oh-are-tee-aitch-oh-are-eee-ex-eye-ay.
orthorexia.
No, I don't really think I'm orthorexic. I ate a frackin' burger the other night (it was organic/humane—and the first meat I've had since I had that spate of cravings, which, oddly, seemed to abate just when I was getting ready to embrace them).
But it's a fine line. I certainly think obsessively about food, where my next meal is coming from and what it is, and what's okay for me to eat, ethically and for my own personal health (not long-term health, though— more the fact of how I will feel after eating whatever it is). Too much thinking can drive me crazy. But not enough thinking makes me beat myself up a bit. And then I am all too aware of just how self-indulgent it is to even be spending so much energy on this topic.
The other day I had a 45-minute conversation/negotiation with my mother about what she is willing to serve (not veggie matzoh ball soup) and what i am willing to eat (not factory-farmed roast chicken) at the Passover seder I'll be home for next week. Sheesh.
Showing posts with label rules. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rules. Show all posts
Friday, March 23, 2007
Friday, March 9, 2007
Now that the week of obsessively documenting my food movements is over...
Since starting this blog I've been meaning to post more about the rules, how I developed them, how they shift over time, how much I stick to them (or, more to the point, don't), and why I have them in the first place.
This is all feeling extra important right now, because
First of all, I want to point out that the rules can easily be divided into two types, and it makes a huge difference to me which kind of rule I'm breaking. There are the no-factory-farmed, local-only rules, which are about ethics: How is my food being produced, and what kind of impact is its production having on others (farmworkers, animals, the enviroment generally)? Obviously I don't think that eating meat or other animal products is categorically wrong; but I'm striving for a light footprint, and that guides my decisions. Then there are the as-unprocessed-as-possible rules, keeping me away from sweets and other stuff that makes me feel like crap. Of course, there's some overlap—and there's definitely a solid argument to be made that high-fructose corn syrup is part and parcel of an environmentally unsound system—but for the most part, I see these rules as about self-care rather than ethics, so breaking them is really just about whether it's worth it to me to maybe get a sugar headache from those Ginger-Os, or have a food-additive hangover from that snack mix.
So, on the first kind of rule: Why not just be totally vegan and be done with all the hairsplitting and hamster-wheeling about which cheese is okay when? Well, aside from the fact that I don't think I could stand to cut any one thing out of my diet completely (least of all some things I love love love and depend on nutritionally [more on that in a sec]: eggs, yogurt, or cheese), the fact of something's vegan-ness doesn't mean it was ethically produced or environmentally sound. (There's tons of vegan junk food that is overpackaged, overprocessed, and over-everythinged that's wrong with our industrially based food system.) So, basically, it fits in just fine with my ethics to eat some organic yogurt that came from pastured cows on a relatively small farm about 60 miles from where I live instead of some soygurt made from soybeans that were grown absolutely no closer to me than the Midwest—and maybe as far away as China. (Not that I don't use soygurt in the filling of my vegan lasagna—or that I always know where the soybeans that went into my tofu came from.)
And sometimes the rules conflict with each other: Meat substitutes are rilly frickin' processed, so where does that leave me when my choices are meat or fake meat? And what about French cheese? It's much more likely that French cheese isn't factory-farmed (not like all of Europe's agriculture is small-scale and sustainable, but it's a damn sight better than here)—but, duh, it violates the local rules pretty bad.
And then there's the whole nutrional-dependence thang. I really do think I need animal protein sometimes (usually eggs, less usually cheese, and, rarely, meat). Some people do well on a vegan diet, and some don't. I do well as a mostly vegetarian—but I know more than a few folks who get anemic, chronically fatigued, and generally nonfunctional if they don't eat meat often enough. Where's the right balance between needs, wants, and ethics?
Clearly (at least, what's become clearer to me while writing this entry, which by the way has taken three days—only partly because I've had more work this week than the last two), if I recommit to my animal-product-sourcing rules (i.e., quit eating at the Parkway and the Mexicali Rose so much and make a more serious effort to eat vegan when I'm out), then I can indulge these meat cravings at some of the lovely places near me that serve sustainable and humane meat.
Surely I'll have more—too much more—to say about this later.
This is all feeling extra important right now, because
- in cataloging every single thing that passed my lips last week, I realized how very uncommitted I have been to my rules lately, mostly in the realm of where cheese comes from.
- I have been craving meat, after about a six-month period of being grossed out by the very idea of it.
First of all, I want to point out that the rules can easily be divided into two types, and it makes a huge difference to me which kind of rule I'm breaking. There are the no-factory-farmed, local-only rules, which are about ethics: How is my food being produced, and what kind of impact is its production having on others (farmworkers, animals, the enviroment generally)? Obviously I don't think that eating meat or other animal products is categorically wrong; but I'm striving for a light footprint, and that guides my decisions. Then there are the as-unprocessed-as-possible rules, keeping me away from sweets and other stuff that makes me feel like crap. Of course, there's some overlap—and there's definitely a solid argument to be made that high-fructose corn syrup is part and parcel of an environmentally unsound system—but for the most part, I see these rules as about self-care rather than ethics, so breaking them is really just about whether it's worth it to me to maybe get a sugar headache from those Ginger-Os, or have a food-additive hangover from that snack mix.
So, on the first kind of rule: Why not just be totally vegan and be done with all the hairsplitting and hamster-wheeling about which cheese is okay when? Well, aside from the fact that I don't think I could stand to cut any one thing out of my diet completely (least of all some things I love love love and depend on nutritionally [more on that in a sec]: eggs, yogurt, or cheese), the fact of something's vegan-ness doesn't mean it was ethically produced or environmentally sound. (There's tons of vegan junk food that is overpackaged, overprocessed, and over-everythinged that's wrong with our industrially based food system.) So, basically, it fits in just fine with my ethics to eat some organic yogurt that came from pastured cows on a relatively small farm about 60 miles from where I live instead of some soygurt made from soybeans that were grown absolutely no closer to me than the Midwest—and maybe as far away as China. (Not that I don't use soygurt in the filling of my vegan lasagna—or that I always know where the soybeans that went into my tofu came from.)
And sometimes the rules conflict with each other: Meat substitutes are rilly frickin' processed, so where does that leave me when my choices are meat or fake meat? And what about French cheese? It's much more likely that French cheese isn't factory-farmed (not like all of Europe's agriculture is small-scale and sustainable, but it's a damn sight better than here)—but, duh, it violates the local rules pretty bad.
And then there's the whole nutrional-dependence thang. I really do think I need animal protein sometimes (usually eggs, less usually cheese, and, rarely, meat). Some people do well on a vegan diet, and some don't. I do well as a mostly vegetarian—but I know more than a few folks who get anemic, chronically fatigued, and generally nonfunctional if they don't eat meat often enough. Where's the right balance between needs, wants, and ethics?
Clearly (at least, what's become clearer to me while writing this entry, which by the way has taken three days—only partly because I've had more work this week than the last two), if I recommit to my animal-product-sourcing rules (i.e., quit eating at the Parkway and the Mexicali Rose so much and make a more serious effort to eat vegan when I'm out), then I can indulge these meat cravings at some of the lovely places near me that serve sustainable and humane meat.
Surely I'll have more—too much more—to say about this later.
Friday, February 23, 2007
And then the lunch that made me want to start writing...
Yesterday I ate a big plate of meat for lunch. Barbecued ribs from Flints, to be exact. Not organic, not locally or sustainably produced, not at all in line with anything about the way I say I eat.
And. It. Was. Good. Not just that, but I felt good afterwards, too. I've been recovering from a nasty bout with the zombie flu, and my energy has been looooow. A big plate o' meat seemed like just the ticket.
And I had already been planning to eat some meat: curried goat with my new friend D. I was justifying this because, hey, there's no real goat industry in this country, so the meat is likely produced on a relatively small scale. And, of course, with handy-dandy rule no. 8. I've only eaten goat a few times in my life, but damn is it tasty. And you don't see it around the menu every day. When D. and I were having our first lunch together two weeks ago (I kept it veggie then, but not vegan—we were at the Mexicali Rose, where absolutely nothing at all is vegan; I guess in the last post I forgot rule no. 9, which is: If you've gotta eat, you've gotta eat, and you might as well like it), I mentioned a taste for goat, and she told me about her favorite Caribbean place not too far from my house. Obviously we had to go.
Anyway, the goat place was closed. Apparently it's run by stoners. No surprise they run late. We tried another Caribbean place, but it was closed, too. The sign on the door said they were catering some reggae show in Santa Cruz.
By then I was starving (I skipped breakfast in preparation for the heavy meatiness), and primed for meat. D. was thrilled that Flints was still around and might actually be open. It seemed like fate.
And I ate the ribs and I was happy—even though your very much face-to-face with what meat is when you're eating it right off the bone. There were sinews. That tasted good. Oh, my.
As a pretty extreme example in the long line of things I choose to eat that I quote don't eat anymore unquote, it's makin' me think: Is it chickenshit of me to say I have these rules when I break them so much? How can I balance my own needs with the needs of others (meatpackers, farmworkers, people who live near polluting feedlots, cows) and with my own ethics? Am I just not trying hard enough?
And. It. Was. Good. Not just that, but I felt good afterwards, too. I've been recovering from a nasty bout with the zombie flu, and my energy has been looooow. A big plate o' meat seemed like just the ticket.
And I had already been planning to eat some meat: curried goat with my new friend D. I was justifying this because, hey, there's no real goat industry in this country, so the meat is likely produced on a relatively small scale. And, of course, with handy-dandy rule no. 8. I've only eaten goat a few times in my life, but damn is it tasty. And you don't see it around the menu every day. When D. and I were having our first lunch together two weeks ago (I kept it veggie then, but not vegan—we were at the Mexicali Rose, where absolutely nothing at all is vegan; I guess in the last post I forgot rule no. 9, which is: If you've gotta eat, you've gotta eat, and you might as well like it), I mentioned a taste for goat, and she told me about her favorite Caribbean place not too far from my house. Obviously we had to go.
Anyway, the goat place was closed. Apparently it's run by stoners. No surprise they run late. We tried another Caribbean place, but it was closed, too. The sign on the door said they were catering some reggae show in Santa Cruz.
By then I was starving (I skipped breakfast in preparation for the heavy meatiness), and primed for meat. D. was thrilled that Flints was still around and might actually be open. It seemed like fate.
And I ate the ribs and I was happy—even though your very much face-to-face with what meat is when you're eating it right off the bone. There were sinews. That tasted good. Oh, my.
As a pretty extreme example in the long line of things I choose to eat that I quote don't eat anymore unquote, it's makin' me think: Is it chickenshit of me to say I have these rules when I break them so much? How can I balance my own needs with the needs of others (meatpackers, farmworkers, people who live near polluting feedlots, cows) and with my own ethics? Am I just not trying hard enough?
Okay, the background...
Several years ago, just as I was cutting down my sugar consumption and learning more about the evils of things like hydrogenation, shipping vegetables around the globe, food additives, and factory farming, I had a new coworker who was superhardcore in her commitment to veganism and whole foods (as in unprocessed things, not the union-busting grocery chain). We started talking endlessly about the politics and ethics of food choices (and the connections between those politics and seemingly unrelated social justice movements), the health benefits of unrefined food, what looked best at the farmers market, and tasty cooking ideas.
Then another friend made a deal with me: We would do the vegan whole-foods-only thing for a month, cooking and eating together and keeping each other on track, and he would never eat fast food again, ever. So for one month I ate no white flour, no refined sugar, almost nothing processed at all. Lots of brown rice, beans, roasted vegetables, tofu stir fries, etc.
And I felt so much happier and more energetic that I realized I could never go back.
Back to the processed stuff, that is. Just not getting that midafternoon need-to-put-my-head-down-on-my-desk-and-nap feeling was enough to keep me on board with the brown rice, whole barley, whole grain bread, and everything else. And I've always loved vegetables, tofu, and all that. Sure, the sweet tooth was a real issue, but I discovered that the less sugar I ate, the less I wanted it. And things that I used to love started to taste waaaaay too sweet for me. Especially at first, I was so motivated that passing up candy and mass-produced baked good was frickin' easy. (Homemade things, well...harder. More on that later.)
The animal products were a different story. Not actual meat; I'd already been a once-a-month-or-less meat eater, and I'd gone through many vegetarian periods. My problems are cheese, yogurt, and eggs. More accurately, cheese, yogurt, eggs, and rigidity. See, I need some flexibility in my rules, since in my world food restrictions can start with "no animal products" and end up at "you are allowed one piece of toast with a milligram of peanut butter spread on top, and a cup of tea" pretty durn quick. And so I avoid anything that smacks too much of virtuous self-denial, a hallmark of my high-school eating disorder. Or maybe it's just too hard for me to make sacrifices. Urgk. Balancing all these ethical questions is haaaaaard.
I started calling myself an aspiring vegan, but sometimes that's not too accurate, because how hard am I trying if I buy cheese twice a month?
So. What are my rules, then, anyway?
Then another friend made a deal with me: We would do the vegan whole-foods-only thing for a month, cooking and eating together and keeping each other on track, and he would never eat fast food again, ever. So for one month I ate no white flour, no refined sugar, almost nothing processed at all. Lots of brown rice, beans, roasted vegetables, tofu stir fries, etc.
And I felt so much happier and more energetic that I realized I could never go back.
Back to the processed stuff, that is. Just not getting that midafternoon need-to-put-my-head-down-on-my-desk-and-nap feeling was enough to keep me on board with the brown rice, whole barley, whole grain bread, and everything else. And I've always loved vegetables, tofu, and all that. Sure, the sweet tooth was a real issue, but I discovered that the less sugar I ate, the less I wanted it. And things that I used to love started to taste waaaaay too sweet for me. Especially at first, I was so motivated that passing up candy and mass-produced baked good was frickin' easy. (Homemade things, well...harder. More on that later.)
The animal products were a different story. Not actual meat; I'd already been a once-a-month-or-less meat eater, and I'd gone through many vegetarian periods. My problems are cheese, yogurt, and eggs. More accurately, cheese, yogurt, eggs, and rigidity. See, I need some flexibility in my rules, since in my world food restrictions can start with "no animal products" and end up at "you are allowed one piece of toast with a milligram of peanut butter spread on top, and a cup of tea" pretty durn quick. And so I avoid anything that smacks too much of virtuous self-denial, a hallmark of my high-school eating disorder. Or maybe it's just too hard for me to make sacrifices. Urgk. Balancing all these ethical questions is haaaaaard.
I started calling myself an aspiring vegan, but sometimes that's not too accurate, because how hard am I trying if I buy cheese twice a month?
So. What are my rules, then, anyway?
- Local (and organic) whenever possible. This is when I feel especially lucky to live in the Bay Area: I shop for produce mostly at farmers markets and choose what to cook based on what's there. (If I need something specific for a recipe, I spend a lot of time reading supermarket signs trying to figure out where things came from.) If I'm choosing between conventionally grown and local and non-local but organic, I go with local.
- No factory-farmed animal products. From a practical perspective, this means Straus organic yogurt, Niman Ranch meat (oh so rare), cheese from the folks who make the incredible Humboldt Fog, and any eggs or cheese I can get at the farmers market. And, um, this is the rule that I prolly break with the most frequency.
- Unrefined grains only, unless nothing else is available. Brown rice, whole grain breads, lots o' oatmeal, quinoa, millet. I discovered that I hate amaranth, though. I'm not superfanatical about this rule—there aren't that many tacquerias that have brown rice (and don't kid yourself, even those "whole wheat" tortillas are mostly white flour), and though I prefer Chinese and Thai places that serve brown rice, sometimes they just don't. And I'm not passin' up the garlic noodles at Sunflower, which are totally refined.
- Minimally sweetened things only. Um, most of the time. When people bring delicious homemade brownies to a potluck, I'm not gonna grill them about what they used. I'm not that much of a tool. I don't think. When I bake, I use brown rice syrup, agave, maple syrup, and sucanat. Okay, I know that last one is still basically sugar, but...shut up.
- Absolutely no hydrogenated anything. This one's not that complicated, since anything with hydrogenated anything is going to have so many other anythings that I don't want to put in my body. This one goes along with—
- Read labels carefully and know which weird ingredients are really fucked-up, and which ones aren't (xanthan gum is okay, disodium inosinate, not so much).
- When you're a guest in someone's house, eat what's put in front of you. I'm not comfortable making people accommodate my weird and complicated rules.
- And the one that makes it all possible (and possibly meaningless, and definitely complicated): If you really, really want to eat it—go ahead and eat it.
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