Fast Cheap And Easy

(This is from Huffington Post)

I can honestly say I've never gotten more mileage out of the word bullshit than I did last week at the IACP conference in Portland, Oregon. But I have to clarify that when I called bullshit, I wasn't responding to Karen Page personally--she was simply voicing what everyone seems to believe and propagate: that we all lead such busy lives that we have no time to cook.

To repeat: bullshit. Maybe you don't like to cook, maybe you're too lazy to cook, maybe you'd rather watch television or garden, I don't know and I don't care, but don't tell me you're too busy to cook. We all have the same hours every day, and we all choose how to use them. Working 12-hour days is a choice.

Tell me, do you ever hear this? "You know, this month, I really wished I'd had more time, because I believe in paying taxes. I was just too busy." Or, "I've got this cancer on my forehead but I've just been too busy to have it removed." Or, "You know how hard it is to get your kid into kindergarten in Manhattan; if only I weren't been so busy."

We don't blow that stuff off, do we? But the processed food companies make it easy to blow off cooking for ourselves. And we do so at our peril. This is why I responded to Karen as I did. America is too stupid to question whether something is good for it or not ("Marge, it says snack well right on the box!"). And in the very same way we believe that idiocy, we believe these very same companies telling us how wonderful our lives will be if we buy this low-fat Lean Cuisine because it will save us so much time, only 3 minutes! Used to take seven! You've got four extra minutes to play with!

This is not a judgment against people who eat Lean Cuisines. If you're happy eating them and life couldn't be better for you, I'm not going to say a word. I just don't want to hear it's because you don't have the time to cook real food.

Since the food industry began, they've been pushing for faster and faster cooking times--that's what they were selling, not food you enjoy or that makes you feel good. That's what they want people to value. For decades, not only have the multinational food corporations been selling us speed, so have the media. The media embraced it. "That's what people want!" argue editors and publishers I've spoken with.

Magazines, newspapers, and television shows bombard us with quick and easy meals. Have been for decades. Have we gotten any better, any happier, any healthier? Some people have. But not because they learned how to spend less time cooking. It's likely because they learned to spend more time cooking. And the rest of the country has only gotten fatter, sicker and sadder, to the point that the government feels it needs to step in and regulate the food.

Part of the problem is the magazine editors and television producers drumming us over the head with fast and easy meal solutions at home. It's the wrong message to send. These editors and producers and publishers are backing the processed food industry, propelling their message. What I say to you magazine editors and producers, to you Rachael Ray and you Jamie Oliver and your 20 minutes meals: God bless you, but you are advertising and marketing on behalf of the processed food industry.

Quick, fast, and easy isn't the point. Good is the point. Makes you feel good is the point. I am not saying spend three hours making a chicken galantine. I am saying put a chicken in the oven with some cut up potatoes for an hour. Yes, a whole hour! If you're inclined to enjoy some carnal exertions with your partner during that hour, that chicken will be all the more appreciated. But if there's laundry to be done, if there are kids who need help with their geometry, then do that.

In an hour, all who are eating, help set the table, fill some glasses, take out the plates. Make the time. In the same way that you make time to buy shoes for the kids, clean the bathroom, pay your bills--make time to be together over food that makes you feel good when you've finished eating it. Quick and easy won't get you anywhere. Quick and easy will only frustrate you and make you feel like you're failing. You want quick and easy? That's what take-out's for. Nothing wrong with it. Pizza, I love to come home with a couple beautiful pies from Marotta's down the street and open a nice bottle of wine.

But I know for a fact that spending at least a few days a week preparing food with other people around, enjoying it together, is one of the best possible things in life to do, period. It's part of what makes us human. It makes us happy in ways that are deep and good for us. Fast and easy has nothing to do with it.

Supreme Court to Rule on GM Crops

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments Tuesday involving a federal judge's temporary ban on a breed of pesticide-resistant alfalfa, setting the stage for the court's first-ever ruling on genetically modified crops.

Legal experts do not expect a blockbuster decision on the merits of regulating modified plants such as Monsanto Co.'s Roundup Ready alfalfa, but the case, Monsanto Co. v. Geertson Seed Farms, has drawn widespread interest because the justices could issue a ruling that would raise or lower the threshold for challenges under the National Environmental Policy Act.

Environmental groups, which frequently use the statute to bring lawsuits against government agencies and industry groups, "don't expect anything good" to come from the Supreme Court's eventual decision, said David Bookbinder, chief climate counsel at the Sierra Club. It seems that some of the justices are "on a kick to gut NEPA remedies," he said earlier this year during a panel discussion on environmental law at Georgetown University.

See the full story here.

Countdown to Earth Day

Time, once again, to go out and try to give the planet a big hug. Do your part, do what you can. Make this day a day of setting goals, try to come up with a plan to start reducing your carbon footprint. Take meat off of your table 1 day a week, reduce the amount of plastic that you use. Learn more about what's going on around the world here

Record number of food stamp recipents

The economy is really hard on everyone right now, and here's another example:

About 39.4 million Americans, the most ever, received food stamps in January, the government said.

The number of recipients was up 22% from a year earlier, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The total of Americans getting the subsidy has hit records for 14 consecutive months.

With that said ... because we know that most food subsidies cover mass produced, factory farmed goods, can you see the health care crisis becoming worse?

Here's a really great article about obesity, healthcare and poverty:

Some highlights include:

According to the US Agriculture Department, between 1985 and 2003, the cost of fruits and vegetables rose by 120%. While the cost of soft drinks, sweets, sugars and sweets rose by less than 50%.

A 2006 study by the Colorado Health Foundation titled the “Income, Education and Obesity” found that 25% of Colorado children living in low-income households with an average income of $25,000 or less were obese compared to 8% of the children in households with an income of $75,000 or more who were obese.

While I'm not purely suggesting that lower income families are breeding obese children or that lower income families are "fat and lazy," what I am suggesting is that the issues with food, scarity and proper nutrition are an ever looming issue now exacerbated by a declining economy and a shrinking middle class.

Technology and Vegetariansim

So with all of the technology that's available out there now I'm happy to show off this little app for your Ipod touch, Ipad or Iphone:

http://www.vegetarianscanner.com/

I didn't have anything to do with it's production but I still think it's a cool thing. It's $1.99 and should come in handy when you're looking through ingredient lists at the grocery store.

Alternet explains how Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution Failed

After two months, kids hated the new meals, milk consumption plummeted, and many students dropped out of the school lunch program altogether.

Read the full article here

Report Shows Cruelty at Top Egg Producers

From the Humane Society of the US Website:

In February and March 2010, an HSUS investigator worked inside four different factory farms, owned by two of the nation's largest egg producers. The scope of suffering that the investigator revealed was staggering.

This is not a matter of a couple of rotten eggs, but rather standard industry practices that are simply rotten. As investigation after investigation has shown, this cruelty is pervasive throughout the entire battery-cage egg industry. It's time for an end to cage confinement of laying hens.

The video can be found here.

I highly recommend that you read the report and watch the video.

(I published this to Scribd but keep getting an error so here's the URL: http://www.scribd.com/doc/29607348/Report-2010-Iowa-Egg )