I've been posting on veganism

Hi everyone,

Long time no speak. I became a vegan! So I started writing about it on my blog.

Tim

Class is Over, Not Our Appetites

So this is it. Our class has end and our food experiment has ended as well too. When I started, I was doing really well, getting, eating great, and feeling good! Over the course of the semester, especially in the last few weeks, it has been harder, but I still eat well for the most part. I think now that we know the rules and became more conscious of food, we are more aware of our food choices. I'm glad we were exposed to so many different foods and practice. It was great for us to have this honest dialogue about food and the way we eat, especially here in America. We're so detached from our food and we don't see it as living organisms, just consumption products. Does matter what we eat, the way we eat, but now we're talking about food. We're asking what it is, where does it come from, how was it's life, what are the chemicals in it. These are the things that everyone should be asking. WE're still going to eat what we want, but many of us less than before and are eating more consciously because of what we're eating, how is it affecting our bodies, and where does it come from.

I hope that everyone will continue their food practices even after this class. I know I will. I'm about to study abroad in The Netherlands next semester and I think it will be interesting because once again I will have to change my diet! I'm a little nervous about it, but I'm embarking on this whole new food rules experiment which the lessons I've learned from Pollan and this class. I think we all took a lot from Food Rules regardless if we agreed with it or not. It got us thinking and that is always the start for anything. Happy eating to everyone and I hope everyone will continue to try new foods, no matter how strange or different they are. Could be yummy! Had a great time on this blog.

eat your roots

So I am about to attend my first Christmas party of the season in the Center for International Education at Loyola, where we will congregate with the international students. After reading Bayou Farewell, in which the Vietnamese crabber shares with Mike Tidwell Vietnamese gumbo, or "sour soup" according to Tien, I was reminded how different cultures have their own variations on the same dishes, perhaps related to what kinds of foods were most accessible to them in their region and they are therefore accustomed to eating (culture derivative of place/the land), as well as how different cultures celebrate the same holidays with different traditional dishes. Here are some variations of "Christmas food."

http://www.ivillage.com/christmas-foods-around-world/3-b-301021

I will be spending my Christmas in Puerto Rico visiting and friend and staying with his family, and am excited to experience the new foods and customs of a Puerto Rican Christmas. I found this website that gives an overview of some of these practices:

http://www.elboricua.com/pr_christmas.html

and also found this:

Eat Your Grapes New Year's Eve in Puerto Rico is appropriately called Año Viejo, or "Old Year," and it's a fun time to be outside; fireworks, honking cars, and the cacophony of celebration can be heard everywhere. At the stroke of midnight, local tradition demands that you eat 12 grapes for luck. You'll also find some people sprinkling sugar outside their house for good luck or throwing a bucket of water out the window to expel all the negatives of the old year and get ready for a fresh start.

I could not find the history behind the grapes practice, and was wondering why they had chosen that particular food to symbolize luck. Speculatively, perhaps grapes were associated with the wealthy and upper classes (image of royal prince being fed grapes and fanned with palm leaves) and therefore good fortune. I think its interesting when you look into the history of food, and how the eating of a food at a specific moment in history could have been the "last resort food" of an oppressed group of people, but has carried through today to be a preferred food that allows one to identify with a culture, however conscious or unaware of its origin. Another example I can think of off the top of my head is the infamous PoBoy, which came out of a national transit worker's strike that included New Orleans in 1929. Two brothers that were former streetcar conductors until they opened a restaurant and coffee stand showed their solidarity to the workers ("poor boys") by handing out these sandwiches, which featured a new modified size of French bread. And it stuck.

http://www.poboyfest.com/history

So for this holiday season, I wouldn't say we should necessarily throw the Food Rules out the window, but perhaps lean a bit more heavily on the "exception" rule, and hopefully easily fulfill the not-eating-alone-rule. We don't want to miss out on the bonding that happens over food, and the rich cultural history that our most common plates may inconspicuously suggest. I say know a thing or two about what you are eating and why, and dig in.
Cheers.

Food Rules: The Edible Experiment, Week Fourteen

Journal Entry
Week Fourteen
December 9, 2010

Rule: "Eat Food that will Eventually Rot"

Wow, it is a strange feeling to know that I am entering my final journal entry for this semester’s Food Rules project. Does this mean that I will stop following Food Rules altogether? Of course not! Pollan has influenced me in such a positive way, and this project by FAR has been one of my absolute favorite aspects of this entire semester!

This week I found myself taking my Organic Salad mix out of the fridge and picking out the leaves that looked as they were going bad. There were plenty that were still crisp and fresh, but you always get those few in the bunch that start turning sooner than others. And ew, who wants to eat that? Although, I guess according to Pollan, despite the “grossness” of picking out the wilty brownish leaves, I’m doing the right thing by eating food that will eventually rot! So that made me feel better. I didn’t like to waste what I did throw out, but, unfortunately I couldn’t eat it in time. The still-crisp lettuce I had on my turkey sandwich today was delicious, though!

A friend of mine has been following a rigorous diet of 5 – 6 small meals a day eating unprocessed foods and a balanced proportion of protein, fruits, and veggies. She texted me yesterday wanting “carbs.” This struck a chord with me, because first of all, I think diets are restricting that that while you must practice discipline and self-restraint when eating, depriving your body of certain foods such as “carbs” (like the Atkins diet, etc) is not healthy. Your body was designed to eat these types of foods and needs them to be healthy. I expressed my concern and she rephrased her sentence to say “I want bread.” Well, that was weird because while she could have potatoes and oatmeal and other whole grains, she couldn’t eat bread because it was “processed.” I glibly told her to bake. (hey, Pollan would agree) but again I don’t think restricting foods as essential as bread is a good idea; and I don’t think Pollan would disagree with that. Was it Darrell who posted something mid-semester saying that although it took some searching, he did manage to find a bread that followed the Food Rules? Anyway, this little blurb about bread is an aside, but I do think it shows how Food Rules has kind of just infiltrated my life when it comes to eating, haha.

Also, I do plan to compile the blog posts of ideas we came up with for Pollan and send them to him.

Its been a great semester y’all! Thanks for all of your sharing and input and have a blessed Merry Christmas! (or whatever other Holiday you celebrate! :)

Thanksgiving in New Orleans

I spent this thanksgiving here, in New Orleans. My friend's mother is a famous local chef, and made some amazing traditional Louisiana dishes that I'd never had before. Completely disregarding my attempts to not eat meat, I had fried turkey for the first time with oyster dressing, creamed carrots, and some sortof baked dish I can't recall the name of. This reminded me of rule #29 which says to mix up the types of foods you eat and try new things. If I were to eat food like that all the time, I would definitely not have the healthiest of diets. But some of those items would be a good addition to my diet; the creamed carrots for example, and the oyster dressing which had more vegetables and less butter than my traditional idea of dressing which closely resembles stove top stuffing. Experiencing traditions of a different culture reminded me alot of how many things we can adopt to our own diets in order to resemble those of other cultures, taking the best and most health-conscious ideas from every culture, (including cultures within the United States) and including them in our "American" diets to become more well-rounded.

Merry Christmas?

In light of the upcoming holiday season, I found this particularly disturbing image. It takes the using meat to flavor food rule and disregards it completely.

when all i want is a big fat chocolate chip cookie...

I have a tendency to crave sweets when I feel overloaded with school work. So even though I sort of hate these types of webpages, I figured if anyone else is in my boat maybe it could be useful to remind you all not to jump ship on Food Rules just because it is finals week (even if I do first).

http://www.rd.com/living-healthy/11-healthy-ways-to-destress-with-food/article181243-3.html#slide

If you are a caffeine drinker, I've found a good way to make it through long study days without crashing is to switch to tea throughout the day, and then if you really need it, drink coffee later on. It'll help you not overdo the caffeine and end up feeling simultaneously sluggish and jittery. I am not exactly sure if promoting coffee late at night is a healthy recommendation, but for those of you who may do it anyway, I figured I'd let you in on that discovery I've made.