setting priorities for healthy living

The food world was buzzing last week with the announcement from General Mills that Original Cheerios are going GMO free. This is the only variety going GMO free, since original Cheerios are primarily made of oats, which are not genetically modified. The sugar and corn starches will be going GMO free.

The way that the media exploded with the announcement shows me that people are starting to demand GMO free foods, or at the very least, more transparency about what's IN their foods. This is positive progress.

But I can't help but feel that the hype can also distract from the most important parts of a healthy lifestyle. GMOs in food or parabens and other chemicals in soaps or household cleaners are important to understand and good to avoid when possible. But limiting your exposure to these is a secondary priority. It doesn't matter if you eat GMOs in your breakfast cereal, if you're also addicted to soda and fast food and processed junk. 

Sometimes it can be easy to grab on to the media's soundbites and think that those are the most important indicators of health, since it's what people are talking about. But the most important information is the most boring - that a healthy diet of clean foods, stress management and an active lifestyle are the largest contributing factors to your overall health and wellness. It's a lot easier to just start buying hand soap without parabens than it is to give up soda. (I know. I've been there.)

As you're thinking about setting priorities for your new year, focus on specific tasks that can help you hit those main priorities. Maybe it's avoiding fast food, cooking more often at home, drinking more water, or getting exercise 2 or 3 days a week. Choose small things to tackle, so they aren't so overwhelming. Take one step toward one goal, not 12 steps toward 10 goals. For example, if you want to cook at home more often, check out this post on where I get a lot of my clean recipes. 

book review: The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan

I have read most of Michael Pollan's works, including all of his books pertaining to food. I've reviewed Cooked on this blog, as well as Second Nature.I find his writing really engaging, so I stick with his books not just because he's considered one of the top food studies experts in the country. 

I had seen the documentary based on The Botany of Desire around the same time as I first watched Food, Inc. years ago. (You can actually watch the documentary on PBS's website here.) I realized more recently I had never actually read the book. The subtitle, A Plant's-eye View of the World, is fitting, and probably what makes this book about plants stand out from any others I've read.

Pollan acknowledges that for centuries, we've believed that we as humans control plants. But for this book, he turns that around and asks if it's possible that plants are shaping us as well. He centers the book around four basic plants and how they evolved over time to satisfy something humans want. Domesticated plants have a reciprocal relationship with us - it's a two-way street.

The plants he covers are apples (sweetness), tulips (beauty), cannabis (intoxication) and potatoes (control). In the section on apples, he discusses the legend of Johnny Appleseed - how much was true, how apples evolved in America, and how they've been used over centuries to satisfy our cravings for sweet. Most apples from seed are bitter and their fruits were used to make hard cider. It's only through grafting over many years that we were able to cultivate sweet fruit, partly owing to a backlash against alcohol. My favorite part of this section was learning about how apples protect their genetic diversity - they are very different from many other plants. Human behavior threatens them by reducing that diversity in the quest for the same, consistent and sweet fruit.

The tulip section tries to answer the question of why we spend billions of dollars cultivating flowers that we can't eat (besides their use to bees) - the desire for beauty. The info on floral reproduction was a little bit dry, though useful. However, the discussion of the tulipmania that swept Amsterdam in the 17th century, where a single bulb cost a fortune, captured my interest.

Probably my favorite section of this book, ironically, was the section on cannabis. It starts by talking about how plants protect themselves from predators by poisoning or sickening them, yet also draw other animals to them for their own purposes (reproduction). Culturally, it's almost universal that groups of people are drawn to plants and substances that alter consciousness - and marijuana has provided that for centuries - in use since recorded history began, at the very least. When the U.S. war on drugs threatened its existence, it evolved to be grown indoors (and out of the reach of government efforts to curb its growth). Because it has to be grown so carefully, cross-bred for the best traits, etc. marijuana has reached new heights of growth and potency - the opposite of what the war on drugs wanted to achieve.

Scientists study the effects of intoxicant plants on humans, finding the tetrohydracannibinol (THC) that marijuana produces binds to receptors in our brains that affect memory and consciousness. But we also produce THC-like chemicals naturally, that do the same thing. It's like we're hardwired to respond. 

The potatoes section talks about the history of potatoes being a sustaining crop for many cultures, and also the problems that came with that dependency - the Irish potato famine in the 19th century. Within weeks, a fungus destroyed all potato crops - the result of a monoculture grown where no plant could offer up any resistance and the fungus could spread like wildfire. While the resulting starvation of a huge population of people was also due to factors beyond the destroyed, it served as a lesson to growers that monocultures are a great risk. However, we're still growing monocultures of potatoes today - in particular, the Russet Burbank (the fry of choice for McDonald's). This portion of the book talks about the effect on farmers and land, trying to grow potatoes in monoculture and make them disease and pest resistant (this is where lots of chemicals and genetic modification come in). 

It's not often that we look at agriculture from the perspective that Pollan does in this book. I've never thought of plants having priorities - but it makes a lot of sense, and goes hand in hand with research that's being done on plant intelligence. It certainly makes me look at my own garden differently - and will probably shape what will be planted in the coming year. Will I go for the maximum return for me, in what I desire? Or the maximum return for the plant, at the expense of beauty or taste? Hopefully the answer lies somewhere in the middle. 

on resolutions

Happy New Year!

There's something about January that brings a sense of new beginnings. Maybe it's the breath of fresh air after the hubbub of the holidays, or the fact that we flip a new year on the calendar that makes us feel like we can press the reset button and start anew. In 2013, I set some goals for myself - concrete things like "run a half marathon" and not just "run more." I met most of those goals, and exceeded some of them. It gave me a sense of satisfaction to open my goals document every so often and check to see that I've made progress. 

So I'm setting my resolutions for 2014 and will keep myself accountable for progress on them during the year. They're all reachable, but will be a challenge in one way or another. I don't like to go overboard, since I know that my work and my commute take up a huge portion of my week and my attention during my waking hours. Plus, I don't like setting myself up for failure. I'd rather succeed at a few small things and be content with that.

With that, here are my goals for 2014 in three categories: mind, body and home.

Mind
Read 75 books.
I read 70 books in 2013, and I'm going to up the ante by just a bit in 2014. Within those 75 books, I have a goal of reading one of what I call the Russian doorstop novels that I haven't read before, as well as finishing up the rest of Margaret Atwood's canon. I use Good Reads to help me keep track of what I'm reading when.

Write letters on three issues to my elected representatives.
I have no shortage of things that outrage me, and I know that battles about GMO labeling, Ag-Gag laws and farm bills will keep me occupied with this one.

Body
Run a marathon.
Yes, I'm putting it out there. I'm not going to beat myself up if I work on the training and my body doesn't cooperate (I'm looking at you, knees!), but I'm going to try. I know in my heart I will always regret it if I don't try, and that's reason enough for me to start. I will begin training in February, with the goal of working up to a marathon by the fall. I'd also like to do several halfs this year, and to travel to at least one race outside of my area. The goal for the full marathon is just to finish, and my goal for a half marathon in 2014 is to get a PR, which I think is doable. 

Drink 64 ounces of water a day.
Rather than set a goal for weight loss, I'm focusing on health and fitness this year. Water is a big one for me - I feel so much better and have so much more energy when I'm properly hydrated. It also helps me with my running to be hydrated at all times, so I'm going to dedicate myself to hydration.

Home
Start my home brew kombucha.
Mark gave me the tools to make kombucha for my birthday last year and I have yet to start, out of fear that I'll mess it up. I did stop buying kombucha in the store, like I promised myself, but I haven't taken the leap. 2014 is the time.

Sew a t-shirt quilt.
I have my grandma's sewing machine, and I'm going to put it to good use this year. I'm not particularly gifted in this area, so I'm starting easy and hoping to make Mark a quilt from a pile of old, beloved t-shirts.

Can one new thing.
I want to branch out this year and can something we've never canned before. Doesn't have to be elaborate, but I'd like to try something new and different.

Plant a bee-friendly flower garden.
I want to do some research on bee-friendly plants and make the flower beds along our garage an all you can drink nectar buffet for bees. (Can you tell that Vanishing of the Bees inspired me?)

Make the chickens some treats.
I want to be more actively involved in the chickens' care and I really want to make them some treats to give them a diversion.

Organize the basement.
I did a great job of simplifying and downsizing our house this past fall, but the largest work to be done is our basement, which is a mess of boxes and disorganization and junk that is just begging to be a functional space. If the only house related thing we get done at all this year is to organize the basement, I would count it a success.

I'm going to check in monthly here to keep myself accountable to these goals, and hopefully share some how-tos when I have some success! 

What are your goals for 2014? Share them in the comments - I'd love to know what you're doing to make 2014 the best year it can be! 

movie review: vanishing of the bees

It's amazing to think that something as tiny as a honeybee, which we routinely swat away from us, can carry the fate of billions of dollars of produce and the food supply of a nation on its shoulders. But honeybees are an essential part of our ecosystem and they are threatened by modern agriculture.

Vanishing of the Bees takes a look at the issue of colony collapse disorder (CCD). CCD is the term used to describe when a colony of bees disappears, leaving behind no dead bodies, but only the queen and a few young bees. No "official" scientific cause has been found for this phenomenon, though this film investigates the different possibilities. 

I've written about bees briefly before, where I mentioned I have always been scared of bees. After watching this film, I'm more in awe of them than afraid. Did you know one single bee can hit up 100,000 flowers every day? That's some productivity. Bees are responsible for pollinating $15 billion in crops in the U.S. alone. I think we owe them our attention.

The documentary talks about the religious, historical and cultural significance of the honeybee and how for centuries, bees have been thought of as an indicator of environmental quality - the healthier the hive, the healthier the environment. If bees can't thrive, we can't either. 

And right now? Bees are not thriving. CCD is affecting billions of bees and thousands upon thousands of hives with no exact known cause. 

Some who are proponents of organic/holistic beekeeping believe that it's a byproduct of industrial/commercial production of bees. Practices like artificially inseminating queens to select for certain traits (thereby reducing genetic pool) and taking honey away from the hive and replacing it with sugar syrups are blamed for compromising the health of the colony, making it more susceptible to diseases and sickness. Makes sense - that's happened for other animal species due to our industrial farming practices, so it's not too far fetched to believe it could happen to bees.

When colonies in 37 states were affected by CCD in the mid 2000s, scientists started trying to understand the cause. Even theories about cell phone towers or Russian sabotage were floated. They found viruses and bacteria in many of the colonies that collapsed that can kill bees, but not in enough of the collapsed hives to determine that these diseases were the cause of the collapse. 

More and more beekeepers and scientists started to look to our modern farming practices as the culprit. Our vast fields of monocultures are incredibly susceptible to pests, which explains the vast use of pesticides in our crops (you know, the same chemicals that were developed to kill people in WWII, which are now sprayed on our vegetables). But pesticides were put in use in agriculture years ago - and CCD is a more recent phenomenon. So how are they connected? 

Older versions of pesticides were sprayed on crops, and bees could be removed from the fields during spraying time. The pesticides were on the surface, where insects would eat portions of the leaves and die from system failures - not necessarily in the flower/pollen portion of the plant that bees access. If you had an issue where bees were affected by these pesticides, you would know it from the dead bees present.

It was when systemic pesticides were introduced that bees started to be affected. Systemic pesticides are part of the plant's seed and express themselves in the growth of the plant through its life, including pollen and nectar, which makes bees susceptible. When these pesticides were introduced, the only testing done on them was whether or not a dose was lethal. One flower isn't enough to kill a bee, so they were deemed "safe" (or the risk was deemed "acceptable"), but no research was done on low level, sublethal doses - the kind that accumulate over time and are brought back to hives. These pesticides have been found in high levels in hives, but science has yet to prove that CCD is caused by them. 

I find it highly problematic in this country that minimal testing needs to be done to prove something is an acceptable environmental risk, but conclusive testing must be done to be able to take it off the market after the fact. Our government throws caution to the wind and relies on the industry to do its own testing instead of doing independent, third-party testing. (Sound familiar?) Even watching European countries such as France ban these systemic pesticides and see bee populations recover somehow doesn't convince people in our country to take the same action. We're too concerned about the welfare of our corporations and our greed. 

I don't want to give away everything about this documentary, because I highly recommend you watch it for yourself and evaluate the science presented. Also, note that it's not just the organic loving people that are raising the alarm about bees - industrial beekeepers and industrial farmers that rely on bees to pollinate their crops are speaking out too. If you eat ANY fresh food whatsoever, you need to care about the plight of the bees. What's happening to our honeybees is a sign that our current system is unsustainable (one of many signs, actually.) 

The film also suggests some things you can do to take action for the bees - contacting your legislators is one way, but buying local, unadulterated U.S. honey, refraining from using chemicals on your lawn, eating organic produce that doesn't use systemic pesticides, growing a garden with a habitat for bees with lots of flowering plants - those are all important ways you can make a difference.

I can't recommend enough that you watch this film (I watched it on Netflix). Visit their website at www.vanishingbees.com and follow them on Twitter at @vanishingbees to keep up to date on the latest info about how you can help. For locals, check out Edible Allegheny's info on bees and CCD in western PA from their August/September issue.     

reading this week

Some great reads from around the interwebs. Also, I often tweet links to stories that are especially important to me, since it's faster than waiting to compile them for a post. So follow me on Twitter if you're interested in food journalism or are a news junkie like me.

FDA: Anti-bacterial soaps may not curb bacteria (AP)
I'm not at all surprised by this. The growing threat of antibiotic resistant bacteria is only one of the threats posed by overuse of triclosan and antibacterial products. In 2013, we switched to Honest products at home, and their handsoap doesn't contain triclosan. Sometimes soap and hot water is the best way to prevent the spread of harmful bacteria (without the hormone disrupting side effects. It will be interesting to see how this shakes out with the FDA.

Forget Golf Courses: Subdivisions Draw Residents with Farms (NPR)
Totally fascinating new concept called development supported agriculture - residents sharing farms and agricultural production. Would make for an interesting HOA, that's for sure.

Soybeans: Factory Farming and the Destruction of Lands and Lives in Argentina (Eat Drink Better)
For all those who think soy is the great savior of food - a lesson about what Big Soy does to the environment and agricultural workers. 

Food Policy Stories that Mattered in 2013 (Civil Eats)
A great round-up post of the large issues in food policy that captured the nation's attention in 2013. Includes the battle over GMOs (which is far from over), labor, bees, nutrition and even antibiotic-resistance.

Mastering the Art of French Cooking dinner party

Ever since I was introduced to Julia Child, I've had an item on my bucket list - to cook an entire dinner party from Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Everything from appetizers to desserts. I was able to check it off my list this month when we had a few friends over for a Christmas feast. (Excuse the poor phone photos - way too busy that day to break out the good camera.)

The first course was French onion soup (Soupe a l’Oignon Gratinee). The soup was really simple to make, though it takes awhile, since the onions cook low and slow, releasing the most amazing flavors. Once it's finished, it's topped with swiss cheese, toasted baguette and a bit of olive oil drizzle and set in the oven to brown and melt. We ate every drop.


The main course was beef stew with red wine (Boeuf a la Bourguignonne) over parsley potatoes with buttered green peas with shallots (Petits Pois Etuves au Beurre). The stew was so tender and flavorful - unlike any crock pot stew I've ever made. I don't know if it was the ingredients or the method or a combination of both, but the stew was also worth its effort. I made enough potatoes to feed an army (I overestimate how many will be needed every single time I make potatoes), but they paired well with the richness of the stew. The peas were also a hit, even with a few guests who only took the peas to be polite, but ended up really liking them. (That's always the mark of a great dish - when people who ordinarily would pass it up find it delicious.)

The French bread (Pain Francais) was something I had been wanting to make for a long time, having never made bread only from my hands before. (I've always relied on the dough hook of my mixer for kneading, the few times I've made homemade bread.) Jacking up the heat in our house that morning really helped the dough rise, since usually we keep it pretty low in the winter. I'm glad I thought to do that and followed Julia's recommendations on temperature. After hours of kneading and rising cycles, the payoff was worth the effort: crusty on the outside, soft on the inside loaves that rang hollow when you thumped them - Julia's indication that they are done. We ate all three loaves in a matter of minutes and they were so delicious in and of themselves that we didn't even need the honey butter! 

For dessert, it was a chocolate almond cake (Reine de Saba) and upside-down apple tart (Le Tarte des Demoiselles Tatin). Somehow I only took a photo of the apple tart when it was still upside down (crust on top) in the frying pan. At first I was skeptical that the cake recipe could really feed 8 people, especially when I saw that the frosting was nothing but a few tablespoons of butter and an ounce of chocolate. But it was so rich and creamy, we had leftovers - a little goes a long way. I should know by now not to doubt these recipes. I'm glad I didn't do the American thing and slather the cake in 50 pounds of icing and make 6 more layers. It was perfect the way it was. And adorable on a cake stand, too.

The apple tart was tricky, and I was nervous about burning the apples, so it was a little less caramelized than I'd like, but it worked out fine. It was also rich and very heavy on the sugar, so a little piece went very far. Perhaps that's the theme of these French recipes - a little goes a very long way. 

My friend Anthony chose some fantastic wines to pair with the food, according to Julia's recommendations in the cookbook. Even people who aren't usually wine people were impressed - it was like the wines were made for this specific menu!

Though the meal took 13 hours from start to finish and required assistance from other people (greatly appreciated), it was worth it. I feel like even through the busy, frenzied prep (and the fact that I needed this white board to keep track of where everything was in the process), I could find the joy in cooking these recipes and realize the painstaking care that was made in writing them. 

I could hear Julia's voice in the text and knowing that the hands in the bread making photos were hers makes it all the more special - and really makes it stand out from other cookbooks of today. Ghost writers abound in today's celebrity cookbooks, so knowing that Julia wrote and developed these recipes and their specific methods was having a connection with an author of a cookbook that I haven't experienced before. And to have people linger over a meal at the table for three hours blissfully full and content? Probably just how Julia intended.


For more on my obsession with Julia, check out these posts on watching The French Chef and a book review on her biography, Dearie.

Give the gift of a full belly - #pghsavesXmas

There are so many deserving charities that need help this time of year, especially with the demand of the holidays. While there are many good causes to support, I have a soft spot in my heart for hunger relief agencies, as evidenced by my desire to run for the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank in May for the Pittsburgh Half Marathon.

Also, I'm a lurker/follower of a great local blog called IheartPGH, which is exactly what it seems from the title - a blog about this great city and its people.

And I read this week that she's raising money for CHS, an organization that provides many needed services - mental health, homeless assistance, housing assistance, and today I found out - a food pantry. In cooperation with the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, they serve as many people as they can in the Oakland area. And many in our city need food more than they need a fun Christmas present, as great as that is.

Not only is she raising money, but she's holding giveaways as well, and donating and spreading the word helps you win entries to walk away with some great prizes. Helping others have enough food to eat and spend Christmas with a roof over their head and a full belly while also getting to enter for great prizes and use the awesome hashtag #pghsavesXmas? Sounds good to me. Makes me feel like Pittsburgh's a super hero, and that let's me geek out a little bit too. Win.

Visit IheartPGH to check out the giveaways and ways to donate! (And follow her blog while you're at it - you'll learn so much more about Pittsburgh that you'll wish you had three extra days in the week to fit in more cool stuff.)