Cheap food

The cost of food has been going down since the start of the industrial age. Please look at the increasing cost of medical care. See anything fishy? They are pretty much inverse. As the price of food went down, and cheaper calories from added-value foods were made more readily available people began consuming more and more... crap.

This is the topic I am obsessed with: food access, local food economies, food availability, changing the subsidy structure of the US.

Meat - This omnivore's dilemma

I'm contemplating giving up meat. I've been reading a lot about how meat should be eaten in small amounts, which I already do. And eating meat takes a larger toll on the environment than a vegetarian diet. My family was pescetarian growing up, after a certain age. I would eat chicken at friend's houses and restaurants, but I'm realizing now that logic is backwards. At a restaurant I can't know where the meat is coming from and being a compassionate carnivore requires knowing the origins of your meat.

Also I just wasted $9 of free range chicken because I didn't use it fast enough. I didn't even prepare it. I just bought it with plans to prepare it, then froze it then thawed it and somewhere in that process it went bad. And that pisses. me. off. I was all ready to make it and it had gone bad. Wasting food is one of my issues- I have a tendency to waste food. It's an issues I've been trying to deal with since living alone where I no longer have the excuse that my food was moved and is hiding behind my roommate's milk...

I got a book, The New Becoming Vegetarian, to read before I make the decision final. I do like meat... and I have no idea how to cook tofu. But I was vegan for 2 months back in '07 and that was fine- the only reason I came out of it was because I missed cheese.

It's also cheaper to eat vegetarian, at least, when you choose meat like I do. Sustainable/free-rage/local meat is expensive. I have no desire to eat the cheaper corn fed of questionable origin meats with lots of antibiotics.

One of the big things is getting enough protein, especially as I am trying to work out more... uh, in theory... but rice and beans is supposed to be a complete protein when eaten together. I made brown rice and mixed it into my chili. It was soooo filling.

I shall keep you posted on the transition!

Movie: Our Daily Bread

I watched Our Daily Bread last night. It was a narrator-less film which made it all the more startling. It is filled with the sounds of machines, young chicks, squealing pigs. It shows, without comment, the inner workings of industrial agriculture systems. I highly recommend it. If you can, see it before Food Inc. Without the commentary you can get ideas before you hear anything form the filmmakers. It's available on Netflix.

About to come back from a summer of uninspired meals

Grad school is about to start. The budget is still smaller than I'm used to but the desire to eat well has grown exponentially because I just saw Food Inc. It was infuriating, frustrating , though provoking and inspiring. I'm going to try to eat on a budget but eat well. I've already decided that I want to reduce my sugar intake and no HFCS so this will mean some alterations to recipes and seeking out alternative sweeteners. I already know about honey, agave and applesauce but I'm also thinking about how I read that most recipes had a lot of excess sugar in them. So I'm going to try to wean myself off sugar, eat well and still within budget. The most encouraging part is that I will have a whole fridge and freezer to myself so I look forward to trying some preservation techniques.
I hope that anyone who reads this blog regularly or in passing will leave encouraging comments and think about how they are voting with their money.