McDeath
If you ever needed any more reason to stay as far away as possible from your nearest McDonald’s, then this is that reason. A woman was crushed to death in a southern California food processing plant for the company. Click above for the link. Man, when you really start wondering where your food is coming from and start asking questions you come up with some really scary stories. Two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, and human flesh on a sesame seed bun. No thanks.
we are what we eat
Before I saw Food Inc. on a run of the mill Monday night this week, I was knee deep in Michael Pollan’s book, In Defense of Food, which was already making my daily eating habits a lot more difficult to stomach. Pun fully intended. The book and film take you on a tour of the industrialized food complex which is, and has been since the early 1980’s, responsible for creating a brand new culture of people who are overfed and under nourished. The Western world eats more food than anyone else and yet we are starving for nutrition and plagued with chronic metabolic diseases like diabetes, heart disease and obesity. I have always dreamt of eating healthier and toyed with a lot of different ideas and diets but this wave on information that has opened itself up to me has me already making a ton of changes in my daily life.
1. I signed up for a local consumer supported agriculture (CSA) box which is a box full of locally grown, organic produce that gets delivered to me every week. The box comes with more than enough seasonal fruits and vegetables to tied me over for a week as well as a recipe for any items that I may not be used to cooking with. Not only that but if I collect my scraps throughout the week and leave them out then when I get my new box they will take the scraps and compost them for me! The service is run by the Eagle Rock based restaurant Auntie Em’s. (if you do try it out – drop my name please – i think you get a week for free or something.) These CSA boxes are everywhere though so ask about them locally.
2. Staying away from supermarkets. If I was a more educated person I would be able to walk the aisles and know what produce was in season and what products were alright to buy but I’m only at the beginning of this and so while I am learning I am only shopping at my local Nature Mart. It is more expensive, there is no denying that, but our culture spends a higher percentage of annual income on medical issues every year than we do on food. It wasn’t always that way and it doesn’t have to be. The rest of the world puts more of its money into what it eats than anything else. I can hardly think of a better investment.
3. I’m eating less. The most moving part of Pollan’s book are the parts where he talks about out relationship to food. And when he say eat less he cites the diets and ceremony surrounding food all over the world. One of the defining characteristics of a healthy relationship with food is to savor it more and eat less of it. Just within the last week I have been preparing much better meals and finding that I need much less to feel satisfied. And this helps the wallet as well.
4. Found a ranch. I am having a lot of grass fed beef sent to me from a ranch in Idaho called the Alderspring Ranch. In time I’m going to try and find something more local but I just flatly refuse to eat beef that I can’t track back to its source anymore. All it takes is the visual of meat filler moving through the irradiation and ammonia processes to know that you might want to stop putting that stuff in your body right away.
This is all brand new to me so I will write more as I go but I am feeling good about this stuff so far. Please check out the movie and read the books and, most importantly, just start asking detailed question about where the food you are eating is coming from. You may not like some of the answers you find.