The Right Way for People to Eat: Eating Through the Community

Here is the first part (its not a complete draft) of my "What's the right way for people to eat?":

It’s definitely hard to say what the one right way to eat is, but in order to consider what the right way to eat is it’s important to understand what you want to get out of eating first. I believe that the right way to eat will leave a person healthy and happy and the only way to truly achieve that is to eat food from your community. This means more though than just buying locally, this means planting, growing, killing and cooking your food in and with your community. Eating food from your own community means cutting out the processed food that many of the money oriented food producing companies are making, and in turn cutting out some of the most unhealthy things people eat today. It also means more fresh food, which is a way to introduce more healthy food into your diet. If you are producing and cooking your own food, the food is coming from your community, which means short travels to get it, and less money because you and your community are working for it and cutting out the cost of shipment and most importantly the money tapped onto the cost of food by the companies you are buying it from. And lastly, community based food programs are more ethical. Without the need for mass production animals raised for meat will not have to live in the gruesome conditions, and many don’t necessarily need to be raised by the community, hunting becomes one of the methods for gathering food. Along with the better treatment for the animals comes better treatment for people, community based programs allow for a shorter chain of people working to produce and distribute the food, and all the participants are doing it for the own good, cutting out many of the worker issues. Through community based food programs not only is their healthier food, more accessibility and better ethics but there is an improved quality of life in the community.
Health
World Health Organization defines health as, “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” Which means that being healthy is not only about eating right, keeping proper nutrients in your body and exercising to keep your body physically fit, but also about keeping your mind and your human relations in good state. Working in a community based food system supports eating right, exercising and staying active and working and relating to your community, all of which do the job to keep you healthy.
Nutrition and Preservatives
Eating raw food may not be better than eating cooked food but it is more nutritional. This is because by heating the food the chemical make up of it changes and many of the vitamins and amino acids that the food has when it is fresh are broken down (living-foods.com). But whether or not your eat raw food doesn’t always depend on whether or not your food is being produced locally, you could be eating only local food but still cooking it all. What is does affect though is the fact that processed food is processed in all different kinds of way and heating is one of them. Like heating food to preserve it, there are other ways food is preserved and even some of those ways also use heating. Frozen food is persevered by taking the fresh food, dropping it into boiling water (to kill off microbes) and then freezing it. Canned food is preserved by first taking the food and heating it and then placed in a can and sealed (often in metal cans, which can contaminate the food). Pasteurizing, smoking and sterilizing are three other ways food is processed with heat. Other ways food is processed is through methods of salting, pickling, drying and irradiating (exposing the food to radiation) the food (informedeating.org).
To completely stop food processing would be impossible and unhealthy, people have been processing food as a way to preserve since the prehistoric ages and advanced greatly in the 19th and 20th century to serve military needs (wikipedia.org). Processing food is the only way to preserve it so it will not rot during off seasons of certain foods. And community base food programs would have to preserve their food because they wouldn’t be buying produce from other places that have the food they do not.
What community-based food programs do eliminate is the use of chemicals in process and preserved the food. Although it is not true that all chemicals are unhealthy and harmful to the human body and environment, many of them are. And one introducing chemicals into the body is unhealthy. Taking steroids is know to be bad for the body, but much of the beef in your supermarket was once a cow that was injected with steroids to make it grow bigger and faster. Humans have evolved over the last 200,000 years eating plants and fungi they collected and animals they hunted in the nearby area (wikipedia.org) until recently when food became another major and global industry. As humans evolved eating such things, they did not evolve to consume such chemicals that are being added in great quantities to the food you can find in the supermarket today. Excess salt causes hypertension (high blood pressure and arterial disease), saturated fats cause heart disease and obesity, excess sugar causes dental caries and diabetes and all the chemical additives cause cancer (informedeating.org). If you are producing and eating locally, you are processing your own food and therefore controlling the substances that preserve the food and can potentially destroy life.
Physical Health
The physical health aspect of community based food systems is simple, by working to produce the food yourself you are maintaining an active physical routine that will keep you in shape. Human evolved eating that food they had hunted and gathered and in doing so were able to get an equivalent amount of exercise many people do by going to the gym to stare at a wall and run on a moving piece of floor. If people are working to produce their own food they have to be working to grow and gather their own plants, raise their own animals and/or hunt there own animals, which all requires more energy and burns more calories than walking to a local supermarket or ordering from Fresh Direct. In America adults are encouraged to exercise for 30 minutes a day (fitness.gov), if just that is sufficient for keeping people in shape people working to produce their own food easily meet that standard.
Mental Health
Like physical health, mental health is also something that becomes very simple in a community-based food system. By working with the land and with the community, people achieve personal happiness and positive social interaction. In a story about a man who works with chronically ill people in an organic garden he says, “I personally believe that a huge benefit comes from a renewed relationship with nature. It starts with an ‘I won't poison you, you won't poison me’ attitude, and ends with ‘I'll nurture and respect you, you nurture and respect me’” (lookwayup.com/free/organic.htm), which goes to show that through growing food people become in touch with themselves and the earth, finding some personal satisfaction. The social aspect is also apparent in that people in the community are working together to feed themselves and each other; by working within a community people are able to experience companionship with and support from other members of the community. And with such personal and communal benefits, people working in community-based food systems are able to achieve a better state of mental health.

Nutritional and Historical Lenses at the Supermarket

Nutritional
How do organic products differ?
If given the chance, I usually chose organic products over non-organic products. I like to think organic products are better for me. What I have never done is actually done is compared the nutritional values. I did this with organic eggs and non-organic eggs in the supermarket today.

Organic Eggs Vs. Non-Organic eggs
- 0.5g less fat in Organic eggs
- 0.5g less saturated fat in Organic eggs
- 55mgs less cholesterol in Organic eggs
- 15mg less sodium in Organic eggs
- 2g less protein in Organic eggs
- Same amount of Carbohydrates
- 2% les vitamin A and Calcium in Organic eggs

And then I compared them to packaged egg whites, which have nothing in then except for 95mgs of sodium, 90mg of potassium (not mentions on the other egg’s nutritional values), 1g of carbohydrate (the same as the eggs) and 6g of protein.

Plastic wrap (the meat) can’t be good for you.

How does the nutritional value of fresh food compare to the nutritional values of packaged and processed food?
How does packaging food change its nutrition?
What preservatives go into all the packaged foods? What are the ingredients labeled (with words no one knows) are the preservatives?

History
When did meats begin to be packaged the way they are, with plastic wrap?
People on a farm, eating their own chickens, never have the choice to have 6 legs, rather than a whole chicken.
What happens to the left over meat? How much is wasted? How does meat waste compare to 100 years ago?
How long have foods been packaged with so much wrapping?
When were supermarkets invented? How have they changed?
Is there a difference in the nutritional values of modern food and food from 100 years ago?
When were pre-packaged meals first introduced onto the food market and where? How has it changed the way people eat?
When was bottled water introduced to the food market?

Mixing Things up at Burritoville

I considered myself someone who didn't eat fast food because I don’t eat at McDonalds or Burger King, but as it turns out, I am really eating fast food at least once a week. And that’s because I am a Burritoville junkie. So I took this project as an excuse to eat there today.

When I got there with Devin, neither of us knew what we wanted so we ate some tortilla chips with salsa while we decided. I tried to order some salad my mother ordered from there this weekend, but I didn’t order it right and I didn’t get exactly what I was hoping for. I ordered a salad in the fried tortilla shell, which I didn’t get, but I asked for it after I noticed there wasn’t one. So I started eating my salad that consisted of lettuce, tomato, some sort of jerk chicken, tortilla chips, guacamole, cheese and sour cream. I started eating it and thought it tasted pretty good. Then my shell was ready so I took half of my salad and dumped it into the shell. I broke the shell off into a chip size and shoveled some salad onto it with my fork and took a bite.

I gave some of my shell to Devin, who thought it was so good he order one for himself, to eat with his burrito-bowl, which I also ate. The burrito bowl had lettuce, brown rice, black beans, a green hot sauce, chicken, cheese and sour cream. When I was eating that I tasted mostly the chicken, beans and rice, what I didn’t taste, and Devin said was pretty hot, was the green hot sauce. Devin dumped his whole burrito bowl into his friend tortilla shell.

We kept eating and towards the bottom of my salad I realized the bottom of the shell we soggy and gross, go figure. I was thinking about how unhealthy these fried tortilla shells were, how if you go to the fair everything is fried like this. (That’s when Devin says, “we should eat these with everything.”)

Anyways, we kept eating the food and then I decided to mix what was left in my bowl with what was left in Devin’s, so I just emptied my plate of food onto his. At that point, I was full but I kept eating what tasted like a pure concoction. Eventually I stopped eating the burrito-bowl-salad concoction and ate a few more tortilla chips, dipping them in sour cream, before I finally stopped eating all together. I felt bloated and gross afterwards from eating so much, but that usually how I feel after I leave Burritoville. Outside I ate a few peanut M&Ms; the chocolate was perfect tasting.

Composting

When can we start? How do we do it?
We can start composting today. Compost is a way of recycling left over food, dried leaves and other organic materials. It then can be used instead of commercial fertilizers to give nutrients to the soil and plants. Compost consists of a ratio of materials rich in carbon and nitrogen. Carbon-rich, also called “browns,” are things like dried leaves, straw and wood chips. Nitrogen-rich, also called “greens” are things that are fresh or green like grass and kitchen scraps (left over lettuce, egg shells, anything but meat mostly). For every 1 part “green” you want about 25 parts “browns.”

What Variety?
There are million varieties of compost; it all depends on what type of material you put into the compost. But generally compost is just one mixture of many different things. Variety doesn’t apply to compost the same way it does apple trees or chickens.

Issues/Concerns
The only issues or concerns I have about the compost is that it would smell. This would be caused by too much of the nitrogen-rich material not mixed with enough carbon-rich material.

Links
General
http://www.compostguide.com/
http://web.extension.uiuc.edu/homecompost/building.html
http://www.care2.com/channels/solutions/outdoors/211

The Purpose of Compost
http://www.kitchengardeners.org/2006/04/compost_it_will.html

Building a Compost Bin
http://www.taunton.com/finegardening/pages/g00148.asp
http://www.environmentaldefense.org/article.cfm?ContentID=2030

Complete Instructions
http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/organicgardening/compost_pf.php

Healthy Eating - Class Questions

What food seems healthy?

I think healthy eating would be eating lots of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, soy and some animal products. Here are some things that come to mind:
Fruits – mango, pineapple, apples, papaya, berries (various kinds), bananas, tomatoes, peppers.
Vegetables - lettuce, spinach, corn, beets, carrots, onions, garlic, carrots, leeks, celery.
Grains & Wheat - barley, brown rice, wild rice, whole grain bread, whole-wheat bread, whole grain cereals.
Meats, fish and others – Chicken, turkey, tofu, salmon, cod, tuna (fish only sometimes because of mercury levels.

Here is a 3-day menu that is a little boring but I consider healthy eating:

Day One
Breakfast – Fruit salad, eggs with turkey sausage, whole grain toast with smart butter (non-dairy, not margarine), and fresh squeezed orange juice.
Lunch – A turkey sandwich with lettuce or fresh spinach, tomato, mustard, mayo and cheese.
Dinner – Salmon burgers with whole grain bread, lettuce and tomatoes, a salad with fresh vegetables and a side of roasted vegetables (potatoes, squash, parsnips).

Day Two
Breakfast – Whole grain hot cereal (like oatmeal) with maple syrup or honey, low fat or soymilk, topped with fruit and fresh squeezed orange juice or hot tea.
Lunch - Chicken soup with barley, onions, carrots, zucchini, corn, spinach, celery and spices, some whole grain bread/toast and a small side salad with fresh vegetables.
Dinner – Lasagna with tomato sauce and full of vegetables (carrots, onion, basil), toast and a salad.

Day Three
Breakfast – Strawberry or banana pancakes with whole-wheat flour and maple syrup, fruit salad and fresh squeezed orange juice.
Lunch - Tuna salad (with celery, pepper, radish) sandwich with lettuce and tomatoes on whole grain bread. Noodle soup with lots of vegetables (corn, zucchini, onions, carrots, etc.).
Dinner – Chicken baked with herbs and brown rice and artichokes with a vinaigrette sauce

In general, if I could eat anything it would be soups. I think soups are tasty and a good way to combine many healthy ingredients, I almost think I would eat soup (different soups of course) for every meal.

What should people eat?

I think people should eat lots of fresh food. I think that eating meals is important; I think healthy snacks are fine but should not have too much sugar or artificial ingredients. I think people should be able to eat what they want, but I think that if I were to control the food market I would take out a lot of the snack food and candies that are full of sugar and lack nutrients. I also think that it is important for people to eat "real" food, rather than stuff that has been processed so much. For example I think people should eat Macaroni and Cheese made with real cheese, rather than the powered stuff that comes in a box. But most importantly I believe food is something people should enjoy and if some people want to eat unhealthy, sugary things and it will make them happy, they should go for it. What is important to remember though, is to balance what you are eating and not eat too much.

Introduction to Locally Available Apples

Left: Cameo Apple Right: Mutsu Apple


Apple Cider Donut

a.) What is this food?
These are two different kinds of apples. One is a Cameo, which is similar to a Fugi apple. It is red, yellow and green. It is a medium size and supposedly sweet. Like most apples, it is a round shape, but compared to some of the other apples it is not as perfectly round. When looking through the crates of Cameo apples they seem to be very asymmetrical. The other apple is called a Mutsu and is a crossbreed of a granny smith apple and a sweet delicious apple. The apples are a greenish yellow and orange color. The greener they are (the ones that look more like granny smiths) are sourer/tarter and the more orangey colored ones are sweeter and taste more like the golden delicious.

Whatever apples don't get sold at the farmer market are taken back to the farm and made into apple cider and apple cider donuts.

b.) Why is it good to eat apples?
Apples are good to eat because they are full of pectin, which is a soluble fiber that can reduce cholesterol and protect against environmental toxins. They are also a good source of vitamin C. The fiber in apples is also good for your digestive system and will help you poop. Apples are esthetically good because they are crunchy, sweet and fun to eat. And as most everyone knows from looking at the food pyramid that you are supposed 2-4 servings of fruits a day. Plus, an apple a day keeps the doctor away.

c.) Who sells it? Where?
These apples are grown by a farmer named Ken Migliorelli on the Migliorelli farm in Tivoli, NY. The Migliorelli farm is 550 acres and grows large quantities of apples, other fruits and vegetables. At the farmers Market at union square, in the middle of winter, the Migliorelli Farm stand sells apples, pears, apple cider donuts and apple cider. In the summer they sell other fruits like peaches and vegetables like lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers. They also have another Migliorelli farm stand in Hudson valley, closer to the farm. The man who sold me the apples had been working for the Migliorelli farm for 13 years. That he woke up at 1 in the morning to go to the farm, get the apples and drive them to NYC 3 days a week.

Migliorelli Farm
46 Freeborn Lane
Tivoli, NY 12583
USA
tel: 845-757-3276 or 914-757-FARM

d.) How do they grow it?
When I asked the man at the farmers market how these apples are grown he said, “They plant the seed, water it and wait. Then it grows and there are flowers on the tree.” So I’m guessing there isn’t anything very special about how these apples are grown. I asked about pesticides and the man told me that Migliorelli Farm uses “very expensive pesticides that wash off by just rinsing the apple with water.” He also noted that he eats them without rinsing them and he’s “fine.”

e.) Links
General information about Apples
http://www.bestapples.com/healthy/index.html
http://www.vegparadise.com/highestperch39.html
http://health.learninginfo.org/apple.htm

Specific information about the Cameo Apple
http://www.cffresh.com/fresh/cameo_profile.html

Specific information about the Mutsu Apple
http://www.cffresh.com/fresh/mutsu_profile.html

Cooking Pasta

I began by boiling about 6 or 7 cups of water. I put it in the medium sized pot, on the bottom left flame, because that is the hottest flame on my stove. Then I waited for the water to boil. I walked away and came back when I could hear the little metal piece on the lid bouncing up and down, which is an indication that the water is boiling. Then I poured in a little more than half a box of colorful, cylindrical spiral pasta. I let it cook for about 10 minutes, until it was soft. I tested it before I turned off the flame. The first time I tested it was softer on the outside but still a little hard on the inside. I let it cook more and when I tested it again, it was the right softness. I took the pot off the stove and over to the sink where I poured the pasta into the colander. Then I was done. The End.