I’ve seen a number of things that made me go “Hmmmm?” lately. But this is one of the wierder ones that made me laugh.
I was doing a computer based training module at work. This particular module was on the Food Pyramid – specifically meat and dairy. Because beans are a good source of protein, they are included by the USDA as part of the Meat group as well as the vegetable group. One of the things that made me shake my head is the inclusion of falafel in the beans group. While falafel are made from garbanzo beans (a.k.a. chickpeas) or fava beans, personally I would not include them in the “bean” group when the rest because they are not in their “whole” state and garbanzo beans are listed. If you are going to include falafel then why not hummus too? Oh wait hummus probably has too fat to be “healthy” because it contains olive oil and Tahini (sesame seed paste). Well falafel are fried people and that isn’t exactly “healthy” either.
Also on the list is tofu, various vegetarian bean burgers, and tempeh (a fermented, cooked soybean cake) and texturized vegetable protein. Call me a bit of a food snob, but why are processed items being included list under “Dried beans and peas”? Also why aren’t these things included on the list under vegetables since you have them listed here? The USDA doesn’t collectively lump processed foods under the grains, they are instead called “refined grains”. Processed dairy is also split out into “Dairy based desserts”, “cheeses”, and “yogurt”. So why the change on Meat and Protein?
There’s a lot of things I don’t like about the food pyramid, but inconsistencies drives me nuts.
This afternoon, I came home to find that my wonderful boyfriend R had stopped by the complex office and picked up a book that I had ordered three long months ago and have been waiting anxiously for ever since – Living Oprah: My One-Year Experiment to Walk the Walk of the Queen of Talk. My friend Robyn Okrant spent one year of her “best life”as defined by Oprah’s recommendations on her television show, her web site and O Magazine. It was a social experiment and the book is the end result (well not counting any upcoming book tours of course – I only hope that she makes it to Houston!).
I found Living Oprah last year after Robyn was featured on NPR’s All Things Considered in an interview with Michele Norris. The interview intrigued me and I started reading and commenting on Robyn’s Living Oprah Blog. I quickly was hooked even though I rarely watch Oprah. I’m generally at my desk or on a bus mid-commute at that time of day. Later on we realized that Robyn and I had already “met” on a fitness board where we socialized with others interested in fitness. I’m sure there for a while, Robyn thought I was stalking her.
I’m just over a quarter of the way through the book and I’m thrilled with what I’ve read so far. Robyn’s voice is aunthentic and you can see that she really takes the time to think about what she’s experienced during 2008′s Living Oprah Experiment. She not only accounts for the time and money she spent living life on Oprah’s terms, but she talks about the emotional and physical aspects of the project as well the contradictions in messages Oprah projects. My highlighter is out and marking as I read because I think Robyn brings up a lot of good points about how women live their lives today and the contradictions it brings. I want to explore these highlighted passage further as they purtain to my situation.
But what’s been the most fun so far is going into my local bookstore and seeing her book on the center aisle kiosk:
And then going to the official section for her book and finding it on the shelf:
I have to resist the temptation of going up to other people and saying, “Hey, check out this book, it’s written by a friend of mine and she’s done a fantastic job of writing about her experience! “
Well after 3 weeks of no gardening (1 weekend due to snow, and two weekends due to being sick) I finally got back into the garden to do some cleaning up. This is what I started with.
A bunch of bolted lettuce (the tall stuff on the left side of the picture), a lot of dead bean vines, dead squash vines, and dead tomato vines.
The first stop was cleaning up the purple hull cowpeas (think black-eyed peas if you are wondering what these are). That didn’t take long but the ground turned out to be a little soggier than expected. At one point the mud sucked my shoe right off my foot. Next up were the green, burgundy and wax beans. I got every thing cleaned out and was inspecting my work when I found this guy:
Not sure what kind of snake he is, but he’s not a very happy snake at this point. After this, I cleaned off the fence where I had my pole beans.
Then it was off to clean out the bolted lettuce. Bolted lettuce can be kind of pretty.
Both the Red Romaine and bright green oakleaf lettuces have bolted.
The best part of the day happened when I went to get the glove hanging on the fence post so I wouldn’t get a blister while I was moving the dead stuff over to the compost bin. A green anole (they can change like chameleons which is why he’s brown) came out of glove to visit with me.
When I tried to stick Mr. Lizard on a tree so I could go back to work he ended up checking out my hand and arm.
I think he needed a bit of a nap, but I wanted to go back to work.
I finished up with pulling the tomato vines.
The only thing I did after pulling the tomato vines was some weeding and breaking up the dirt. Hopefully by Christmas Eve Day it will dry out and I can start planting again!
My Dad used to say this to us when we were kids. Its an interesting version of a popular nursery rhyme.
Scintillate, scintillate, globule vivific
Fain would I fathom thy nature specific.
Loftily poised in the aether capacious
Vaguely resembling a gem carbonaceous.
Leave your guesses in the comments…..
Be warned that if you haven’t posted here before your comments are moderated to avoid the posting of unwanted advertisements.
The night was dark.
The hour was late.
He went ahead,
To open the gate.
I wanted to thank him,
but knew not how.
For he was the farmer,
and I was the cow.
Tonight I took Angi’s shopping list that I mentioned in Part I and went window shopping at the local branch of Safeway to price the items on it. Here’s the list with the prices behind the item:
3 apples $1.69/lb
2 banana baby food .65/each
1 qt half/half $2.99
orange juice (tropicana 50) $2.99
2 tomatoes $3.59
2 green peppers .69/each
bag of corn chips (Tostitos family size Restaurant Style) $3.99
healthy snack cookies $3.99
4 Light & Fit Lemon Yogurt (6 Oz cups) .55/each
1/4 lb Genoa Salami $8.49/lb
1/4 lb deli cheese $7.99/lb
1 lb hamburger (assuming 85% lean) $2.71/lb
Coffee (folgers 10.8 oz can) $3.99
Store Rolls .59/each
Chocolate Chip Cookies $2.59
1 6 oz bag spinach $2.99
2 cup sprinkle cheese (8 oz) $2.49
Kashi Cheerios $3.99
Cheerios $3.30
1 Fiber Plus Bars $2.99
1 Kashi Bars $4.99
Mission Bell Low Carb Wraps – Medium Sized $4.29
Grapes (1 package ~1.5 lbs) $4.79/lb
Strawberries (1 lb) 3.99
The grand total for all of this, was $76.53.
One thing that struck me as I was wandering the supermarket aisles pricing the items on her list is the amount of pre-packaged food that appears to be healthy on the surface but really isn’t all that healthy when you start looking at it – especially for someone with PCOS. Many of the pre-packaged foods are carb heavy even if you take into account the dietary fiber.
But the challenge here twofold: stretching the budgeted dollars so that Angi and her family get more healthy food AND give Angi healthy options so that she has snacks that are portable for her on-the-go work day and that are more balanced towards 40% protein/ 30% carbs /30% Fat.
In the next part, I’ll revamp shopping list, create a menu, and do some shopping.
Finally after the better part of a week without any voice whatsoever, mine has returned.
This has been a sucky week for me medically. Not only have I been fighting a cold and laryngitis most of the week , on Thursday night night I passed my first kidney stone. If you’ve ever had one, you’ll know the kind of pain I was in. If you haven’t, well who knew that something so small could cause so much pain.
I’m hoping that with the return of my overall health, I’ll be getting some writing done now that I’m not sleeping so much.
This evening while I was looking a picture of a throat exam for the Sound of Silence Post, I stumbled upon a delightful blog – 6 Year Med (M.D): Heart. Brains. Medicine. Danielle is a Pediatrics Resident and an excellent writer. She shares the ups and downs of residency while bringing an immediacy to her stories that will touch your heart. Check her out.
It’s official. I have laryngitis. After the snow and cold front moved through last weekend, I came down with a cold and as of this morning, I have a lost the ability to speak. I sound like I’m doing a really bad impression of Kathleen Turner or Harvey Fierstein. As of about noon today, I’m silent until this passes.
So in honor of having no voice, here’s Simon & Garfunkel’s Sound of Silence
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to make some tea and suck on a cough drop.
A few weeks back, I had another chance to try my cheesemaking experiment with locally produced milk. What a difference locally produced milk makes. Instead of gloppy mess, I ended up with beautiful curds of cheesy goodness.
Locally produced milk. You can see the cream on the top and the milk in the bottom. It also makes fabulous hot chocolate as well.
Warming the milk. I love how yellow and buttery it looks.
After adding the rennet and the cheese curd has initially set. It looks like custard when you pull it away from the sides of the pan and the whey will be clear. The curd is very soft and velvety.
The cheese curd after it’s been cut. The whey gets milky after the curd is cut.
Heating the cheese curd again after it’s set.
Draining off the whey and getting ready to stretch.
I was doing a computer based training module at work. This particular module was on the Food Pyramid – specifically meat and dairy. Because beans are a good source of protein, they are included by the USDA as part of the Meat group as well as the vegetable group. One of the things that made me shake my head is the inclusion of falafel in the beans group. While falafel are made from garbanzo beans (a.k.a. chickpeas) or fava beans, personally I would not include them in the “bean” group when the rest because they are not in their “whole” state and garbanzo beans are listed. If you are going to include falafel then why not hummus too? Oh wait hummus probably has too fat to be “healthy” because it contains olive oil and Tahini (sesame seed paste). Well falafel are fried people and that isn’t exactly “healthy” either. 
. My friend 
