Skinny Bitches Ruin Everything

They steal the attention of the cute boys at the bar. They wear all of the clothes that you can’t pull off. They go for quick five or six mile jogs. And they write books about food and fill them with so much horrifying information, they keep you up nights – and not in the good way.

If you’ve read the book, Skinny Bitch, you know exactly what I am talking about. There are details in this book about how pork is processed and what goes into your milk that could – quite literally – paralyze you into never eating again. (The good news? Then you get to be a skinny bitch.)

It is often said that ignorance is bliss – something that I never bought into. I like to be educated about things… that is, after all, how this whole organic/local food adventure began. I read articles, I read books. And, yes, I saw Food, Inc. It was all pretty eye-opening and scary, but I was glad to have learned what I did. I am not all that glad to know what I know after reading Skinny Bitch. Because, Skinny Bitch doesn’t let you get away with anything.

Skinny Bitch will let you know – in a terribly frank, no nonsense way – why Diet Coke could kill you. It tells you the real story about bacon. You learn about how the USDA is run by a bunch of corrupt f*&%ers. No Diet Coke? No bacon? Why go on living? (I already suspected as much about the USDA, so no great loss there…)

The book heavily promotes an organic, alcohol-free, caffeine-free, sugar-free, vegan diet. Yeah, right. I could potentially see myself giving up drinking wine or even coffee, but I’m gonna tell you right now, I could never be a vegan. And there is only one reason why: cheese. I love cheese almost as much as I love my iPhone. For those of you that know me personally, you can deeply appreciate what this means. I love cheese a lot.

With that said, lots of stuff that the book’s mean, evil authors wrote really resonated for me – particularly the parts about meat production and the affect of too much meat eating on your body. Reducing the quantity of meat that you eat is also something promoted by Food, Inc. Food, Inc. (via an organization called Meatless Monday) recommends – surprise – going meatless on Mondays, claiming:

“Going meatless once a week may reduce your risk of chronic preventable conditions like cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity. It can also help reduce your carbon footprint and save precious resources like fresh water and fossil fuel.”

So, as part of my personal food journey, I am actually flipping this recommendation around… I am trying to go meatless six days a week. I will fully admit that I am not quite there yet. I am probably still eating some meat about three days a week – but I am viewing this as a progression. I easily used to eat meat every day, so this is an improvement.

Thus far, I’ve had some hits and misses… on the positive side, I actually got my husband to eat tofu! On the less positive side, I tried to get creative with a beet-sweet potato salad that just ended in a mushy mess. Needless to say, submissions of your favorite veg recipes are welcome.

As for my monthly suggestion, think about going meatless once a week! It’s really not as bad as it sounds… and there truly are some great health and environmental benefits. Start with this recipe… it’s a gem and there will be lots of leftovers for lunch the next day: Vegetable Curry.

The Tale of the Turnip

I’m reading this really terrible book called Outlander… by terrible, I of course mean excellent. It’s this mythical romance-adventure book with lots of inappropriate parts. In the book, the main character slips through a crack in time and ends up living in the Scottish Highlands 200 years earlier. That I can buy. What I cannot accept is when the lead protagonist talks about the delish roast meats and turnips she comes to love in her 18th century life. Why do I find that so hard to swallow (literally and figuratively)? I am here to tell you that there is nothing delicious about a turnip. Nothing. I would know…

So, for those that have read my blog in the past, you know that I love to eat and to explore new restaurants. Writing reviews of some of Boston’s best (and worst) places was generally the content of my posts. Well, I’ve found myself shifting gears in the last year and eating out less. Sure, part of it was a desire to be more frugal – who isn’t these days? But more so, it’s been about being more thoughtful (which often means, critical) of what I eat.

It started innocently enough… I read a bunch of articles about local food and organic farming. As a person who loves food, at first it was really about learning where to get the freshest, tastiest ingredients and specialty items. Then I read Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Then I watched Food, Inc. Then I got horrified, sad, and frustrated. Then I decided to make some changes. Then came the turnips.

As a general rule of thumb, if you decide to make some radical changes in your diet and challenge yourself to eating at least 75% local fruits and vegetables, don’t do it in December. In New England. You know what grows in the dead of winter in the northeast? Come on, you had to know this was coming – turnips. Ok, luckily turnips aren’t the only thing to grow around here this time of year – you can also get apples, sweet potatoes, beets, butternut squash, potatoes, parsnips, sprouts, onions, and this super weird, grubby little veg called celeriac (or celery root). But the turnips are prolific. So prolific, you will need to find 892 ways to make turnips. I am at about 436.

Unfortunately, you can’t walk into most grocery stores and get a lot of local, organic veggies during this season. So, I’ve opted to receive a bi-weekly delivery of Boston Organic’s Dogma Box. I’ve been a Boston Organics customer for a few years. I love that it’s local company that supports organic farming. But for all those years, I was happily getting my organic bananas in February and ignoring those lurking questions about how far they’d traveled and what was consumed in getting them into my green plastic Boston Organics bin (the cursed bin that I never remember to put out on delivery day).

Well, after absorbing the compelling information from AVM and Food, Inc., I decided to push myself further and make not just organic choices, but local too. Now, I don’t live under a rock. I know there’s a ton of competing evidence out there about the value of eating local – and whether it might even be doing more harm than good (common sense would dictate that the closer your food is sourced, the fresher it is and the less of a carbon impact it has in transportation, but many will argue that the economies of scale that are achieved in shipping tons of food around the world offset that – I can see both sides).

I’ve also educated myself enough about organic farming to know that things are changing in that world faster than anyone can keep up and that organic standards are degrading before our very eyes. I think most people would agree that ideally food would be produced without pesticides (I know that I’m not psyched to put a bunch of chemicals in my body if I can avoid it), but now that some major players – like Walmart – are featuring more organic choices, there’s incredible pressure to produce organic food more economically which results in lower governmental standards for the definition of “organic.” But, as the saying goes, something is better than nothing. And that’s the way I’ve been approaching this little experiment.

First I want to say, I am FAR from perfect in this effort… I still believe that Diet Coke is manna from heaven and I happily gulp now this corn-syrup laden treat at least once per day. I haven’t yet progressed to buying organic and free range meat. I allow myself to buy 25% out-of-season non-organic non-local produce. Just today I picked up broccoli rabe, cilantro, and lemons at the grocery store. But I am working towards change. In Food, Inc., at the end of the movie there was a quote that said something to the effect of, “you vote three times a day…” I believe in the power of voting. So I am trying to cast mine the right way.

Making these choices means some sacrifice. I often sacrifice a few more cents or dollars for organic choices. It means not eating asparagus whenever I want – and I love asparagus. And it means eating turnips. And turnips, as far as I am concerned, are pretty darn icky. I’ve made roasted turnips (meh), scalloped turnips (mmmph), and mashed turnips (not too bad). And I am sure that I’ll try a handful more before spring finally arrives…

It’s an adventure and I hope you’ll join me for some of it. I am going to attempt to blog at least twice a month about my food choices. If you’re interested in this topic, please come back… if you miss the restaurant reviews, I promise to throw some in (there are some great Boston establishments focusing more and more on local food). If you’re compelled enough to read this, I hope you’ll also try some things of your own… I’ll give a suggestion in each post and I hope you’ll comment with additional ideas!

January’s idea: Check out Boston Organics! It’s a cool service and you can customize your order a number of different ways. This article represents a lot of the reasons I try and eat organic – check it out.

Unless you are realllly feeling up to it, I would start slow with this and not necessarily get the Dogma Box. However, if you do, prepare yourself for those turnips. Here’s an idea of what to do with them (pretty tasty and freezes well if you make a double batch): Mashed Potatoes and Turnips.