Some thoughts on local food.

Hello, stock imagine of vegetables that has already
been used in a blog post this year..

It was one of my New Years resolutions, to start eating more organic/local food. Now, I am aware that organic and local mean two very different things....but frankly, local > organic > non-organic.

Local food means less energy put into getting my food to me in terms of gas/diesel, energy associated with running a grocery store for me to shop at, etc. It also means I get food that has been picked/harvested/collected a lot more recently than the stuff that's getting picked green and shipped here from other countries. The fresher the food, the more nutrients it retains.

I remember during my freshman year of college, there were little table toppers with info about the new program where the school was growing fresh produce to use in the dining hall. It had the staggering statistic that about 50% of the nutrients in fresh produce was lost within 7 days of being picked.

Think about that. 7 days. It can take days for food to get from a farm to a grocery store, especially if it's being brought across the country or from overseas. Thus, it's likely that a lot of the produce we get in the grocery store is not as nutrient rich as if we grew it in our back yard, picked it and ate it that same day.

Now, you might question that statistic, but after a thorough internet search, I found a scientific paper that supports this statistic. I might be overly zealous in the use of scientific paper search engines, but when google or bing yield nothing, it's time for drastic measures. Anyway, the paper I found studied the loss of nutrients in spinach. It found that, even when refrigerated, spinach lost 53% of its folate over the course of 8 days. At higher temperatures it hits that rate of loss a lot faster. Carotenoids were found to be lost a a similar rate, also dependent on temperature, with only 54% of initial levels remaining after 8 days.

So I may have just used to much science-y talk there, but the basic idea was that, even while refrigerated, spinach loses about 50% of some of its nutrients after 8 days. Just because this is true for some nutrients, doesn't mean it's true for all of them. In theory though, it makes sense. Heat and light destroy nutrients...when a plant is growing it is making more. As soon as you pick the plant though...all it has is what was there when it was picked....which steadily decreases as time marches on.

Ok, so fresher is better. Can we all agree on that point? In that sense, shopping local is better. At Farmer's Markets, food tends to be picked the day of, maybe the day before so it really is fresher than what you'd find at a grocery store.

"My life long goal is to be checker at Wal-mart and take constant abuse
 from customers who are pissed that the shitty plastic crap they are buying
 isn't ringing up as cheap as the sticker on the shelf said."

Local also means supporting the farmers around me. I'm not supporting Wal-mart and the truck driver who drove the food here and the laborers who picked the food. I am just supporting the farm that grew the food. Often, that means that stuff that is in season is cheaper than at the grocery store AND the farmer gets more money for what they are producing. That's pretty awesome, if you ask me. I might be supporting fewer jobs on a superficial level, you know, a farmer and the laborers he hires vs. all the employees at Wal-mart and everyone who worked to get the food there and the farmers who grew it, but the local farmer is getting paid a better wage. Besides, with a return to a smaller farming system and more local food consumption, we'd need more farmers and laborers. Those Walmart checkers can pick produce instead of bagging groceries! I mean, who really wants to work at Wal-mart anyway?

The problem I have begun to notice though, is that a lot of produce stands simply advertise that they are selling fresh fruit. Upon closer inspection, said fruit has a produce sticker on it. What. The. Fuck? If I wanted imported cantaloupe, I would drive my ass to Walmart. I don't want to stop by a roadside produce stand and PAY MORE for the same shit they sell at a big box store. Yes, I am supporting locals who are selling food from far away, but it feels like they are lying to me. If you are a produce stand, I expect you to sell food that you grow yourself. This is apparently not how it's done and that upsets me. Apparently, you have to look for the 'local' tag, to find local produce, even at a roadside stand. What is wrong with people?

I only want to eat food that comes from 10,000 miles away.

Moving on.

There are some though, that think the local food movement is actually a bad thing. When I talk about eating local food, I mean food that is in season and is available locally. I don't mean going to extreme measures to grow food in my area that normally can't be grown here. When I talk about eating local food, I don't mean eating ONLY local food, to the point where I spend all my time trying to figure out how to make a meal out of locally farmed dirt, the only thing in season during the winter months. I also don't mean eating ONLY local food to the point where I spend all my time and energy hunting for food that I can eat. I mean being conscious about what I am buying and where it is coming from and making a few changes.

When you stop being a soulless Walmart employee and
start farming, you can join THIS site!

My point here is that local farms are more transparent with their growing practices. When you know your farmer, you can ask them how they grow things. Just because a local farm isn't organic, doesn't mean their produce isn't better than Safeway's line of organic foods, because it probably is. Getting certified to be organic is expensive so many smaller, local farms might not pay the extra cash to get that certification. Keep in mind though, that also goes the other way. Just because a farmer is local, doesn't mean they don't use nasty pesticides. Ultimately, you need to be smart about what you buy and who you buy from.

Recipe: Feta Couscous With Mushrooms And Red Peppers

Oh hey, so I heard this was this thing called summer coming. Apparently in this season, you have to do things like, oh, I don’t know. . .wear a swimsuit. 

In public. In the DAYLIGHT.  

Fuck that shit, man!

Anyway, I decided that since people are going to see a lot more of my exposed flesh than I’m really prepared for, I should probably change up my lifestyle or something. Mainly, I need to stop eating such crap and going out all the time. A girl can only consume so many lamb kebobs cooked in boiled 45-year-old virgin fat.

LOOK! I'm even providing nutrition facts
 for this recipe I made myself.
BOW TO ME. 

Anyway, this is a recipe post, so I’ll get on with the recipe part. Yay!

Feta Couscous With Mushrooms And Red Peppers

Makes 4 servings (or 3 if you’re me, and a glutton.)

·         3 servings israeli couscous (1/3 cup per serving)

·         1 1/2 tsps olive oil

·         1 oz feta (this is the equivalent to ¼ cup)

·         1 tiny piece of butter, like the thickness of a slightly obese quarter

·         1/2 oz dill (or basically as much as you want because it has almost no caloric value)

·         1 cup chopped mushrooms

·         1 cup chopped red pepper

In medium sauce pot, cook the couscous according to the packaging. Add salt and butter to the boiling water.

In a separate pan, heat olive oil in pan. You should use a stainless steel pan so you don’t get cancer later in life. Swirl around mushrooms and peppers until mushrooms brown slightly. Add minced garlic and finely chopped dill near the end of cooking. If you add them too early, you’ll dull the flavor. You want things to have flavor, don’t you!?

Add contents of pan to couscous, along with feta. Stir on medium heat for 1 minute to combine ingredients. Serve and enjoy!

How did I feel about it?

It was pretty good. One serving is enough for a meal, so I was full enough that I didn’t start eyeing my neighbors. I’d make it again, for myself and maybe for Kristen. It’s not on the “I’ll make this meal for my hot date” list yet.

Next time I experiment with couscous, I’ll probably make it with curry, almonds and chicken. Oh, and I'll include a picture of the actual dish. Hopefully that picture won't be from my phone which makes even delicious things look practically inedible! 

Vegetables: steamed vs. boiled.

What happened to the food pyramid?

 I consider myself a fairly well-informed, health conscious eater. I try to get lots of fruits and veggies, focus on lean proteins and whole grain carbohydrates and occasionally try to read up on the latest trends in healthy eating...like this crap about grains not being healthy for you.

As a scientist, I am always confused by the SCIENCE behind WHY something is good for me vs. bad for me. When it comes to vegetables...I am tired of being confused. I have heard that steamed veggies are better than raw veggies, that either of those are better than overcooked, blah blah blah.

So why, exactly, is steamed the best way to eat certain veggies and why is overcooked so bad?

According to The Learning Network(that's TLC, by the way), heat can degrade nutrients...so if you cook vegetables too hot, you can lose nutrients. HOW THE FUCK DOES THIS HAPPEN? Ok, so some things break down when you heat them. That’s fine....but where do they go? If I cook something, the nutrients magically disappear? If that’s what happens to nutrients, how the fuck do we ingest anything healthy EVER? And why does no one bother to actually say this when they say to eat steamed vegetables? Why do they use scare tactics, without backing their claims up with science??

Oh, you wanted to be healthy? That’s too bad because all this vitamin A just EVAPORATED INTO THIN AIR.

According to livestrong.com, steaming veggies to a certain point actually makes them healthier, because the heat breaks down the cellulose that is inherent in plant cells. Cellulose is really hard to digest...that’s why cows have like, four stomachs. Are you a cow? No, so cooking your vegetables helps your poor, overworked stomach out. Because your stomach is clearly working overtime to process all those McDonald’s cheeseburgers and doesn’t have time to deal with all that cellulose from your iceburg lettuce salad....

Ok, so steamed veggies are better than raw veggies in many cases..I mean, people do research and stuff on this.

Wait, what do you mean this doesn't count as a fruit?

So why are steamed veggies better than boiled veggies? What happens at the magic point when steaming becomes boiling? And yes, I am aware that there are some inherent differences in steaming vs. boiling, like when you steam stuff it’s not actually sitting in the water....but whatever. If you’re like me and you don’t have a steamer, you just boil stuff in a small amount of water until it turns bright green and pretend that you steamed it. Hey man, if it’s bright green, I assume it’s healthy....(hello, Midori!)


But still...why is steamed better than boiled? Apparently, it’s because some nutrients are water soluble. What does that even mean? Well, when you cook vegetables in water, these nutrients leak out, and become dissolved in the water. Unless you are drinking your broccoli’s bath water, you’re out of luck with that whole eating healthy thing. So those inherent differences in steaming vs. boiling actually DO matter. The more water you use, and the more contact between the vegetables and the water, the fewer nutrients you get in the end.

So basically, steam your veggies...and avoid boiling them until they are limp and grey....because that just sounds disgusting and you don't get as much out of your veggies. Really though, if I am bothering to eat vegetables, I want them to be as nutrient-rich as possible. Something has to counteract all that booze I drink on the weekends...