Celebrate with Fish
And Think More About Them, Too
My family grew up on the Pacific coast of Peru, so we have a pretty serious love for fresh seafood. Unfortunately, these days, with apocalyptic reports that overfishing will bring us a fish-free ecosystem in the near future, it can be a challenge to navigate responsible consumption of our acquatic friends.
There are some great guides out there; mostly, they say, avoid most really big fish and stick to traditional methods of capture. The specifics, however, can be daunting: a certain fish species caught using certain methods might be A-OK in one part of the world, and entirely NOT OK in another. So though it’s wise to do your best to avoid the fish on the “avoid” list, it’s sometimes hard to get all the information necessary to make the right decision.*
As a result, if you want to feel relatively good about eating good fish and not go bankrupt, you should do it rarely, and you’ll probably have to fork over a pretty penny for the privilege regardless. In my family eating seafood has become a bit of a celebratory indulgence. Luckily, holidays call for just such an indulgence! At least, that’s the rationale I put forth to my mother in an attempt to convince her that we serve a whole fish baked in a salt crust this Thanksgiving.
Cranberry Sauce Doesn’t Come From a Can
And It’s Laughably Easy to Make from Scratch
HEY YOU, Thanksgiving chef. Yes, you–you know who you are. You’ve been cooking up a storm since Tuesday evening, haven’t you? You’ve been battling with yourself and your loved ones for days: stuffing cooked in the bird, or apart?
Soon enough you’ll be painstakingly roasting that prize turkey, taking its temperature and basting it every 27.5 minutes. Your carefully dotted marshmallows will ooze over the sweet potatoes you roasted, mashed, and whipped. Your green beans will have been steamed and blanched to a remarkable viridian hue. The unbelievable flakiness of your new pie crust (2011′s major innovation?) will win you accolades for years to come.
And yet–after all this effort–minutes before the meal you will reach for that can opener and you’ll plop out the perfunctory cylinder of crimson red gel that is unfacetiously referred to as cranberry sauce.
What is up with that?
Portable Parfaits
Put Your Breakfast in a Jar
As you may recall, I have had my struggles with breakfast. It’s such an important meal, yet one that is hugely challenging to do well in our hectic lives.
As someone who values breakfast, but is decidedly not a morning person, I need something that’s as quick and portable as it is healthy and satisfying. It’s a tall order–and despite my best efforts, I continue to come up short.
Enter the Portable Parfait.
Welcome, FoodCorps!
Introducing Epicuriosa’s New Gig
FoodCorps Service Members plant tomatoes during training week. Photo: Whitney Kidder.
When I first started this blog, I had just finished spending two crazy, exciting years working for a celebrity chef, and was looking to find a way to establish a career in food policy and Public Health. My dream was to find a path where I could use my passion for food to create long-term, large-scale change in the way this country–and the world–thinks about food. Epicuriosa became a forum and an opportunity for me to explore initiatives in this field and begin to solidify my own food ethos. It has been an amazing outlet for creativity, critical reflection, and connection with food systems thinkers. I love this blog. So I wouldn’t have abandoned it for such a long time unless it was for a really, really good reason.
FoodCorps is that really good reason.
The Trillion Dollar Question
Or, How Mark Bittman Won My Heart
If you’ve read through much of my blog you’ll be well aware of my undying love for Michael Pollan. And you may know that I give mad props to Marion Nestle and Joan Gussow. But one food-movement commenter I haven’t made much mention of is Mark Bittman. Guess he just never made my heart sing before. Until now.
If you haven’t read Bittman’s latest NYTimes piece on the economic argument for investing in obesity prevention, please do. It’s the clearest, most well-put argument for food systems change I’ve seen to date. Essentially, Bittman says, the current budget battle in Congress over 38 billion dollars is ludicrously small potatoes when compared to the enormity of healthcare costs we face due to preventable lifestyle-caused disease. What’s a few billion dollars when “a sane diet alone would save us hundreds of billions of dollars and maybe more.”
I love the economic argument because it changes the dialogue about food from the (very politicizeable) yearning for a more idyllic lifestyle to the reality of the epidemic we face and what it’s going to cost us as a society. A meager investment in changing the way we eat will reap dividends in terms of cold, hard cash.
I can’t put it better than Bittman:
Corny as it is to say so, if we can put a man on the moon we can create an environment in which an apple is a better and more accessible choice than a Pop-Tart. Some other billions of dollars must go to public health. Again: we built sewage systems; we built water supplies; we showed that we could get people to eat anything we marketed. Now all we have to do is build a food distribution system that favors real food, and market that.
How to Save a Trillion Dollars [Mark Bittman]
Recipe: Bulgur Mushroom “Risotto”
Whole Grains — Not Scary!
Hey, YOU. Yes, you. You know you’re supposed to be eating more whole grains, don’t you? This may be shocking, but that recommendation isn’t really supposed to be an excuse to nosh on “whole-grain” fortified Sugaree-O’s or Pop-Tarts. It may sound crazy, but eating “whole grains” should actually involve eating the whole grain. Whole.
Forgive me for being preachy, but this is kind of an exhausting subject. As someone who’s own mother has politely shot down umpteen well-intended brown rice cooking suggestions, I know it’s hard. I know! But really, whole grains are delicious, and totally not scary. Just try!
Bulgur, one of my favorite whole grains, is a form of wheat that has been par-boiled, dried and ground. This means it retains almost all of its nutritious elements but also cooks fast (much faster than brown rice, for example). I love it for its nutty flavor and texture. Usually, I cook it just like rice, and eat it plain or toss it into salads. This time, though, I’ve prepared it like risotto in order to create a creamier consistency, which, together with the fresh and dried mushrooms, forms an umami bonanza that may shock you to happy tears. Bonus: this dish is totally vegan*, if you’re trying to eat like Bill Clinton for some reason.
*OK – Not vegan if you add a touch of butter to finish the risotto, as I strongly recommend that you do.
Chopping with Docs
Food and health are inextricably linked, and yet doctors know surprisingly little about food. We’re trying to change that.
Carlye Burd explains the importance of fiber in tempering the glycemic load of foods, an important consideration for diabetic patients. //Photo: Amber Hsiao
Whew. I’ve just stepped off a red-eye flight from San Diego, where I spent the last two days attending the Clinton Global Initiative (CGIU) conference. I’m sipping a coffee, trying to fight off the exhaustion and gather my thoughts on what was an incredibly energizing, inspiring, and challenging event. The CGIU conference is meant to foster social entrepreneurship among passionate young people who make commitments to address some kind of problem — large or small — in their community or around the world. Students then gather together to share experiences and resources dedicated to replicating or expanding their projects.
I attended the conference with my friend and co-conspirator Carlye Burd, who is also the co-founder and vice president of my student group at Columbia, Students for Food Policy and Obesity Prevention (FPOP). For our commitment, we wanted to work with the Columbia community to address a huge unmet need in the healthcare world: despite the fact that food-related disease is rapidly becoming the biggest public health issue in our country, doctors are still being taught next to nothing about food and nutrition.
Experts to Discuss Obesity at Columbia
The group I co-founded, Columbia Students for Food Policy and Obesity Prevention, will be hosting this event in conjunction with several other groups at Columbia. I encourage all who are interested to attend!
NEW YORK, NY — In response to the obesity epidemic in New York City, several student groups at Columbia University Medical Center will host a panel of experts on March 24, 2011 to discuss the state of the obesity in the city’s minority communities.
Across the United States, obesity poses one of the most serious threats to the population and health care system—and New York is no exception.
“Manhattan residents are some of the healthiest in the country, so it may come as a surprise…that according to the Department of Health, over 22 percent of adult New Yorkers are obese,” said Scott Stringer, Manhattan Borough President and keynote speaker for the forum. “Scarcity of fresh foods and produce is most prevalent in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color, contributing to the disproportionate disease burden carried by the city’s minority populations.”
McDonald’s Does it Again… to Oatmeal
Not Very McWholesome
McDonald's Turns Oatmeal Into the Next Breakfast Dessert. Photo: McDonalds
As a devout lover of oatmeal (see here and here), I could not help but feel ambivalent about seeing it as a new trend in to-go breakfasts. When Starbucks started selling the porridge a few years ago — perfectly branded as “Perfect Oatmeal” — I though it was a genius move on their part: Finally, a truly healthy, real food breakfast at America’s most ubiquitously overpriced purveyor of the morning jolt.
Nevertheless, I’m kind of embarrassed to say, I never tried the Starbucks oatmeal. And it wasn’t just because I realized that in addition to the real food I would be happy to consume (whole-grain rolled oats and dried fruit), they also added all kind of perplexing stuff (oat flour, calcium carbonate, salt, guar gum, caramel color, reduced iron, vitamin a palmitate, niacinamide, pyridoxine hydrochloride, riboflavin, thiamine mononitrate, folic acid). It was because I just couldn’t stomach the $3 ticket price for a food that I could make myself, very quickly, which would be both tastier and healthier, at a minute fraction of the cost.
So back to Mickey D’s. Echoing its attempt to give us healthier options — or is it to capture a larger share of the market? — McDonald’s has also recently rolled out an oatmeal offering. And as with their smoothie program, I am open to considering the merits of such an offering. Because if there is an effective way to deliver food cheaply to communities that need it, it’s through McDonalds. But, while not surprising, it turns out that just as with their “Real Fruit” Smoothie, the McDonald’s oatmeal is a dish full of promise that fails to deliver — hard.
How Do We Make Cooking Cool?
I spent all day yesterday at TedXManhattan‘s first “Changing the Way We Eat” conference. Speakers from environmental activist Laurie David (yep, Larry David’s ex) to SlowFood‘s Josh Viertel gave presentations on many aspects of the food movement. The ambitious crowd of speakers and spectators were there for one reason: to fix the way we feed ourselves, for the benefit of our health and our environment.
The conference was buzzing with energy… not only because of the speakers but because the audience was “hand-selected” to include individuals passionate about different aspects of food justice. Speaking with my fellow attendees was just as exciting and enriching as hearing from the speakers themselves.
USDA: Eat LESS
Fruits and Vegetables Should Cover Half Your Plate
Overweight and obesity have already been a problem in our country for several decades. So it may seem like a no-brainer that our country’s dietary guidelines would, you know, urge us to cut back on the calories. Unfortunately, this has not been the case. Typically, government guidelines have skirted the issue, urging us to consume “more lean meats” and “more whole grains”, “more fruits and vegetables” (more, more, more!). This is because of the huge political clout of food industries that are not to keep on the government telling people to eat less of their products.
But guess what? It looks like change is possible. Dietary guidelines posted today DO finally urge us to EAT LESS!
And what’s more, they have specified what a plate of food should look like (to those individuals who still eat food off plates on a regular basis, but I digress). The guidelines indicate that fruits and vegetables should cover half a plate at any given meal. This visual indication is really important, because it indicates not only that we should be eating “more” of these foods, but gives a clear idea of what proportion.
Americans may not follow these guidelines very closely, whatever they are, but at least now we have a policy in place that gives more clear direction towards a real-food-based, health promoting diet.
NYTimes: Dietary Guidelines Urge Less Soda and Smaller Meals
Recipe: Crunchy Brussels Sprouts with Prosciutto
Triumphant Cruciferous Crusader Hears “Can we eat these everyday?”
I struggle with making bold statements such as this one, but I’m gonna go ahead and say it: I think Brussels sprouts are my favorite vegetable. I’ve mentioned it before, and I’ll say it over and over: One of the greatest tragedies in this world is that people mistreat these cruciferous gems and turn them into smelly, yucky mush, thus bestowing them with a wholly undue infamy.
It’s an even greater tragedy when you realize how good for you this vegetable is. I don’t like to go on and on about data and statistics, because I think that’s not how you should look at food — but Brussels sprouts are just as much of a “superfood” as whatever overhyped, overmarketed, long-distance shipped berry happens to be in vogue at the moment.
Recipe: Faux Pad Thai
I’m in the middle of finals, so the last thing I should be doing is spending hours in the kitchen perfecting dishes and photographing them. (So what do you think I’m doing?)
To be fair, a good, nourishing meal is incredible conducive to studying. Or so I keep telling myself.
Pad Thai is generally not the healthiest of dishes, but if you load it up with vegetables as I do, supplementing with just a little sauce and noodles, you get all the yummy unctuousness of the peanut-y rice noodles without chowing down zillions of calories. Plus, it’s colorful and quite beautiful (if I do say so myself).
The real Pad Thai has many more complex and interesting ingredients, but I was just working with what was in my pantry at the time. And it worked out pretty well.
Recipe: Sauteed Leeks with Green Peas and Yogurt
This is a completely random compilation of ingredients I happened to have in my fridge, which I needed to do something with before fleeing the city for five days over Thanksgiving. Luckily, it turned out rather well. Yogurt does a great job of subbing in for a cream sauce, but caution! You need to eat it quickly or it will begin to break down. (Alternatively, just wait to add the yogurt until the last moment). Also, I didn’t do this, but a touch of white wine would go very nicely at the end of this dish.
Fast Food Marketing to Kids Is Going Up, Not Down
Photo: Yale Office of Public Affairs
According to a new study published by Yale’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity prevention, young children are seeing more ads for junk food than ever before. The study found that preschoolers now see 21% more fast food ads on TV than they saw in 2003, and somewhat older children see 34% more ads. African-American and Hispanic kids see the most ads, and, shockingly, McDonald’s alone is responsible for one-quarter of Spanish-language fast food advertising.
Since kids are very responsive to marketing, and do truly drive their parents’ purchases, changing the way industry targets children is a key step in the move to fight obesity. A few years ago, sensing that regulation was on the horizon, the fast food industry (led by Burger King and McDonald’s) promised to limit ads for unhealthy food to kids, or to substitute them with “better-for-you” options. But it seems all the promises have come to naught. I’m all for using the market to change industry practices, but in this case it seems that the incentives — and profits — are just too far away from the public interest. Can we change some laws on this, please?
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