Organics - do you or don't you?

In honor of Earth Day, the 40th anniversary of Earth Day no less, I'm positing on organics.

When it comes to buying organic produce, I have good intentions but very little follow through. I want to buy them. I feel that they are better for the environment and in turn, better for me. But I have a really hard time justifying the cost. When fruits and veggies are 2-3 times more expensive, I just can't do it. I tell myself that when I make more money, this is something I'll spend it on.

So I compromise and I compare. I look for places where I can do something good for the environment and myself, without spending significantly more.

Things to consider buying organic:
-Salsa (similar cost)
-Carrots (similar cost)
-Apples (lots of pesticides)
-Bell peppers (lots of pesticides)
-Milk (I think it tastes better, and hormone use)

When considering what meat to buy, if you don't want to pay big bucks for organic beef, eat more poultry and pork. USDA regulations prohibit the use of hormones and growth promoters in pork and poultry, so while you might not be buying organic at least you will be getting hormone-free meat. Note that the packages will most likely not say "hormone-free" because since all poultry & pork is raised without hormones in the US, it can't be stated on the package unless it also says that the USDA prohibits hormone use for these products.

Update April 29th, 2010: I just found a list of the produce "dirty dozen" on Yahoo! Green, click here to see the fruits and veggies that have the highest pesticide use.

Produce miles

GOOD has compiled a very interesting graphic showing the distance that produce travels when it's local or "conventional" (I don't like this terminology). I originally found this on TheKitchn but the original graphic can be seen here and it really informative. I do have a few points though...

1. The food miles were calculated for Iowa and they say it should be generally applicable, but I live in DC. A long way from Iowa! A lot of produce is grown on the west coast so if I'm eating a lot things grown there vs things that can be grown somewhere on the east coast it's going to make a big difference for my food miles.

2. This doesn't include international produce, only produce that is grown in the US. This is a big problem, a lot of produce is shipped in from other countries and has huge food miles - especially in the winter, leaving it out greatly reduces the impact of this information. I've definitely been eating Clementines from Spain all week (yea I know...but I LOVE them). However, I imagine it would be harder to calculate international food miles.

3. I dislike the term "conventional" when referring the internationalization of the food system. There is nothing conventional about shipping produce around the world, it's an entirely modern phenomenon. Eating foods that are produced locally is the conventional way to eat! I would prefer saying local vs non-local.

A perk to my new place is that it's just a quick jaunt to DC's Eastern Market. It's one of the largest and oldest markets in the US and has everything including seasonal produce. Unfortunately it's really far from where I live now, so I've never quite made it there to check it out. After the move, I'll have to go on a walking road trip.

The power of food

Can the way we eat change the world? This question was posed to me last week by a coworker (I work at an environmental org) and myself and another colleague immediately said, "yes."

Since then, I've been thinking about what I eat and the choices I have at the grocery store. Is my environmental guilt escalating? You betcha. Over the years I've made a number of decisions about what to eat and how much based on both health and environment. For example:

1. I try to eat less meat, especially red both because meat cultivation is bad for the environment and red meat in particular should be limited for health reasons. I also have ethical concerns about industrial farming techniques and think some of that could be reduced if everyone was conscious about their meat choices.
2. I try and eat in season. This is good for the environment, healthier and saves me money.
3. I don't eat veal, or as I like to call it - baby cow in a box.
4. I try to be conscious of my seafood choices. This is a tough one because there are so many issues. Seafood is a great source of lean protein, can contain mercury, Omega 3s, some seafood is overfished, or farmed in environmentally harmful ways...sometimes I buy something at the store and then check Seafood Watch and see it's overfished and feel guilty (especially if it's yummy and I want it again). Luckily most of the issues surrounding salmon and tuna I can avoid because I don't like them anyway but I LOVE shrimp. Most shrimp is farmed in South East Asia or Latin America and it's really bad for the environment. I try to resist and definitely eat less than I used to, but sometimes I fall off the wagon.

So those are the things I'm doing pretty well on but room for improvement? Of course especially on:

1. Buying more local/organic produce. Organic produce is especially hard for me because it's much more expensive most of the time and usually doesn't keep as long, meaning I pay more for it and then it goes bad before I even get a chance to eat it. When you cook for 1 a single cucumber might be in 3-4 meals!
2. Health...yea I had hash-browns for dinner a few nights ago. I also eat way too much cheese and too many baked goods but I'm not trying to cut out either of those!
3. Organics/ethical products in general. Package organic food can also be challenging both because of the higher costs and because there is usually not a big variety of package sizes. This is still a niche market and normally only the 'standard size' is available, whereas I would usually buy the small size. I find this to be a problem with cage-free eggs especially. I feel I would like to buy them but they only come in 1dz packages and it's just more eggs than I can use, sometimes the 8-pack of eggs my store sells is too much!
4. Plastic. I recently became aware of the huge environmental problem that is plastic but almost all food comes in plastic. I don't put my produce in plastic bags anymore because there really is no need but past that I haven't made any progress.

I really do think what we eat makes a difference. The power of consumer purchasing is huge, companies will manufacture anything as long as they can sell it and make a profit, making good choices with our purchases shows that there is a market for good, sustainable products. I realize I'm a long way from perfect in my purchasing choices but I'm trying to be aware of the downfalls and slowly move in the right direction.

Diet dilemma

My mom is my cooking inspiration. And to what I aspire. Some of my favorite foods I can't eat unless my mom makes them - chicken fried steak, honey pecan chicken - restaurants (and me) just can't measure up to mom. I don't get to make that many trips home these days, so when I do make it, I have a list of things I want mom to make for me. And I eat. And eat. And eat.

My mother is also severely overweight and I worry about her health. She has a tendency to yo-yo diet and every time I talk to her she has some new plan. When I went home last year for Christmas she had been on a shake diet for 4 months and lost about 40 lbs but she fell off the wagon when I was there and we went to lunch and has been up and down ever since.

Until a month ago when she started a new "lean cuisine" plan that was suggested by her doctor, she has portion control problems (not that I don't...) and she's been doing pretty well. She'd even been exercising a little bit. I'm worried that when I visit she will cook all the yummy things I want to eat for me and eat them too. For me mom's house is a huge splurge but for her it's easy to fall into a pattern.

I think food should be enjoyed and don't really believe in dieting per se but the adoption of a healthy lifestyle, which includes lots of veggies, leaner and less meat, some tasty desserts and exercise. However, my mom needs to lose weight and however it happens, I'm ok with that but I do encourage the adoption of healthy habits and want to see the foundation established because at some point, everyone wants to eat real food again.

Delicious food is one the pleasures of life and I hate to see it demonized. I only hang out with women who eat, there is not room for this obsession about eating a cookie. However, it is important to realize that eating properly is important for your health and not just because of weight but also getting the proper vitamins and nutrients - but veggies are also yummy!

So I'm off this week to visit my family for Thanksgiving - hopefully I won't eat too much and will be able to support my mom with her diet plan.

The art of food

Cooking is a science - combine ingredients x,y & z and you will get effect a. Some universities even offer degrees in things like "bakery science." So cooking is a science.

Or is it an art? High-end restaurants agonize over plates and garnishes trying to come up with unique presentations. Photos on menus draw us in, notice all the photos on my blog? Deserts are often on display in glass cases, when we see it, we HAVE to eat it (at least I do), it just looks so good. In Japan they take it one step further with plastic food displays to entice customers into restaurants.

So earlier this week, I watched a video clip about the use of plastic food in Japan (which I now can't find) and then I read this post by One Hungry Chef about the pursuit of concepts in food presentation and the taste becomes lost. These combined to get me thinking, how important is the presentation of the food?

Don't get me wrong, I agree with Hungry Chef that taste should be the most important concern but I think that presentation is a close second. Do I take the time to slice up garnish? Not normally. Do I have a few tricks up my sleeve for special occasions? Hell yeah. I can make strawberry fans, orange curls and tomato flowers with the best of 'em. Ok well...maybe their sloppy assistant.

Like I said, how food looks makes us want to eat it. If it doesn't look good I won't even find out how it tastes. Take sushi for example. I'm a picky eater, so I was never into having all my food put together in a little roll but it always looked so pretty! I just had to eat it, eventually. Ok so I don't need my salad to come in a martini glass, but I don't want to eat it after it's been say...run through a blender and turned into a greenish soup. I'm pretty sure Hungry Chef also puts some thought into the aesthetic - he has gorgeous photos!

Maybe 60% taste and 40% appearance. What do you think?

If you say "mmm" in the kitchen and no one hears it, is it still good?

I'm a single girl, who likes to eat but it's challenging to cook for one. Recipes are designed for families of four. Package sizes at the store are too big to use for one person. Leftovers are depressing. No one to make "mmmm" sounds when it's really good. The list goes on. There are some benefits, no one to complain when it's bad, and only one person's likes and dislikes to accomodate. Big pluses.

My mom, is actually a chef, she runs her own catering company, so most of my kitchen education as a kid involved watcthing from the bar while I talked to my mom or her kicking me out of the kitchen. She made it look so easy. She never measures and it's always amazing, I call her the "approximate chef." It gave me impossible standards, which I did not realize until I grew up and figured out that not everyone has these amazing abilities.

So the goals are to cook for one person (maybe with leftovers to take to work for lunch the next day), save money, cut out food waste where possible, and make lots of "mmm" sounds, even if no one else around to hear it.