching wedding videos where the groom passes out or the bride sets her hair on fire with the unity candle.
But sites like this also seem to be a way of poking fun at the ridiculous things people are willing to eat. For every picture of a terrible fast food meal, there are a hundred people who ate that meal without complaint. And for every American who is repulsed by Tropicana Orange Juice with Rare Cheese Flavor there is a Japanese teenager who drinks a bottle of it a day.

So just for fun, check out these sites:
The Worst Thing I Ever Ate: A gallery devoted to images submitted by people who have just eaten the worst thing ever. My stomach turned at the image of mechanically separate chicken parts.

Cake Wrecks: This site is filled with pictures of "professionally" decorated cakes that have been massacred by inept and apparently illiterate bakers. It is very hilarious, but also a little sad that one might grow to employable age without being able to spell "birthday" correctly. Scroll past the pretty featured at the top of the page to see the unfortunate ones.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution

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I recently watched Jamie Oliver’s television show, Food Revolution. The premise of the show revolves around Jamie Oliver attempting to change the eating habits of residents in various communities through education and work with the schools. I’ve seen a few episodes so far and definitely think it is worth checking out.

The show combines two genres (reality television with cooking) in a way that transcends them both. The reality aspects of Food Revolution are not about influencing others out of self-interest and the cooking aspects of this show are not simply about spicing up a dish. Rather, Oliver finds an innovative way to blend them together to reflect the broader social importance of food in our society.

The show reveals that the role of education is need on all levels to change the U.S. dietary habits. Once the public is educated they will demand change and the food industry will start to take notice, providing healthier offerings. In the show, we see the scale of the problem when we look at children at an elementary school who cannot properly identify a tomato. We see the scale of the problem when Oliver met an obese family to teach them how to cook quick, healthy meals—only to discover that the family went back to eating fast food and unhealthy pre-packaged meals the moment he left. And we see the see the scale of the problem when he tried to initiate a change in school lunches, which were quickly rebuked. This food revolution is not just a TV show; it represents a movement to change people’s eating habits for the better and raise awareness of the issue.

A quote from Marion Nestle discusses the importance of the show. She states, “I like the way he’s just in there getting his hands dirty up to his elbows, dealing with people on things that nobody wants to talk about and telling the truth as he sees it, no matter how uncomfortable it is. And, yes, it’s exploitive; but…people are talking about it” (Organic Connect Magazine, 2010). I definitely agree with her and believe the show serves as a catalyst for change. Between Michelle Obama's “Let’s Move” campaign and the recent legislature of a new school-lunch program, the timing is now to tackle childhood obesity.

The show is definitely worth watching so far, even just one episode. While targeting childhood obesity will involve a massive undertaking, I hope that the issues he brought out in his show can translate into action.

http://organicconnectmag.com/wp/2010/07/marion-nestle-how-the-food-industry-hijacked-nutrition/

Monday, October 11, 2010

JG Domestic

My sister works as a hostess at Iron Chef Jose Garces’s flagship restaurant, Amada. This Friday, Garces is opening JG Domestic, his seventh restaurant in Philadelphia. In order to train his staff and test the menu, Chef Garces opened the restaurant this week for staff-on-staff meals. Meaning, this afternoon I was able to have a delicious lunch with my sister (for free!!) in what is slated to be a Philadelphia “hotpot” seated only 20 feet from the iconic Jose Garces.

JG Domestic focuses on US domestic ingredients. According to our server, Chef Garces scoured the country for the best ingredients, which changes with the season. Some of these ingredients come from his very own farm in Pennsylvania, but some are flown from all the way from California. This restaurant highlights the best of American growers in the peak of their season.

According to NBC Philadelphia, Jose Garces describes “all domestic” as the following: "I don't want to say farm-to-table, because people get this idea about local farms growing and raising all of the ingredients. This is really about sourcing the absolute best ingredients wherever possible. If that means it's coming from the producers around here, all the better. I am getting my lamb from Elysian Fields right here in Pennsylvania. It's about the best ingredients coming from where they show the best. Wherever that may be.”

The restaurant is located in the lobby of the large Cira Center, a 29 story high rise. Within the restaurant, however, the atmosphere is far from sterile. Tables are long and wooden with cutouts for live trees. The periphery of the space was outlined with trellis, further promoting the earthy feel. There was even a “live wall,” which lined one side of the restaurant and housed hundreds of herbs. I asked if these were used in the cooking, and though the specific herbs were the ones found in the food, it was not from the plants on display due to health code regulations. That would have been local food!

We had access to the full menu, and though I was tempted to go with the Wagyu after reading of Steingarten’s experience with the Japanese meat, I could not resist the classic burger. The menu includes a second page listing where each ingredient is found. My menu for the lunch was the following:

Heirloom California popcorn with Vermont cheddar and homemade horseradish
Wolfe Neck’s Farm (Maine) Beef burger with New Jersey Tomatoes and California Point Reyes Blue Cheese
Duck Fat Fries
Our desserts included pumpkin and cream from a Pennsylvania farm

I found the concept behind JG domestic interesting because Garces focuses on quality ingredients, and thus went searching small farms, but chose not to limit himself to local. For him the benefits of small farms is in the quality of product, whereas others may be looking to support local businesses and reducing their carbon footprint, supporting the larger social, economic and environmental benefits of local eating.

Nutrition

Last week when our class went to Syracuse to hear Michael Pollan speak, we heard loud and clear his emphasis on our somewhat false faith in nutritional science. He spoke about nutrition as a relatively new science that we have not yet mastered, and especially spoke about the increasing view Americans have that we eat only to supply our body with scientifically determined elements that create the perfect diet.

I come from a family of athletes- my three brothers spend most of their time playing soccer and baseball, my mom has now run 2 marathons, my stepdad (perhaps the craziest of all) has run several IronMan races, and we all love to ski. Needless to say, in a house with so many active people, we go through a lot of food each week (the poor milkman nearly breaks his back getting all 7 gallons of milk to our front stoop). Our cabinets are also filled with many "exercise" foods-- granola bars, protein drinks, "goo," energy gummies--you name it, we've tried it.

Hearing Michael Pollan speak about nutrition got me thinking about the conjunction of these two things--exercise and nutrition, and where Pollan's message fits in. Pollan argued that healthy people exist on all parts of the planet eating an unbelievable variety of different foods. If this is true, can athletes succeed to their maximum capacity eating by Pollan's mantra? Do some sports require different diets than others?

I recently heard that Lance Armstrong (one of my family's all time heroes) eats by the "6 ingredient diet." With this diet, Armstrong eats only foods with less than 6 ingredients, excluding a wide variety of the sports foods I mentioned in my description of my family's cabinets. This emphasizes a clear decision on the part of one of the world's most successful athletes to return to less processed foods, and perhaps to eat a little more at home (where he has control over the things he puts in his food). Armstrong's performance in this year's Tour de France is no indication that this diet has created maximum physical performance (he crashed in a very important stage, for those of you who watch Wimbledon instead of the Tour on summer mornings), but his decision to switch to this diet could be a sign that Pollan's message is infiltrating a genre of eating that has long been ruled by nutritional information, however accurate.

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Allergies

My sweet baby niece (who is going to be four in February and isn't really a baby at all anymore!) has severe food allergies. She eats almost exclusively chicken and rice, supplemented by nutritional formula. Well we were playing "car" last weekend, pretending to go to the sto' to pick up snacks. I asked her brother what he was getting and he said "macaroni and cheese!!", very excited about the prospect of imaginary mac and cheese. I asked Lucy the same question and she said, with the same level of enthusiasm as her brother, "CHICKEN!!"

The girl loves chicken. She eats it plain, with just a bit of olive oil and salt and thinks it is the greatest thing on earth. But when she said this, it made me a little sad, knowing she'll never get to enjoy some really awesome foods because they'll make her sick. But what would have made me more sad is if she had said mac and cheese because I know she won't ever be able to have that. At this point in her life, she really doesn't know what she is missing. She knows there are foods she can't eat, but it doesn't seem to bother her. To her, most all the food she gets to eat is at the height of deliciousness

But I know there will come a time when she'll know that she's missing out. Food being the social glue that it is, I worry about her when she starts going to school. There will be birthday parties and cupcakes and pizza parties and she won't be able to eat like her classmates and friends. Only time will tell how she handles this. It may be a struggle or it may not even matter that much to her. But to me, it is worrisome

At any rate, her relationship with food is already vastly different than my own. While I check the back of packages mostly out of curiosity and fascination at the way some foods are put together, her mother (and soon she) checks the ingredients to ensure there is nothing in there that will send her into anaphylaxis. She will grow up to have a hyper-awareness of what goes into her body, which ultimately isn't a bad thing, but I wish for her sake that it weren't because her life depends upon it.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

pollan ii

Interesting article from him today in the NYT about a communal meal centered around a wood-fired oven: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/10/magazine/10dinner-t.html?hp=&pagewanted=all

pollan

Last night most of us in the Food class as well as a number of other Colgate students, faculty, and staff attended a lecture by Michael Pollan in Syracuse.  As Grace noted in her post prior to this one, the talk was excellent---funny, engaging, and thought-provoking.  As someone who has read his books and articles in the NYTimes, most of the talk was familiar territory---no big surprises---but he did a nice job of synthesizing a lot of his ideas into one talk that was easily accessible to anyone, regardless of their background.

Some observations/criticisms about the talk:

1. Good sized crowd at the Syracuse OnCenter, but also very white and middle class.  There was another performance at the center last night as well, a play inspired by a Tyler Perry character.  The crowd waiting outside for the Parry show was nearly 100% black and the crowd for Pollan looked to be very white.  Well, looks can be deceiving, but it wasn't hard to notice the contrast.

2.  More on the class angle---Pollan began his talk by walking out on the stage with a couple plastic shopping bags full of groceries he had purchased from a local Tops store.  He spent the first few minutes taking things out of the bag and talking about them and how they were examples of what he calls "edible food-like substances."  They included some of the likely suspects---Go-gurt tubes, fruit roll-ups, soda.  Many of them, as he pointed out, make weird nutritional claims, such as the ginger ale-green tea hybrid that promoted antioxidants or the lily white Wonder Bread somehow made from whole wheat (extra fiber!).  As he took each item from the bags and made jokes about them, it wasn't hard to miss his contempt for the processed food and for Tops as a grocery store.  People laughed heartily at the food-like cornucopia he laid out, and it made for a good demonstration of his points.  Still, I couldn't help feeling a little uneasy as all these people of means laughed at the food as though it was beneath them.  Pollan said many times that this kind of processed food and all its added salt and sugar is leading to an epidemic of diabetes---well, who is getting all these cases of diabetes?  It's largely the poor, and I don't think you're going to gain a lot of traction by making fun of what they eat.

3. Pollan was hard on nutritional science---he made a hilarious comparison between current research on nutrition and the state of surgery in 1650---primitive, messy, and something you wouldn't want to trust too much.  He noted that a lot of nutritional studies lack good evidence since they rely on self-reports of consumption, and in many cases these reports ask one to go back three months and list all the foods you've eaten.  But then Pollan also cited a number of nutritional and epidemiological studies to support his points about the perils of the Western Diet and the high incidence of disease associated with it.  It wasn't clear how he distinguishes between good and bad science, and it seemed overall like he was cherry picking the studies that supported his points.  Then again, I guess no one came to the lecture to hear him talk too much about methodology for an hour...

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Post Pollan Thoughts

The Michael Pollan lecture was a treat. He was funny, engaging and entertaining.

Pollan spoke on the Western food culture. Ours is in fact the most focused on eating well (orthorexic) and simultaneously the least healthy in terms of chronic diseases and obesity. In Stuffed and Starved by Raj Patel, I read that the rate of childhood obesity in Mexico increases as the population gets closer to the US boarder, where our food trends have eked over. Our food culture, he made clear, is socially constructed-- think of all the fad diets and changing "enemy" nutrition. But how do we decide what is healthy? What value do we place on different nutritional aspects? How is it possible that such different diets, from solely protein in Africa to maize and other produce in South America, allow for fully functioning and healthy humans? There is not one nutritional recipe for health. There is one nutritional disaster though, in the form of "edible food like substances" in our grocery stores.

In Barbara Kingsolver's Animal Vegetable Miracle she laments that Americans have no food culture. In peer countries, certain foods and spices that come specifically from that geographic region define the cuisine. Americans do not experience culture rooted in food because we would rather ignore seasonality and distinct geographic produce in order to support monoculture and have fruit on the table all year round. Kingsolver decides to live off her land for one year. The health of her family increases and the family connects by growing, preparing and eating food together.

One problem with our food trends and the edible food like substances is they are cheap. Too cheap to pass up! On a limited budget, one is going to try and get as much bang for the buck as possible. It should be noted that at the Hamilton Farmer's Market, healthy food options are made more available to those on a limited income. This summer I worked at a booth with an EBT machine. Where you could previously only use cash, the EBT machine allowed the swipe of the "food stamp" card in exchange for tokens that could be redeemed at participating vendors. So, many are recognizing the need to evaluate our food trends and the ability to change our food culture depends on identifying the availability of healthy food options.

Memories of Food

There are a number of ways to trace your own personal history. You can go back through family photo albums and trace the fashion and hair. You can do it with music, by listing the songs that represent special times in your life. You can do it with home videos (as embarrassing as they may be). And you can do it with food. Food has a unique power to evoke the past; to remind us of occasions, both good and bad, and those long gone. Food has created a bond in my family. It is an integral part of who we are, and how we relate to each other. I think of my father every time I flip a pancake and of my grandmother every time I eat bagels and lox.

Our family meal was not just dinner. It was a time of sharing, laughing, and talking about anything. While dinner was not the same time every night, we always made a concerted effort to eat together. It was always a sit down (never in front of the TV) meal and we all took a role in some aspect of the meal whether it be shopping, meal planning, cooking, setting the table, or cleaning up.

When I think of food growing up here are a few things that come to mind:

-Baking chocolate chip cookies on snow days with my sister

-Eating the dough of Pillsbury pre-made sugar cookies (so much for baking them)

-Returning home famished from sports practices and walking into the house seeing dinner on the table

-My mother’s chicken soup-an instant cure for when I’m sick

-Waking up to the delicious, sweet smell of Aunt Jemima pancakes that my dad made every Sunday, complemented with local Maple Syrup of course.

-The joint effort by all my family members to make potato latkes from scratch, which resulted in all of us smelling like potatoes for 4 days straight

-Tuesday Taco Nights

-Roasting chestnuts over an open fire, but my dad always having trouble maintaining the fire

-S’mores at camp

-Frozen thin mints and Mallomars

-Chinese take-out on Christmas

-My grandma’s cookies. Just the smell of cookies at a bakery takes me back.

-Tuna sandwiches my mom packed me for lunch at school, which were seen as “uncool” compared to all the Lunchables my friends had.

-Standing under a blueberry tree at my cousin’s summerhouse in Fire Island, grabbing blueberry after blueberry, with the juices dripping down my arms.

-Watching my Dad sharpening his carving knives for cutting the turkey on Thanksgiving

-Ordering pizza instead of the leftover food that we were supposed to eat whenever my mom went on a business trip. We would always try to keep it a secret from her, although that never worked since the pizza box wasn’t quite strategically hidden in the garbage every time.

-My sister and I racing lobsters in my house not connecting the fact that they would soon be boiled and eaten by us.

As you can see, food not only nourishes our bodies and can taste delicious, but it is a tie that binds memories.

Monday, October 4, 2010

Sugar Part II

I am sorry to report that the sugar high that carried me through last week made me so distracted that I was unable to post a blog about my week without sugar until now. Never fear, it had a lasting impression and the thoughts are still (relatively) fresh in my mind.

To begin, I must admit that I didn't make it all the way through my challenge. During a Sunday study cramming session I succumbed to the 1 lb. bag of Twizzlers in a package from my grandmother. While I regret that I didn't make it through my avowed week of no sugar, worse crimes have been committed, and I still think I learned a great deal. So without further ado, lessons learned from a week with no sugar:

1. Sugar is in A LOT of food. When I first began my week, I was prepared for many unprocessed foods I would have to live without--they were intuitive. No cake, no ice cream, no cookies... these things seemed obvious. However, as I began to scrutinize the ingredient lists of many of my packaged-food staples, I realized how much sugar was part of my daily life. It began with my breakfast cereal (even Special K has high fructose corn syrup as its second ingredient), continued to my salad dressing (my only option was olive oil and vinegar), and even made its way into my afternoon granola bars. I had to go to Hamilton Whole Foods to find granola without sugar, and even there only the local varieties use honey as a sweetener. Throughout the entire week, I found that there was sugar lurking in well over half of the processed foods I rely on as a college student, whether as a preservative or a sweetener. It was only when I switched my weight over to unprocessed foods that I was able to find satisfying snacks.

2. Sugar at the end of every meal is a habit for me. Though Mintz denies that a craving for sugar at the end of every meal is a biological tendency, my Twizzler-ravaging self would tell you otherwise. I found that overwhelmingly, the end of every meal marked a craving for sugar that I would have to satisfy with a piece of fruit or, on desperate occasions, a spoonful of honey. I found it amazing that a habit that is socially formed, such as the ritual of dessert, could be so ingrained in my daily life--my meals are just not complete without it.

3. I don't think about what I eat. The search for sugar in everything I put in my mouth over the past week has made me think more than ever about every piece of food that enters my body. Whether it involves reading the ingredient list on a granola bar or quizzing my house's chef on the ingredients of every meal, looking for sugar made me think about every meal, where it came from, who prepared it, and how it got to me. It made me realize that every time I eat something I am having a distant interaction with many people, in many parts of the world, whom I have never met. This, for me, was the best part of this challenge. The food we eat is such an important part of who we are, and putting a critical-thinking spin on my meals was fascinating. I'll definitely be up for the next food challenge (as soon as I get my week's fill of Twizzlers).

Home Sweet Home

So I went home this weekend, (which is why this blog post comes later than I intended) and I found home to be just as lovely as I had left it. I'm from Canandaigua, New York, the westernmost (and best) of the Finger Lakes. But this is a food blog, so of course I'm here to talk about the food I ate while at home. The highlight of the weekend was my mother's chili, which I requested in extra large quantities so both my boyfriend and I would have a supply to last. My mother is an excellent cook. Not in the fancy souffle sort of way, but in an everyday, something thrown together sort of way. She cooks by ear, (mouth, nose?) rarely following a recipe. As such, her chili is never the same twice. This seems to go against the idea of comfort food, that it is dependable and you always know what you're getting. But with Mama's chili, it is always good and always tastes like her chili, even if the meaning of that changes with each batch.

I know I am not alone when I associate going home with food. We all seem to have certain food traditions that we can't separate from the feeling of being at home. I think this is especially important for me and other like me for whom the idea of home is rapidly evolving. Of course there is the flux, the in-betweeness of living the better part of the year away from my life long home while I'm here at school. But then there are also other changes afoot in my life. My father's job has come with an imminent threat of relocation. By the time I graduate college, moving home with my folks will probably mean moving to a place I've never been. And that's kind of scary. But it is made less so by the fact that the things that define home do not have to be tied to a geographic location. Important things, like my mother's chili, do not have to reside in one place for the rest of their life. In some odd way, the comfort I take in comfort food is that it is dynamic, untethered and always accessible, regardless of where the kitchen table stands.