I Never Tell the Truth: I’m Lying

Tags

diets, food, Intermittent fasting, lifestyle

So I lied.

So sue me.

I said that I was through with dieting and I meant it.

Until I didn’t.

I have walked 6 days a week and swam 3 days a week for eight months–nine hours of continuous physical movement per week.

I have stronger legs, stronger arms. I have a back that hurts a great deal less. I have more stamina. I have better wind. (no, I don’t fart better!) I have bigger muscles, not that I or anyone else cares.

I have lost not a single ounce.

It’s not about vanity. I dumped vanity as my companion about three years into my marriage, figuring it was a “for better or worse” thing and well, appreciate the meals and cleaning, because I’m not dying my hair, or worrying about stubble no more.

It’s not about health per se, since I’m feeling fine, and figure my exercise routine does a pretty fine job keeping things running normally. But that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be better.

No, it’s about not being able to bend over very well, or being able to kneel down and get up again without a winch. (kidding, but damn it’s a struggle all the same) It’s about not being able to do yoga because downward facing dog is more likely to end up with my face planted in the tiling.

It’s about my weight impinging on my back and my feet. Sooooo, as they say, I found another diet.

But, it’s not a diet per se. It’s more like a lifestyle change. It’s called the Intermittent fasting, or 5-2 diet. You fast 2 days and eat regularly 5. You don’t fast 2 consecutive days. You try to not be a pig on the five, but eat normally. On the fasting days a woman consumes 500 calories, and a man 600.

It seems reasonable. It has not yet been studied long-term, but short-term results are promising in terms of blood chemistry and weight loss. Blood pressures go down, blood glucose return to normal, and there is some evidence that it suppresses cancer and heart problems and increases longevity. Mice live longer than normal on it.

People anecdotally claim that they mostly lose weight (although some find that their “feast” days are so out of whack that they have to learn what is “normal”). They claim that they feel more energetic. Many claim that they feel they can stay on this forever when they finally reach their norm. Apparently the fasting days are not so extreme that the body has time to go into starvation mode which is what ruins most diets in the long run. And it’s not a diet per se so much as a way to control calories for life without having to try very hard.

I’m game.

Because it’s calorie restricted on two days it encourages foods that are low in calories yet bulky, like veggies and fruit. You are encouraged to eat a wide range of healthy food the other days.

I’ve made some changes already. I haven’t had chocolate since Ash Wednesday and I’m finding that I don’t miss it that much, substituting my afternoon snack of chocolate with an apple. I’m off all corn syrup fructose drinks, drinking about two traditional 12 oz Cokes a week, instead of about six a week of the bad coke. I also can get Sprite and Fanta Orange!  I just love the orange, wish they would have the grape too!

So, I’m giving it a ride. Because I don’t have to give up anything, just amounts a couple a days a week. One day will be Sunday, since it’s FFY day (fend for yourself). The other? I’m not sure. Tuesday I suspect.

Everybody is doing something it seems. Even Michael Moore walks every day for thirty minutes. He doesn’t care about losing weight. He cares about feeling better and he finds walking enjoyable.

I haven’t changed my basic premise. Diets don’t work. Because diet implies an end. And the end is where things go wrong again. For most of us at least. And I do think you can be big and healthy. And I don’t think ultra skinny is healthy or attractive. And I do believe in eating real food as opposed to boxes of crap. And I do just want to enjoy doing things as long as I can.

So there it is.

Call me a hypocrite, or a liar, or a dumb broad who finally woke up. I’m all, none or something else entirely. I’m just doing what I want to do. And I don’t care who thinks what.

But, seriously, what do you think?

And NO, that’s not me! I’m still rockin’ gorgeous!

 

Related articles

• How Intermittent Fasting Stacks Up Among Obesity-Related Myths, Assumptions, and Evidence-Backed Facts (livingfreeofnature.wordpress.com)
• The FastDiet (budgetcouponcooking.wordpress.com)
• Hot New Diet: Eat for 5 Days, Fast for 2 (newser.com)
• Why you should starve yourself a little bit each day (io9.com)

Food, Huh! What Is It Good For?

Tags

crap I learned, diets, food, life in the foothills, lifestyle

Okay, you caught me. I’m avoiding politics. Just for a bit. I’m tired of reporting on idiots. Tired up to the tippy-top of my noggin with fools and dopes, and all manner of misanthropes who permeate our political landscape. The last was the isolated butt-stupid “law enforcement” personnel across the country who have determined that “they will not enforce unconstitutional gun laws”. These missing-links to humanity are nothing but assholes with inverted mouths. To suggest that they haven’t thought this through would be to suggest that they can think in the first place.

So.

What ya wanna talk about today?

Food? I thought so.

I been reading about food lately. I read The China Study, and now I’m reading, Healthy at Every Size. I won’t bore you with long drawn out descriptions except to say that the first does an excellent job of proving that for health reasons, a plant-based diet is probably the very best any person could choose. Of course only a tiny segment of the population is or ever will be prepared to never eat a hamburger, a glorious slice of Vermont Cheddar, or a gnaw upon a spicy rib bone. The second, fairly echoes my conclusion but goes ever so much further stating once and for all, that diets don’t work, except again for a tiny segment of the population.

I tend to agree with both. I cannot do a plant-based diet. I’m not that tiny segment. I have tried every manner of diet, and been successful on most all. Until I had lost the weight and tried to eat NORMALLY again. I do mean normally too. I put the weight back on faster than a nearing 40-year-old says “I do”, and as then some. It’s all quite predictable, for diets interfere with the bodies own dynamics, and as soon as the diet is done, the body starts to repair the damage at it sees things. It does little good by the by to try to tell it otherwise. It has a mind of its own.

You see this has to do with systems that are evolutionarily developed over millions of years to care for the body (itself) when the brain sitting atop all this mass of flesh was not smart enough to make the right decisions. A whole mass of interconnected “stuff” in our brains, bloodstreams, and so forth released chemicals, slowed them down, pushed them about, all to regulate what we ate and when. For a lot of millions of years, we did just fine.

Then the mirror was developed. And we saw that fat butt, and that round tummy, and well we became insane. We started to artificially alter our size. And our inborn systems have been rebelling ever since. You diet, the brain says, “we’re starving–quick slow systems down!” So our metabolisms fall making our calorie output slower than normal. We become hungrier, and  the normal level of our satiety is thrown off kilter. So when we stop starving ourselves, we eat more, more often.

Then the food industry comes into play. They want to make money. They don’t care about our natural mechanisms for maintaining a healthy body. They use high fructose corn syrup because it is cheap. It goes into everything now. It messes up the “satiety” bells and whistles. So we eat more and more often. They use all kinds of additives that affect the proper release of various chemicals and so forth into our bloodstream that help us to decide what to eat and when. They mess it up. So we eat Cheetos, instead of an apple.

The government is complicit. They subsidize farmers who grow corn. It stays cheap so it can be the favored supplier of sweeteners. In Europe, by the by, you can hardly find soda pop that uses HFCS (high fructose corn syrup), because it’s BANNED as UNHEALTHY. Here you can’t find any without it. It’s in bread and almost all boxed and pre-made foods.

The government promotes the use of milk, although studies suggest it plays a part in breast and prostate cancer, onset juvenile diabetes, and cant’ be digested properly by tons of people. There are no good studies that say its a good way to avoid osteoporosis either.

Fast food places supersize foods because the french fries are so damn cheap that they can double the size at about only 40% of the cost. And over time, the consumer becomes used to the larger size, and considers it the “normal” portion. The more we eat, the more we crave it. We mess up our internal systems. Go into a McDonald’s and ask for a “small” fry. They will not have a clue what you are talking about. There is no such thing as “small” any more.

We don’t eat because we are hungry. And we don’t eat what our body needs, we eat what our drunken brains have been taught to crave. We eat because it is noon, and we eat a salad because we want to be “good” until evening when we are starved and we devour a bag of chips and a twenty-ounce coke.

Now, I’m not trying to talk you into anything here. But these two books are worth your attention before you start yet another weight-loss scheme. If only to alert you that you can’t depend on the government to keep you safe, nor frankly even a lot of the various medical associations. You cannot believe how many of the things like Pediatric Doctors Associations (and similar things) are heavily contributed to by all the “bad” food makers to get a nod. These associations have a maddeningly bad habit of altering their “advice” to include “reasonable” portions of soda, chocolate, and all the other things we know are not real food in return for those hefty “donations”.

I’m simply trying to make better food choices, and exercise because I find it fun, and because it makes me feel better. I’m trying to make most of my diet from real foods, and meals created from whole ingredients.  Being healthy is, at my age, increasingly much more important than whether I can pop my buns into a pair of sexy jeans. Way more.

Related articles

• High fructose corn syrup linked with diabetes (thenaturopathicnutritionist.com)
• Soybean Oil: One of the most harmful ingredients in processed foods (sott.net)
• Dr. Mercola: Why Americans Are Less Healthy, and Die Sooner Than People In Other Developed Nations (consciouslifenews.com)
• This is how the food industry makes Americans fat and hungry (rt.com)
• Fructose Sugar Tells the Brain To Keep Eating (livescience.com)
• Imaging study examines effect of fructose on brain regions that regulate appetite (esciencenews.com)
• Diabetes Rates Higher in Countries Using Lots of High Fructose Corn Syrup (nlm.nih.gov)

Time To Take Your Medicine Willard

Tags

diet, food, health, Mitt Romney. humor

“Mitt, oh Mitt, time to wake up darling.”

“Mitt? Mitt really, you must get up!”

“Lemme alone will ya? I’m sleeping. I don’t wanna go.”

“Willard Mitt Romney you get out of that bed immediately. It’s past eleven and you have to get dressed still!”

“Call and tell him I’m sick. I don’t feel good. I think I have a fever. My head hurts, and my stomach is queasy. Really I don’t want to infect the President of the United States. They wouldn’t want me to do that!”

“Stop it. There is nothing wrong with you and you know it. This is traditional, every candidate has done this. Just put on a bright face and shake hands like a man and congratulate him for winning. Eat a little of the soup and comment him on how nice the Christmas decorations look. Just be a man!”

“Please, can’t you come with me? I just can’t stand the idea of having to sit there and make small talk. He’s not a job creator like me. He can’t understand real Americans like us. He’ll say something nasty, I just know it, all wrapped up in a smile and a pat on the back, but he will get his digs in. I’m not some John McCain. I was a titan of capitalism, a major success. How could this have happened?”

“Will you stop whining? Get up and get dressed. Tagg is going to drive you.”

“Can we go to Disneyland again? I really liked it.”

“Yes Mitt, take another bunch of the grandkids if you want. They like to ride the car elevator at house. Just please get up!”

“Okay Annie, for you. And for the love of God, don’t send that maggot Christie a card this Christmas. I hate New Jersey!”

Ø Ø

Okay, so a woman at the pool recommended this book, so I ordered it and read it, and it’s called The China Study. And I believe it, really I do. It basically says that the science is pretty darn clear that eating only plants and fruits is great for you, and eating any meat of any kind and any dairy is just awful. And there is no way in God’s green earth that I can give up all meat forever and all dairy. Even if I could live another ten years beyond however long I’m gonna live, I don’t think I could do that.

I mean, if it were best for us to eat only plants and fruits, why are we able to digest meat and dairy at all? I mean really? I know some folks are intolerant of some dairy. I don’t do so well on milk, so I get the lactose free stuff. But no other dairy products really bugs me and I think the milk thing is more about what I thought was wrong with me, but which turned out to be something to do with our well water in Iowa. Which sounds crazy I know, but all my symptoms disappeared within two days of leaving Iowa.

So, I’m conflicted, since I’m aging and well you start to think about the BALANCE of your life, which is why I walk an hour in the desert every day when everyone I know who knows me, knows I don’t like walking. I find it freakin’ boring. But I do it, like I go to the pool three days a week. Women at the pool come up to me and say, “gee, you are so dedicated. You never mess around. You don’t gab, and just stand around chatting. You work out every minute you’re here. I commend you.” Blah blah. Well, I like swimming to a point, but I do it, cause I don’t want to be unable to walk and bend and so forth and so on in ten years.

And of course there are studies which suggest that we are only who we are because we ate meat.

And I know that sometimes studies are paid for by those who have a stake in the outcome.

And so I’m conflicted.

I figure we ate meat when we could get our hands on it, and we gorged on it. The rest of the time we ate wild grains and vegetables and bird eggs and fish and shellfish if we could get it. And fruit was a luxury which we enjoyed to the fullest when we found it. And honey was much prized. That’s how I figure it.

Dairy came a good deal later when we domesticated cattle. But damn, cheese is great stuff. It is the best of stuff. A great cheese is better than dessert.

It all makes me dizzy.

So I’m trying to eat mostly food that is whole and cooked by me, without additives. But of course meat is full of crap. I know that. What to do?

Explain your eating theories please.

That is your assignment. Due date is tomorrow.

You will be graded.

HOT DOGS! Them’s Fightin’ Words!

Tags

coney island hotdogs, food, hotdogs, Humor, Lafayette Coney Island, life in the meadow

No, this is not some boring history of the hotdog. Nobody cares about that except those of you who know who you are, and already know because you obsess about stupid stuff like that.

No, hotdogs are in the blood of every real American, and that’s all that needs be said.

However, not every hotdog is created equal. We all know that too.

Now if you were born and raised in Flint, Michigan, as I was, you know that there is really only one authentic hotdog and it’s a sin that every other hotdog maker doesn’t voluntarily bankrupt itself. I speak of the Koegel’s, the finest hotdog creation in the history of the Milky Way.

Ex-Flintites regularly order their hotdogs online. And no Margaret, there is no turkey, chicken or pork in any self-respecting hotdog. The mere look at their website and the picture of that lovely Koegel’s Ring bologna, brings tears to my eyes of evenings spent munching a hunk of bologna and a chunk of cheese. Bliss. . . .

But I digress.

Some time ago, I ran upon a recipe at JustAPinch regarding “coney island sauce.” So I scurried to the recipe, and it looked interesting so I gave it a try. It was quite nice, but it got me to investigating further, since my heart began to ache for what I missed so much, the REAL CONEY ISLAND SAUCE. 

In posting the JustAPinch recipe, I alluded to this topping being more akin to Flint Coney Dogs, which is more a loose-meat topping, and referred to a google picture I found. I compared this to the picture above, which is a Lafayette Coney Island, which is more of a gravy. Indeed, if you were to walk into Lafayette Coney Island and request “chili fries” you would get french fries covered in this coney dog sauce.

This all occurred at my food site, What’s On the Stove? 

Well. I don’t get much in the way of comment there, but I sure did on this one. The recipe called for some hot sauce, and I was told that no self-respecting Flintite ever ate a Coney Island from an authentic Flint Coney Island which had any hot sauce in it. And she bet I had never BEEN to Flint.

Of course, I said, the recipe results only “looked” like a loose-meat topping similar to what a Flint Coney appeared to look like. In any case, I had stated that I don’t recall ever eating a Flint Coney.

Now, Detroit coneys. That’s a very different thing. When I worked in Detroit, our back door was about 40 feet from a Greek coney joint, by the name of Zorba’s,  which I think might have been open 24-hours a day. It was across from the then Police Headquarters, and it had a fine flow of cops, attorneys, and all the usual riff-raff that attend such groups.

Don’t ask me to explain why Greeks in Detroit have a corner on the All-American hotdog, but they do. All the best coney joints are owned by Greeks.

I, over some 20 years, ate a boat load of those coneys at Zorba’s, and we knew the staff by name. everybody was a sister or brother, cousin or parent of everyone else.  From time to time I ate a few Lafayette Coney Island’s as well (located across town in the Lafayette Building). They are pretty much indistinguishable, but no doubt a good few connoisseurs would argue that point as well.

Anyway, they are nothing like a Flint Coney, they are nothing like a Long Island Coney, they are not like any hotdog topping anywhere in the world. If you have not had one, you have not lived. You are not American. You sir or ma’am don’t know chit about hotdogs!

So, I found a copycat recipe for Lafayette Coney sauce. And I made it. And it smells perfect. And I am in heaven. And you are not. So there.  (I’m posting it later today on the food site, so if you want to try it, by all means do. It’s a weird little recipe, but not hard at all, and it is really really the only way to eat a hot dog.

And the proper way to fix your dog? Lay out your bun, drop your dog on it. Ladle your sauce over it. Throw on a handful of raw chopped onions, and drizzle with BallPark mustard. They ain’t no other way. Period. And you never eat one. You order two, and they load up side by side.

And, although The Donald don’t have a clue how to eat a Slice, when you eat a coney, you use a fork.

 

Benjamin Button Be Damned

Tags

aging, Congress, food, Humor, nincompoops, Obama, psychology, racism, self control, teabaggers

A couple of weeks ago, we watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Since then we’ve had a lively discussion about the relative merits of being born old and growing younger and the more conventional method of growing older. They both that their plusses and minuses.

Aging definitely has its down sides. I mean take eating for instance. One finally begins to appreciate food, and the old taste buds are wearing out.

If you don’t believe me, try eating someSpaghetti O’s and see what I mean. I mean seriously, yuck! But they were a real treat when I was ten.

I must go through a bushel of jalapenos every week. We add them to hotdogs and hamburgers, meatloaf and casseroles. I mean, I caught myself the other day engaged in this give and take:

Me: So what do you want for breakfast dear?

Contrarian: Oh, maybe just some Cheerios. I’m not that hungry.

Pause. . . .

Me: would you like a little chopped jalapeno in that?

You get my drift?

Food just seems blander all the time, and needs more pepper! I never used much pepper growing up, now I liberally twist that damn pepper mill with more vigor than a farmer wringing a chicken’s neck. On the other hand, I have less tolerance for salt I find. I find myself buying no-salt stocks and no-salt tomato sauce. Go figure.

Which brings me to just a little note. I made a fabulous southwest chicken salad yesterday, and we scarfed up the entire dish. I thought it would be too hot with a smoked jalapeno in adobe sauce and two pickled jalapenos, but it was just right. I’ll be posting on What’s on the Stove? the full details, so mosey on over if it sounds good to ya. I got the recipe from a lady over on Justapinch.

♦

Zander has a great take on the TeaNutz® historical twisting and turnings on the issue of Martin Luther King, Jr. It is amusing to listen to them now hail him as the “conservative Republican” who would have “hated” all things liberal. Not so many years ago, they were saying exactly the opposite. I good read.

♦

Months ago we were watching a show about learning about chimpanzee intelligence. Pursuant to that they showed a testing of small children in which they were offered a marshmallow but told that if they waited fifteen minutes, they would get two instead of only the one.

Well, that study was continued and the results of how these kids turned out as adults is in. The self-control kids, as you might expect, did better in life. But there are other surprising results from the study. About how we can exercise our willpower and enhance it. Good reading and you can decide if you might want to read the book that resulted.

♦

An amusing letter than might have (should have?) been sent to Speaker Boehner by WH chief-of-staff, Bill Daley, regarding the Thursday speech. comes from Beeryblog. Oh but we wish so much it had been. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.

♦

The Blaze is all a-tizzy with grave conspiracy theory swirling. The Prez, on his way via helicopter to Camp David, was diverted to a nearer airport and motored there due to “weather concerns” Now da Blaze cannot find any “weather concerns, so they wonder what could have been the “real” reason.

I figure Obama wanted to make a quick stop to introduce Sasha to Osama Bin Laden, who had been secretly closeted at the airport awaiting a big family re-union with all the O’s worldwide. The president was heard to remark that us O people, first name or last, are a small group especially when you consider the OB (ama) and OS (ama) coincidence.

 The two figure to be first cousins-seventeen times removed and can’t wait to meet in Madagascar on Tuesday, October 31 for the big barbecue ta-do. Auntie Katerina OK (ama) from Siberia is the matriarch of this disparate clan. The big O’s, Ladin and Barrack, are hoping to finalize plans to introduce the Muslim Brotherhood into state school boards in 2012. OW (ama), an uncle from Ecuador is working on the Sharia law angle, and figures most of the US will be under its control no later than April of 2012.

Captain Crunch, one of the nincompoops suggests this reason for the set down:

BS! This sounds like another secret meeting with Soros…just like his daughters ball game he never made it to, which game never happened, in the dark of the night. I can see his shiney white teeth and eyeballs glowing in the dark as he creeps around town with his cloak and daggar.

But EP46 thinks he has it all figured out:

Maybe to pick-up Larry Sinclair…….the Minnesota man who claims he took cocaine in 1999 with obama and participated in homosexual acts with him.

Secessionista is quite sure that it has to do with this:

He probably wanted to meet with the new black panther party leadership to urge them to unionize. And to learn how to kill Americans when they come for him. It’s a win win for them all.

But JamesR thinks it’s all got to do with the suspicious Marine who is standing at attention at the helicopter. We have vays of making you talk. . . .

Something doesn’t seem right. The marine’s coat is to long and does not fit right and his dress slacks are long enough for him to be walking on them. This picture may be of a kid. The copter flight would make it easier for Obama to get away from the office and head to Camp David. Americans need to insist on a tight belt and all future use of jets, and copters need to be grounded. Bama has an office in the white house and come to think of it, just about everything a family would need for a long weekend of relaxation.

Errr, there were six pages of this crap. Crazy is as crazy does.

Have a good one.

Illusions of Significance?

Tags

AFA, brain, Bryan Fischer, Christianity, Christine O'Donnell, food, Frances Pivens, Glenn Beck, GOP, gourmets, human medicine, mind, Native Peoples, Patriot Act, religion, right wing media, right wing wingnuts, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity

One of the side effects of being sentient or self-aware, at least at human levels, is our propensity to try to get inside the heads of other people.

We ponder why Sally did this and why Don did that. We find certain behavior curious, ridiculous, courageous, all by our own standards as we have come to believe them.

Even more curious, we tend to project intention onto objects. We kick the car, and scream at malfunctioning vacuum cleaners.

Do we create God as well? In our minds? Of course every atheist would say yes. Science gives no definitive answer, and perhaps will never have such a capacity.

Still, the mulling of such ideas is useful. Read Slate’s article and also take a gander at the book it’s based on: The Belief Instinct.

***

The Atlantic has an interesting one on “foodies”, those gourmet nuts who gush about food as if it were sex. Which it is for them no doubt. It is pure gluttony at some level. Are you the type who reads breathlessly a description of some dish? Or do you skip to the chase? Are you the type who scours the Internet looking for odd ingredients not to be found in even the most up scale Piggly Wiggly? Or do you think good old domestic cheddar is just fine? The author points out that Livy said that when we glorify the chef, we are heading for the end. What do you think?

***

Here’s one for ya. Remember Christine O’Donnell? Witchy poo? Well she’s another one that missed the trolley. Ms. abstinence is trying to keep her little political life afloat, by going after George Soros, and all the groups he funds. She’s operating out of her house, with her tiny little PAC. She’s soliciting funds–nice to pay the rent and heat as a “business expense” isn’t it. She also claims that Barack Obama considers her his biggest threat. If you want more, please go the SciFi Channel.

***

Most of the world could ignore the blatherings of Glenn Beck except for the fact that his nearly insane followers become Rottweilers with the theories he gives them. Frances Fox Pivens has been one of his targets. Based upon an article she co-wrote in 1966 about helping welfare recipients receive their due, she has been raised to the level of a founder of the marxist/socialist/destruction of America “tree” that arises out of Beckian mental illness. Vilified in the most ugly terms (I’ve read the comments) in The Blaze, and else where, Dr. Pivens has been subjected to e-mail harassment and many a death threat. She responds with some commentary on the rise of the crazies.

***

It does seem to me, in the last couple of years, that the claims of the extreme right have become more and more outlandish. Especially so of Beck and perhaps Limbaugh as well. They seem more and more emboldened to spew invective at whole groups, call the President any creature this side of Arcturus, and to generally make fun of anything non-white and educated beyond the 10th grade.

At the same time, there is a definite change in the numbers. As to Beck, his TV watchers are down 50%, and radio stations are dropping him. Limbaugh has been losing ground as has Hannity on his radio show.

How to explain? I think it’s an attempt to shore up the shrinking numbers. But the people who are leaving are precisely those who are tired of the “Muslim President” cry, and are searching for something a bit less biased. The hard core will never depart and don’t need the increasingly wacky theories. They generate enough of their own!

***

In a major “oops” House Rethugs failed to pass an extension of the Patriot Act. It seems that House Tea Partiers joined forces with House Dems to deny the leadership its  passage and leaving them somewhat embarrassed. It will undoubtedly pass under different House procedures, but still, it goes to show that the GOP has a snarly tiger by the tail.

***

One of our favorite wackadoodles is Bryan Fischer, head of the AFA. He is obsessed, as you know, with homosexuality (which explains ever so much). He has a new target: Native Americans. Incensed by the invocation,  he tells Native Peoples that it is high time they got with Christianity and gave up their filthy pagan ways. Oh Bryan, you eat, drink, and sleep hate. I bet you could collect all the people in the world that you like in your very own living room.

***

Oh, what? Oops! Doin’ a bit of the happy dance. (Whispering) they are eating their own again. Come watch! Beck looks into his crystal ball and sees that the precious Right is now agin’ the Tea Party and all of them REAL patriots. They are trying to assassinate us! “Or maybe it’s just a coincidence,” he ponders, “but I don’t believe in coincidences,” his insane brain says. “Talkin’ about freedom” he spittles, and “wildcards” who must be suppressed. Oh gosh, I should feel sympathy for one who is but a step from the rubber room, but dang if I can feel THAT emotion. Glee would be more like it.

Well, enough.

What’s on the stove? Fried chicken, mashed taters and gravy. (Which means I don’t have to do dishes!)

Related Articles

• The real threat of Glenn Beck’s fantasies (3quarksdaily.com)
• Alexander Zaitchik: Is Glenn Beck Sinking? (huffingtonpost.com)
• New York Times: Leave Frances Fox Piven Alone! (nicedeb.wordpress.com)

The Promised Food Post

Tags

cooking, essay, food, Humor, obsessions

Okay, so don’t hold you breath waiting for something profound. Let’s face it, you don’t come here for profound. You come here to be reassured that you are sane.

So, it’s just that I got to thinking. Yes, yes, I know, that raises all kinds of cautionary bells and whistles a goin’ doesn’t it? She’s thinking AGAIN!

But, seriously, we do have an unholy alliance with food. You have to agree with that certainly. I mean, it’s a necessary thing, like oxygen and water. We really can’t do without it. But we don’t obsess about oxygen do we? We breath. Occasionally we wrinkle our nose or smell deeply, but other than that, we pretty much ignore the whole thing.

Water? Well, we are starting to obsess a bit about that I grant you. One of the great scams of all time is the retail sale of H2O, most of it bottled from the local tap and sold as “sweet artesian nectar” or “mountain fresh” or some such rot. Just give me some good old well water with some iron I can chew and I’m happy. (It plays hell with the pipes so you are better off actually with that sissy city water all cleaned up and tasteless!)

Back to food. I assume we started off eating it as did all the other critters–raw and as is. Then somebody happened upon a burnt carcass and was wowed by the “cooked” flavor, and somebody else got some wild grass mixed with the root of something, and said “ain’t that an interesting flavor” and, well, it happened.

What happened? The professional talented expert palate was announced. Yes, we became experts at food and taste. And things have never been the same.

Fat people were unknown among Neanderthals, I’m certain. They were probably unknown for millennia thereafter. Ever seen a fat Bedouin? Huh? You don’t see fat Africans either until you sashay into the cities of the modern era. Nope. Why?

Because food was a means to an end. There were other things to do, like surviving. We had to have a house, and we had to hunt, and we had to gather, and well, you get the idea here. Eating was something we did so we could do the rest.

Until haute cuisine came along. When we started settling down and raising crops and raising domesticated animals and such, we had leisure and we got lazy and we started to eat for sport. For fun, for enjoyment.

And all hell broke loose. A woman became worth more than another because she could cook a mean yak or bake an exceptionally tasty haggis (frankly I don’t know how haggis is prepared–correct me if I’m wrong). Women started entering their pies into things called “fairs” and getting ribbons and bragging rights. A man or two divorced and remarried solely on the basis of a well-prepared pot roast.

The fall of civilization (to the degree that it’s surely headed there) can be traced no doubt to that first burnt hyena carcass scavenged on the Savannah of Africa. Think about it.

Of course, women being primo cooks didn’t last long before men stuck their noses into the mix, and well, nothing is more haute than the gourmand male chef. In fact, you’d think that women didn’t start the whole thing in the first place by the way that true cheffery seems to be a male-dominated profession.

Men just can’t wait to get their hands on a big knife (phallic symbol?) and a sharpening rod and sling away, chopping furiously at onion and celery, whipping (see the sadism there?) with whisk, and flipping pans on fire-enveloped stove tops.

And from men, we got the term “plating” , with dots and dashes of sauce, two green beans, and a fingerling potato all draped over a one ounce seared bit of caribou steak. Yeah, that is what you pay $230.00 plus gratuity for.

Course, on the other hand, we traipse our way, roll, and crawl, to Burger King for Whoppers (never Big Macs–they truly suck), and Popeye’s Chicken to soothe the savage beastie of our hunger, both physical and emotional.

For somewhere in all this we became attached emotionally to our food. We would take it to bed if we could, and frankly some of us do, as the crumbs attached to your butt in the morning attest. We fight with it, we bathe in it, we play all manner of games with it. We spend all night and day figuring out ways to change it and make it other than it is. We make clothes out of it, and we make pictures with it (macaroni pictures from your kids ring a bell?).

We think about it, we write about it. We seek it in the most unlikely places. We eat fish roe and lobster tamale, we suck down snails and pork entrails. We eat brains, and eggs, and everything but the squeak of nearly anything that says alive! My God we even eat KFC’s gravy which is best described as smelly glue.

We eat fruit loops and Limburger cheese (which is as close to packaging a fart as can be found anywhere). We stuff it, thin it, emulsify it, dry it, hydrate it, stretch it, bake it, fry it, braise it, boil it. If all else fails we eat it raw.

And, that which keeps us alive, kills us too. Now that’s irony. Somehow I don’t think it’s what God had in mind. Anybody got a bagel and cream cheese?