yet more evidence that factory farming is eeeeevil

As if we needed more evidence.

There's a mystery disease outbreak among pork slaughterhouse workers that appears to be caused by exposure to aerosolized brains. Read all about it.

Some exciting news!

No, it's not the fact that I am actually writing a post.

It's the fact that I'm writing a cookbook.

That's right, someone (that would be the newly formed PM Press, which doesn't even have a website yet) actually wants to publish the kind of quirky, simple, totally unfancy, DIY-type cookbook that I want to write.

So I'm doin' it. It's gonna be a slim volume with a disquisition on my food-choice principles; general tips on easy improvisational cooking with fresh, whole foods; and recipes (with lots of variation ideas) for things like beans 'n' greens, skillet-fried marinated tofu, and Indian-style chick peas with [insert your favorite vegetable here]. There will be some egg and dairy recommendations, but no recipes that rely on animal products to work or need to be modified to become vegan.

There will also be some baked goods: I will also be revealing the official results of my years-long search for The Perfect Brownie (available with the following variations: totally unhealthy [and not vegan], marginally healthy [and vegan], spicy, black forest, and orange). And then there's my oatmeal cookie recipe, which has fooled committed butter fans without even trying.

Ramsey from PM said something the other day about wanting to have it out by the end of the year, and though that would rawk, my instinct says it might take me a little longer to get it all together (and test recipes!).

But speaking of recipe testing, it's highly likely I'll be writing about that process in this here space. So there.

Okay, clearly I lied when I said I would have a real post soon

And I'm thinking I might have to give up the conceit that I am actually blogging here. While I ponder, here's some stuff to read.

Okay, it's been awhile...

...and I will have an actual post sometime remotely soon.

But there have been a bunch of interesting things published lately that I wanted to share.

The New York Times seems to be obsessed with food politics this week.

And here's yet another reason (if you needed one) to cut out processed foods: they can give fatal illnesses to the folks who work in the processing plants.

The word of the day is "orthorexia."

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.

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

1. 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.
2. I have been craving meat, after about a six-month period of being grossed out by the very idea of it.
   

And I need to think really carefully about how I'm going to handle it. Periodically over the time that I've been eating this way, I realize that I'm either shifting my beliefs in a certain area, or drifting away from my intentions—and generally what I do in response is to shift my guidelines to be more in line with my evolving beliefs, or recommit to my rules and make a conscious effort to do better. Right now I'm having a lot of internal conflict over what's both realistic and ethical (as well as not overly rigid and full of self-denial, which for me—as I think I've said—is a really, really bad combination).

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.

Shopping, cooking, and eating: day 7 (the final diary day!)

I thought it was going to be a 100 percent eating day, but I did end up in a grocery store after dinner. Here's the list:

• the other apple I bought on Saturday
• two mandarins
• some of the Indian potato stew I made yesterday, over rice from the rice cooker; I thought this would hold me to dinner, but it didn't, so while out at the café working, I had to eat...
• a "raisin bran" muffin, which was the only thing that wasn't basically cake or pastry; doubtless it had some refined flour, but it didn't give me any refined-sugar headache or anything
• a bunch of corn chips that came with my friend/work buddy A.'s burrito (please note that this is not the same A. at whose apartment I ate lots of things on day 2)
• huge glass of genmai cha and a refill on the hot water with the same teabag (the café version of the bottomless cup, essentially)
  
• then, dinner with my date, D. (of the crag rangoon–infested meal with the other A.): a cup of lentil soup and a piece of (white flour) bread that was kinda herby and very soft, yum
• some nachos (chips, black beans, salsa, cheese, sour cream, a pepperoncini on top that he didn't want so I ate it happily)
• part of a quesadilla (white flour tortilla, cheese, salsa, with ample evidence that there was meat grease [mmmmm...] on the grill where it was cooked)
• a glass of house red
  
• post-dinner shopping trip: Fig Newmans (low-fat, which was not my choice but D.'s 'cause the full-fat ones were also wheat free, and he rejected the barley flour therein); Tuscan three cheese–flavored Kettle Chips (also per D.), Pirate's Booty (my idea), six granny smith apples (D. insisted on six even though I assured him I would be at the farmers market many times before he was at my house enough times to eat six apples, but whatever; they're from Washington, which is not that far away)
• midnight snack: some Fig Newmans and a couple of the chips, which were not good—too sweet; give me salt and vinegar any day

Not really a banner day for my food choices. Thank gawd this diary week is over. As much as I relish the obsessive documentation of everything I put in my body, it's a little...much.