"Racialized Consciousness and Impact on Food Philosophies"

When I think about vegans or the vegan diet, I often think that it is a personal choice made by people to eat certain types of food in order to make a political statement about the treatment of animals in the American food industry. I never thought, however, that veganism went far beyond that to many Black Americans who choose the vegan diet. I first stumbled upon this new way of looking at veganism through Breeze Harper's blog. Breeze Harper, PhD candidate in critical food geographies and editor of the the blog "Sistah Vegan") writes that,

My other interests are focused on the concept of the black racialized consciousness and how a people's collective experience with slavery, Jim Crow, racism, classism have shaped their relationships with and consciousness around food and health...In my observations, I see that while a majority of white people in the USA may collectively conceptualize that whole foods vegan philosophy should be rooted in the liberation of non-human animals, veganism for a black man like Afrika [Afrikan Holistic health doctor]...is perceived as a way to "decolonize the black body from the legacies of the 'white man's' diet."

It was very interesting for me to read this blog post because it raised my consciousness on the fact that differences of views on certain diets exist within different groups of people. It is an obvious fact, but often times we go on without addressing or acknowledging these differences.

Here's the blog post: http://sistahvegan.wordpress.com/2009/09/07/racialized-consciousness-and-impact-on-food-philosophies/

Sigŭmch'i Much'im.

A traditional Korean dinner usually consists of rice and many little dishes, called banch'an. I do not know much the banch'an culture in Korea has evolved due to many different influences within the past century. But for me, I still eat the banch'an that my parents and grandparents brought with them when they came to America in the late 1970s. One of my favorite banch'an dishes is sigŭmch'i much'im (pronounced shi-geum-ch'i moo-ch'im). This banch'an is fairly easy to make. All you need are spinach, minced garlic, green onion, soy sauce, sesame oil, sesame seeds and salt. Because these ingredients are fairly easy to find in non-Korean supermarkets, my mom used to make them for our family very often. Ever since I was little, even though I was a very picky eater, this was one of the very few banch'an I would actually eat. In fact, I loved this dish so much that I was shocked to find that, according to my parents, not very many kids in Korea today like this dish. I am still unsure to what extent this statement is true. But from the people I have met who are from Korea, they told me that they do not eat this banch'an as much as I do. But then again, I'm a little weird because I eat this dish all the time...

Cha Gio (Vietnamese Egg Roll)

Cha Gio is a Vietnamese egg roll comprised of pork, mushrooms, carrots, etc. You wrap it in in rice paper and fry it till it's brown. You can either eat it as a finger food or with vermicelli along with beef and shrimp.

Beyond its yummy taste and comfort, cha gio represents a very important information of my mom's life that too often second generation Vietnamese Americans like me do not get to hear. I remember the first time I asked my mom when and how she learned how to make cha gio, a whole new chapter of identity and immigration stories opened up. It was my first time learning about my mom's and her family's im/migration journey in depth. I learned that before coming to America, my mom had to stay in a Philippines's refugee camp before being reunified with my grandmother. Unlike Eastern Europeans immigrants who entered through Ellis Island and East Asians who entered through Angel Island, my mom as a Southeast Asian refugee entered through Philippines. It was at the camps that she learned how to make cha gio from her friends. And it is because of this food that I learned that my mother's family is originally from southern China and they immigrated to southern Viet Nam to escape poverty, famine, etc. For me, cha gio is packed with family history and struggles that generations to come should never forget.

Black History Month

Today marks the last day of Black History Month. This month represents the small effort addressing the continual marginalization of Black people, communities, histories, narratives, etc. Due to the new discourse of post - civil rights era, post - racial era and colorblindness, understanding of inequalities and oppression shifts from talking about structural causes to cultural causes. Instead of talking about struggle and liberation in such a month, America has successfully reduce everyday struggle to superficial and stereotypical means like collard greens and fried chicken or "soul food".

In a a supermarket ad, Rainbow decided to celebrate Black History Month with stereotypical food that dominant hegemony associates with the communities. This particular action is perpetuating stereotypes, robbing people of their individualities and depoliticizing the struggle for equity in America.

These days, "exotic"/ "ethnic"/ "cultural" food become the markers of different ethnicities and racial groups. Humans are no longer living stories, narratives and experiences.

Beer - as music?

I found this really cool video at bonappetit.com. It's these guys using 146 empty beer bottles to perform Vittorio Monti's "Czardas"! I just thought it was funny and a way to brighten this icky Monday! Enjoy!

Breast Milk Ice Cream...When Do We Go Too Far?

My initial reaction upon discovering the latest scheme of selling breast milk ice cream to the bourgeois was one of horror. Aghast, I managed to make it past the title and into the actual article. From the idea to the presentation--a poor imitation Lady Gaga--the whole thing rings of camp. After my initial shock, however, I began to wonder if this ice cream shop really has gone too far or not. Perhaps years on the internet has me desensitized, shocking fads such as this simply too short-lived to produce any lasting sense of discomfort. After all, isn't it stranger that we drink the milk of a cow? Still, I'm just not sure what to think.









Source

Organic vs. Conventional

When I go into my favorite grocery store at home I am immediately greeted by the overwhelmingly extensive produce section. At least in this grocery store, and I think in many across the nation, shoppers can pretty much select either organic or conventional for almost every item. I think that for many people, including me, there is a lot of mystery surrounding the "organic" label. I am not completely sure what the requirements are for something to earn this label, and I know that not everyone is convinced that it is worth the extra cost to choose the organic items. Because of the confusion that I feel I decided to do some internet searches about this topic. What I found was unfortunately not very many answers. In fact, doing an internet search on this topic might actually bring more confusion to the situation. There is just so much information and it is so hard to know what to believe.

One article that I found especially interesting was this one from medicine.net:

http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=52420&page=2

I don't really have a way to judge the validity of this article, but I was interested in the part where the author made a list of foods that are probably worth springing for organic, and foods where it might not be worth it. Here are the lists:

To maximize your organic food dollar, the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., recommends going organic on the "dirty dozen" -- types of produce that are most susceptible to pesticide residue: Peaches Apples Sweet bell peppers Celery Nectarines Strawberries Cherries Pears Grapes (imported) Spinach Lettuce Potatoes And which organic produce is probably not worth the added expense? The group lists these 12 items as having the least pesticide residues: Papayas Broccoli Cabbage Bananas Kiwifruit Sweet peas (frozen) Asparagus Mangoes Pineapple Sweet corn (frozen) Avocados Onions

Do what this information what you will, but I think that it is an interesting point of view nonetheless.

The Food Pyramid

We talked a little bit about the food pyramid in class, and I was glad to know that I'm not the only person who finds it a little ridiculous. While I applaud the government's efforts to educate the country about nutrition, I think the new food pyramid makes nutrition and food choices more confusing than ever.

The purpose of the shape of the old pyramid was to emphasize which foods should be eaten as the basis for the diet and which should be eaten less frequently. The new "pyramid" contains vertical bars that taper toward the top, making it difficult to distinguish which food group people should eat more of. I'm really not sure why they chose to keep the pyramid shape if they weren't going to utilize it as an educational visual, but I find that the visual representation of the food groups isn't very informative.

While there is plenty of debate about which food groups should be emphasized, the bar on the new pyramid that disturbs me the most is the light blue one representing the dairy group. There is no doubt that milk is full of nutritious goodness, especially for its high calcium content. Unfortunately, milk cannot be enjoyed by everyone. Only people who produce lactase, the enzyme that breaks down lactose, can digest dairy products. Lactose intolerance (the inability to produce lactase) is especially prevalent in people of African, Asian, Native American, and Jewish descent. Even though many Americans (especially non-white Americans) cannot get their calcium through milk, the dairy group does not include any calcium alternatives, such as broccoli.

There is one aspect of the new pyramid that I do like. The stairs with the person going up them symbolizes the importance of being active. I like that the pyramid is adding a new focus of having a balanced lifestyle. It is important to teach the concept that food contains energy that our bodies can use to be active.

If you'd like to learn more about the food pyramid, check out http://www.mypyramid.gov/. It has information about the nutrition and food groups. There is also a meal planner, a daily nutrient tracker, and other interactive tools.

Overeating: Not An Accident

The stumbled upon a book called The End of Overeating, and was immediately attracted. I'll qualify the follow statements by acknowledging that I have never read the book (published semi-recently in 2009), and by extension, have limited hands on experience with the content. Nonetheless, as I perused various food blogs I picked up on a - for lack of a better word- "buzz." The posts buzzed from one website to another, posting and reposting, as only the internet can do best.

As far as I can surmise, this book is broken up into four overarching sections: (1) the neurological and psychological ramifications of eating tremendous amounts of fats, sugars, and salt (2) the exploitation of these phenomena by the Food Industry (3) the nature of conditioned overeating (4) how to move forward.

As this book joins the growing cache of food industry muckraking, I poked around some pages exploring the various nuances that might render this book different from all others. And I would argue it is. This book delves deeper into the -arguably- the crux of many food related issues. We are a culture of tremendous overeating; but as the book would suggest, our overeating is far from accidental, rather resulting from highly methodical and well-planned maneuvering on the part of various corporate powers. None of these ideas are mind-blowing revelations, in fact, it actually fits nicely into my cynical liberal orientation, yet to have the evidence laid out so bluntly is, at the very least, disheartening.

The entire book is accessible on google books HERE

What To Do?

I stumbled upon this really interesting New York Time’s article. The article mainly focuses on New York school systems and how certain schools are falling behind on lunch program payments because students’ families can’t afford to pay. Joseph Lisa, a school principle, has corned students in the hallways, sent home reminders asking parents to pay, but not all the parents do. The school district in Albuquerque was among the several last year to start serving cold sandwiches and milk, instead of full hot meals to students, whose parents didn’t pay. In Louisiana, some districts didn’t feed children, whose parents didn’t pay. For some kids, school meals maybe the most nutritional meal they receive in a day. But, at what price is it worth paying for lunch programs?

Natalie Riavitz, an Education Department spokeswoman said that “we really need families to cooperate with us in this effort so that we aren’t taking money out of the classroom.” What do you think is right, to not serve children quality food? Or take money from the classroom so children can receive quality food?

Here is the link to the article! http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/09/education/09lunches.html?pagewanted=1&ref=nutrition

The Food of Grassroots Movements

As protests sweep the world, from Libya to Wisconsin, we contemporary observers of all things food-related can't help but wonder, what are all these hearty, energetic protesters having to eat? I'm a native Wisconsinite, and I was touched by this news story about how a local pizza joint in Wisconsin's capital has distributed thousands of slices of pizza to pro-union protesters, donated by folks in 38 states and more than 10 foreign countries (including - of course - Egypt). Ordering pizzas for protesters isn't just a heart-warming random act of kindness, it's an extremely valuable way to support and show solidarity for activists, some of whom have been standing at the state capital for two weeks. (This photo is from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

The tradition of showing political support through food is decades old. The NPR podcast Hidden Kitchens (which I very much recommend) has a great story about one of the unsung heros of the Civil Rights Movement, a woman named Georgia Gilmore. Gilmore, who lost her job when her employers discovered her involvement in the Montgomery bus boycott, set up a restaurant in her own home, at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's suggestion. Her home, which was just a few blocks away from Dr. King's home, became a safe haven for activists and was used as the site of many secret meetings - Kennedy and Johnson both visited her home to meet with the movement's leaders, over a meal of Gilmore's homemade fried chicken. Gilmore also founded the Club from Nowhere, an association of women who sold pies and cakes to support the bus boycott. Her heroism, and the generosity of her pizza-donating contemporaries, enable such revolutionary movements to continue.

Ming Makes Cupcakes Makes Me Happy

Thank goodness for Facebook news feeds! I found this cupcake blog because it popped up on my recent news between two of my Facebook friends. Ming Makes Cupcakes is a cupcake blog that lists about 30 or 40 cupcake and cookie recipes. According to the blog, Ming wanted to make cupcakes from scratch and developed sweet and savory cupcake recipes. How impressive is that? And these are not your average cupcakes. Ming uses ingredients like sour cream, raspberries, and Baileys Irish Cream. Some are flourless and some have fruit and cream fillings. Every recipe also has a picture of the finished product, so you can see for yourself how yummy the cupcakes are!

http://mingmakescupcakes.yolasite.com/

Should we eat breakfast?

Meat is good, but carbohydrates are bad. No snacking between meals. Fat is good, but saturated fat is bad. Spinach is good, but kale is better. Eat more smaller meals throughout the day. Eat only raw food.
Everywhere we turn there is a new diet book, study being published, or celebrity endorsement that holds the key to "weight loss" and a "healthy lifestyle". As we talked about in class, this is one of the many reasons Americans have such a "disordered" relationship with food.
The article, "Diet: Bigger Breakfast, Bigger Calorie Count" was published on January 28th, 2011 in the New York Times. The article states the results of a study that found eating breakfast does not in fact reduce the amount of food a person will eat the rest of the day.
As I read this I felt myself becoming anxious. I consider breakfast vitally important when it comes to starting my day. I love eating breakfast and feel good about doing so. I have long believed, "Breakfast like a King, lunch like a Prince, and dinner like a Pauper" and "breakfast gets your metabolism going and causes you to eat less later on in the day".
With all of the new research it is very easy to get caught up in what we should and shouldn't be eating. Especially when you can essentially find a book that supports any type of diet. So what are we to do?
In my opinion, we must learn to trust our instincts. I have been eating breakfast for years and am not going to stop just because one study says that I may end up consuming more calories.

My favorite breakfast!

The Actor's Diet

I came across this blog about a year ago and found it pretty interesting. At first I thought it would be an account of some anorexic, aspiring Hollywood actress documenting all the celery sticks and juices she ate to stay stick thin.
It turns out she's actually pretty healthy and has a wealth of food information. I look to this blog from time to time to find inspiration for recipes and food combinations. She does a great job of integrating leftovers and finding new products (which she tries and reviews). It shows readers that it's possible to be healthy and still indulge.
She also does reviews of restaurants in the LA area. It's also a way she documents her acting endeavors and personal life, but I usually skim these areas and look for the foodie parts. This photo-rich blog is enticing to look at, and consistently gives me new ideas for meals and snacks to try.

http://theactorsdiet.wordpress.com/

Another "healthy" option on the menu

Ah yes. I suppose it is no shock to any of us in Sara's class (or anyone at large for that matter) that McDonalds is a purveyor of "food". I stumbled across this piece by Mark Bittman on McDonald's oatmeal. opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/how-to-make-oatmeal-wrong/

Bittman's essay is a castigation of McDonalds' attempt to present a healthy option on their menu" Fruit and Maple oatmeal. Bittman makes the excellent point that oatmeal is in and of itself a food, economical and nutritious; he highlights the inconsistency of serving oatmeal that has been adulterated with "11 weird ingredients" that in New York costs more than their double cheeseburger. He credits McDonalds with being able to pull off such a feat of marketing.

Curious about the actual nutritional value and ingredients list, I checked it out here. http:/nutrition.mcdonalds.com/nutrition1/itemDetailInfo.do/

Calorie wise it's not so bad, even with all the fruit and cream. It's got a whopping 32 grams of sugar though, pretty high for a single meal. When you look at the ingredients list you can see why. Refined sugar is added twice to the oatmeal and once to the cranberries. Bittman is right about the weird ingredients, which show up mainly in the "cream".

Culture Culture

These days our grocery store dairy aisles are jam packed with yogurt. Plain, fun flavors, new colors, low-fat, Greek, etcetera etcetera etcetera. With so many types and brands that it is almost audacious to think that we would ever attempt to make it ourselves. Believe it or not, making yogurt is quite easy to do--it practically makes itself! With two scoops of yogurt from the store, you can make a starter that will literally last you generations.

http://www.makeyourownyogurt.com/ has a quick and simple recipe for yogurt that I swear by. It has a step by step process so you can't miss! Follow this recipe for thick, creamy, delicious yogurt. Experiment with different types of milk for the most delicious plain yogurt flavors. Add some honey, granola, or fruit for breakfast. Put it in your curry for lunch. Switch it with sour cream in your chili for dinner!

Rush Limbaugh and the White House . . . oh joy.

A topic that I have been following since the beginning of the Obama Administration is Michelle Obama's plan to fight childhood obesity. Of course, there are problems with hunger all over the world, but it is only recently that people realize how much of a problem food is on our own doorstep. I truly appreciate our First Lady's efforts in making us more aware of the nutrition we consume on a daily basis. She realizes that not everyone can afford or have access to organic or sustainably grown groceries, yet she believes that through a little education, we can treat our bodies with more respect.

So I have really been appalled with the recent comments that Rush Limbaugh has made about the Obama administration's food policy. His most recent comment was on the news recently. He was scandalized because Michelle Obama was eating ribs, therefore going against everything she stands for. Really? Of course, I believe Limbaugh is mostly doing this for the media attention, and clearly it is working. But you have to wonder how someone so hateful and uninformed could be in a position of such media power.

To see what I mean, here is a link called "The 12 Most Asinine Things Rush Limbaugh Has Said about Food". If you are not familiar with Limbaugh, prepared to be shocked, and somewhat disgusted. Personally, I couldn't stop laughing at the absurdity of it all!

http://newyork.grubstreet.com/2011/02/the_12_stupidest_things_rush_l.html

Unusual Foods From Around the World

People normally don't eat bugs (I think...), but there are people who either love the challenge or it's part of their culture. Anyways, I found this unusual food. It's called Spicy Giant Bug Paste (yes yes that's the name). The main ingredient in this paste is crushed giant waterbug (water scorpion) with some shrimp paste, garlic, salt, etc. It says its good with sticky rice, vegetables, and tortilla chips. This paste is Thai and "it makes an excellent dipping paste for edible insects." We should all give this a try!

[Courtesy of http://www.thailandunique.com/store/spicy-giant-bug-paste-water-scorpion-p-41.html]

The Definition of Food

According to Dictionary.com Food is:

Food

noun

Any nourishing substance that is eaten, drunk, or otherwise taken into the body to sustain life, provide energy, promote growth, etc.

I think that it is interesting to compare this definition with the way that many Americans think of food unofficially. Americans use food for many things other than nourishment, which is pretty much the only thing this definition covers. People in America use food for so many different things and see it in so many different ways that I'm not even sure it would be possible to define it at all. People use food to make them happy and to bond with others. Food is also a central part of most holidays and traditions. I think that this dictionary.com definition of food is very limited, but it is so interesting to me that this is what the "official" definition of food is. It seems like it is leaving so many things out when it just focuses on food as a source of nutrition. I think that currently, the nutritional aspect of food is often much less important or acknowledged than the way that certain foods make us feel.

Comfort food, guilty pleasure food, depression food, all of these things mean different types of food to different people. However, regardless of what type of food people eat when they feel a certain way, they all share in common that there is a type of food that will make them feel differently. Where does the very real mood changing characteristic of food factor in to this definition? I think that it is fascinating to think about the difference between the way that we define food in a scientific sense and the vast amount of things that food actually means to each of us both physically and emotionally.

Locavoratious

It's a strange thing when you learn to think about where your food is coming from. For me, it changed the way I think about how I shop- hopefully for the rest of my life.

I read the standard issue book on the matter, Pollan's "Omnivore's Dilemma", sometime in the past year. But waaaaay before that I had seen a documentary called "The End of Suburbia" that mentioned, during its greater discourse on how the United States is doomed, how our food supply relies heavily on transportation by tractor trailer. Think about it. How many times have you passed a big rig with a picture of milk drinkers or the Sysco label on the side? The idea that I might someday have to be without enough food panicked me, so I became a local food advocate.

That summer I joined a CSA, then after a few summers became a farmhand at the same farm. When I was unable to continue farming the following summer (a girls gotta pay the bills, as well as eat), I shopped at the farmer's market and made a point of shopping at larger chain markets that supplied local fruits and veggies. I was delighted to find that not only is there a thriving farmer's market scene in the Pioneer Valley, there's also a year round farmer's market here (Saturdays, 9-2, in the basement of Thorne's Market). I meant to take photos for this week's post, but since I forgot my camera instead I'll show you what I bought for groceries for the week.



It doesn't look like much, but it is after all for just little ole' me.

Now, you may have noticed that some of these foods are of the pre- packaged variety. The peanut butter, tuna, rice (pink bag) and bullion cubes are all decidedly non- local. I took photos of their labels, but I'll spare you those and sum up. The peanut butter is distributed by Woodstock farms in CT, but had no indication that the peanuts were from there. The bullion is a product of Switzerland, and the tuna and rice are both from Thailand (wild caught and organic/fair trade cooperative respectively).

What about the meat you ask?



Well that's from here in the 413.

I gotta say, purchasing this way gives me peace of mind in so many ways. There's the knowledge that I'm reducing my carbon footprint, supporting local farmers and local economy, and also that I'm eating food that comes to me from people I can identify on sight. My locavorism isn't perfect by any means, but when the results are this how can I feel like it's not worth the effort?

Bueno y Sano

This Saturday my friends and I decided to skip the cafeteria food and head downtown to eat at Bueno y Sano. The cafeteria was serving hot and sour soup and jasmine rice. The idea of a cheesy, greasy barbecue chicken quesadilla just sounded so much more appetizing. I love going to Bueno y Sano because the food taste fantastic and you always come out feeling full. If that isn’t encouraging enough, the food is fairly priced. It is affordable for large families, college students, and high school students.

Every time I go there I always get the same thing, either a barbecue chicken quesadilla or a barbecue chicken burrito. However, before entering the restaurant, my adventurous side encouraged me to try something new. But I stuck to my comfort zone, and got my usual barbecue chicken quesadilla. It tasted wonderful! The cheese and the barbecue sauce were oozing out of the quesadilla. It had lots of onions, which gave it a delicious flavoring. To top it off, the quesadilla came with a side of rice, black beans, fresh salsa and sour cream. By the time I finished the quesadillas, I could not eat the rice and black beans; they give you so much food. My friends were more adventurous ordering vegetable salads, a chicken spinach quesadilla, and a steak burrito. Everything looked and smelled delicious. I would recommend Bueno y Sano to everyone because the food is affordable and tastes amazing.

Here is a picture of the barbecue chicken burrito.