Conscious Eating Leads to Better Life

Hi,

You might be interested to read my short post on Portion Control and how can we NOT eat more than we really need on my other blog “Good Food & Bad Food”. Click here to read it.

If you are a person who likes to know more about the food you are eating, you might want to subscribe to it as well. (It’s free).
Happy eating,
Nurit

Time to Tell You What It Is

When I was a child – which was a long time ago, but not THAT long ago – my grandma used to make chicken soup and there were chicken feet, and a throat, in the soup. And I remember my mom, who didn’t cook very often, cooking a cow’s tongue from time to time. Yeah, that’s right! And it was delicious.

In my last post – With Respect to the Animals – I mentioned that unintentionally I got to this web site chooseveg.com, and watched a video depicting the awful life and death of animals – cows, pigs, and chickens, raised on “farms” (click here if you are brave enough to watch it). If you were wondering, no, I am not becoming vegetarian, but for now I’m taking some time off from meat. So in the past days we had Linguine with Shrimp Scampi (recipe here) and a few vegetarian meals (except for that BBQ we went to on Saturday), and I will soon post the recipe for the lovely onion quiche I made last night.

But I did decide that we will eat those animals in smaller portions and less frequently. And when I buy meat, chicken, or poultry, as well as seafood, I will choose free-range, organic, local, and sustainable food. It doesn’t necessarily cost more. Here’s an example. I went to Whole Foods and bought a pound of organic chicken liver. It costs $2.99 per pound, and $2.49 for free-range! Enough to feed 2-4 people. You do the math.

I had a great recipe, really special, which everyone loved – baby, kindergartner, husband, and yours truly. And the house smelled like cake! The one below is based on a recipe I got about 15 years ago. It’s by an Israeli cookbook author, Elinoar Rabin, and my brain remembered it because of the unusual flavor and pretty unique use of fruit with chicken liver (unlike foie gras).

Chicken Liver with Cinnamon and Apples
For 3-4 servings

¼ cup flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 lb. chicken liver, washed and patted dry
Salt
Pepper
A few tablespoons butter
2 medium apples, cored and cut to ½-inch slices
1 teaspoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar, optional

Mix flour and cinnamon in a bowl. Sprinkle liver with salt and pepper, and then dredge in flour-cinnamon mixture.
In a medium size skillet melt butter over medium heat. Sauté the chicken liver until nicely browned on each side (I didn’t measure the time, about 4-5 minutes on each side). Remove from skillet and place in a covered dish to keep warm.
Add some butter to skillet and sauté apples until golden. Turn to other side, sprinkle with sugar and cook another 2 minutes.
Serve liver with apples and a drizzle of balsamic.


Another use I made for this recipe is to serve it, without the apples, with fresh (but store-bought) pumpkin ravioli. Make a sauce with shallots sautéed in butter, some canned pumpkin, heavy cream, cranberries, and roasted chestnuts. Delicious.

If you want to see something really special regarding eating the whole animal, I stumbled upon this post showing how to cook pork head, click here. It’s fascinating. And, hey, people in the world are eating like that.

With Respect to the Animals

I just watched a horrifying video a few hours ago showing the lives of animals raised on “farms”, from their birth to our table.
I can’t stop thinking about it.

I’d like you to visit my Good Food & Bad Food blog and read the post I wrote about it, “Can We Eat Like That and Be Healthy?”

No, this doesn’t mean that I am becoming a vegetarian now. But I did think what can I do that is doable, practical, and will make a change? Even if it is a small one. Because if millions of people will make a small change, then together, it will make a huge difference, don’t you think?!

I have decided that:
1. At least two nights each week we will have a vegetarian dinner.
2. At least once a week, I will pay more to buy meat/chicken/seafood from sustainable, free-range, organic, preferably local farms.

Tonight it’s going to be an Upgraded Pizza (recipe here) and a Citrus Salad (recipe here) for dinner.

What ideas do you have so more animals can live a respectful healthier life which will make our food healthier and better for us?

Good Food & Bad Food

Hi everyone,

I don’t know how many of you know that I write another blog which is called “Good Food & Bad Food”. I sometimes post there when I read/see something that irritates me regarding food, and sometimes I will post about something that is very good about food.

There are some posts that you might be interested to read, like:
Baby First Food Words
Why do babies need to drink juice?
Kiddies Holiday Treats
A perfect cup of coffee – Greenlake Zoka, Seattle
Sugary Similac Organic infant formula
And a few posts regarding Grass fed beef

I don’t post there quite as often, but plan to change that.
Visit me there...
Nurit

Back to School - Lead in Lunchboxes

From The Center for Environmental Health web site:

Since the summer of 2004, CEH has purchased and tested over 200 children's soft vinyl lunchboxes and found that many of them contained high levels of lead. Lead was usually found in the lining of the lunchboxes where it could come into contact with food. In addition to being a known carcinogen and reproductive toxin, lead is a neurotoxin that can cause health effects such as behavioral problems and hearing problems in children that are exposed to low levels.

As of the Fall of 2006, CEH has forced many companies to eliminate lead threats from their lunchboxes through legal action. Now brands such as InGear and Fashion Accessory Bazaar lunchboxes are lead-safe for children. However, if you have a vinyl lunchbox purchased before last Fall, CEH recommends you test it for lead.

Because it is difficult to tell by sight which lunchboxes contain lead, CEH is advising parents to buy products from companies that have committed to only sell lead-safe lunchboxes. If these are not available, we recommend that parents avoid soft vinyl lunchboxes altogether, or test their own lunchboxes at home.

Manufacturers/Retailers who agreed to change their products to be lead-safe include:
Ingear
Fashion Accessory Bazaar
Lisa Frank
Big Dogs
Accessory Network Group
Baby Universe
Buy Baby Buy
Romar Accessories
Silver Goose

To read more, click here.

My comment on this: notice that the products are not lead-FREE but lead-SAFE. That means there is lead in the products, but in a “safe” amount. What is exactly safe? Why can’t it be zero levels of lead?

Farmed Tilapia eating what???

I have just returned from a vacation in BC, Canada, where I read this article in the local Globe and Mail newspaper.
This is another example of how people play with nature, in this case feeding animals what they are not supposed to eat. The result is a food product that is not as healthy for you as you might think.

From Wednesday's Globe and Mail, by CARLY WEEKS, August 6, 2008

“... eating farmed tilapia, a widely consumed fish that has been steadily growing in popularity, may be no better than dining on bacon, hamburgers or doughnuts.
New U.S. research has found that farmed tilapia have low levels of omega-3 fatty acids - and surprisingly high levels of potentially detrimental omega-6 fatty acids.
Omega-6 fatty acids are considered to be essential and must be obtained through diet because they can't be produced by the body... But consuming too much omega-6 can contribute to cancer, asthma, depression and heart disease, among other ailments.
Farmed tilapia contains more omega-6 fatty acid than is found in doughnuts, pork bacon or hamburgers made with 80-per-cent lean ground beef, according to a new study.
Tilapia, a lean white fish with a mild taste, is the second-most cultivated fish in the world, after carp, according to Fisheries and Oceans Canada. While China is the world's leading producer of tilapia, British Columbia and Nova Scotia also produce it on a commercial scale.”
And the reason is...” "This is a serious problem because they tend to feed [the fish] vegetable oils for growth and that's not quite what the tilapia is accustomed to getting in its native state," he said.”
You can read more here.

This article reminded me of the mad cow disease. The cows, which are vegetarian animals, are being fed with animal by-products, than they go mad and get cuckoo in the head and people who eat them get sick. Not to mention the poor animals suffering.

Why do those farmers feed animals with food they don't naturally eat?

The Future of Food – the movie.

I can't sleep. My son woke me up at 4:43 am because he had a bad dream.

I had a bad dream too. I really shouldn’t watch scary movies late at night.

I didn't plan to write about serious "things" on this blog. At first this movie did leave me speechless, but then my brain started to process the information and I can't stop thinking about it.

This is must-see movie. "THE FUTURE OF FOOD offers an in-depth investigation into the disturbing truth behind the unlabeled, patented, genetically engineered foods that have quietly filled U.S. grocery store shelves for the past decade."

The movie discusses Genetically Engineered food. The first two things that came to my mind when I heard "Genetically Engineered (GE) food" were - it's a good thing and a bad thing. Well, let's re-think it.

The main points the movie raises are:

* A small number of GE food corporations are controlling our food. They do this through having power over patents and genetically modified seeds. Why should you be worried about it? Because while they are protecting their corporate rights over patents, they are damaging nature and gaining more and more control over our health, our future, and of course, our politicians. It is horrifying to think that a small number of people who own these businesses will control the food everyone on the planet eats in the future.

* GE corporations think they can control nature. Well, no one can. GE seeds are invading fields of farmers who are trying to grow their own original, natural, heirloom seeds. They are already found in Canada and Mexico since they are spread throughout the planet by the wind, birds, machinery and other ways.

* GE seeds are destroying the local agriculture and small family farms. They make farmers destroy their own original natural seeds. As a result, nature's original, healthy, heirloom seeds are being extinct!

* GE corporations are preventing people from having access to food. This is how they are playing a major role in causing/contributing to world hunger. They turn independent people producing their own food, to being poor, torn away from their homes and culture.

* GE corporations are being socially irresponsible and we pay the price! Twice! Once, when we buy the food, and second, when we pay for the unwanted consequences GE food has on the world.

The next step is selling us meat and seafood from GE animal. How do you feel about eating a steak from a GE cow, or cloned lamb, and genetically modified salmon? Some people are working very hard on that at this very moment.

So what can we do?

As they say in the movie: “The choices you make at the supermarket determine the future of food”.

We have some power as consumers. We can:
* Buy local produce and support our local farmers
* Buy organic and heirloom varieties
* Avoid eating and buying junk food, processed food. This is not food.
* Grow something green in our back and front yards, or at least in one pot.
* Teach our kids about food!

If you have additional ideas, please share and write a comment below.

One more thing. I have these two recurring thoughts:
1) I prefer to eat safe, clean, real food, then I-don't-know-what-it-is food.
2) I prefer to pay more for safe, clean, real food (that is, organic), then pay for medical bills and suffer the consequences of eating I-don't-know-what-it-is food.

More about organic food in another post.
Meanwhile, you might like to read this post: I want the cheapest, most rubbish one. Or do I?

The sun is rising. Have a wonderful day!
Nurit