Food Rant

They tell you that the FDA is the Food and Drug Administration. It isn't true. My dad likes to call them the Frantic Dithering Association, which gets closer to the point, but after what I read last week, I'm beginning to think perhaps the Fraud Dissemination Administration might be most accurate.

I don't know where the whole thing started. Maybe it was during the Great Depression and the FDA, like many other social catastrophes that have lingered, was begun as a source of jobs and support for the down-on-his-luck farmer. Or maybe some genius noticed Americans were getting burly and decided we needed a big brother organization to stop it before it got out of hand. I could go look up the history of the FDA, but that is really beside the point. Whatever it is they're meant to do, they aren't doing it right. And I wonder if they should be doing it at all. According to Omnivore's Dilemma, many countries in Europe (notice, I'm not talking about the third word here) have nothing like an FDA or a Food Pyramid or thousands of diet books telling them, in succession, to Eat less red meat... No, it's carbs that are evil... No, wait, we should all only eat raw... No, wait! What other countries have is an established food tradition! And possibly a heck of a lot less corn syrup.

Corn syrup... that, along with the FDA is where the whole collapse began. You can't go to the grocery any more without coming home with something inundated with corn or corn syrup. Even if you read the label, you still end up with more corn than you bargained for. After all, what are our industrially farmed chickens, pigs, and cows fed? Corn. Michael Pollan says, "The eggs are made of corn. The milk and cheese and yogurt, which once came from our dairy cows that grazed on grass, now typically come from Holsteins which spend their working lives indoors tethered to machines, eating corn." No wonder so many people are suddenly discovering an allergy to dairy or an intolerance for normal, seemingly innocuous foods. They're not what they seem, and all you have to go on is the label. And who makes the label? The Fraud Dissemination Administration.

What's so wrong, Hannah, with the FDA trying to regulated our processed foods? Well, a couple of things, actually. But before I get to that, one thing that's wrong is processed food at all. That, at least isn't the FDA's fault. Have you ever baked a loaf of bread, as close to "from scratch" as you could? Even though the ingredients that went into that bread probably came from a grocery store and before that their origins are as mysterious as those of any food we buy, I'll bet you that loaf of bread you baked at home didn't look, taste, or feel anything like one you bought pre-sliced in a plastic bag. What are you saying, Hannah? I'm saying that the further our food gets from being prepared by our own hands, the less we can trust it.  Should we all start milling our own flour? No. Can everyone go out and start a  truly organic subsistence farm? No. But I do firmly believe we all ought to be looking for any and every way to take back our food from the industrial giant.

Industrial giant... now we get to the FDA. The FDA tell us what can and can't go into our food. They tell companies to put labels on everything telling you about its "nutritional content." That nutrition information takes the form of lists of ingredients that don't illuminate the proportion of those ingredients (Is that bread mostly flour or is it mostly that chemical I can't pronounce?) and charts with "grams" of this and that. I don't know about you, but the last time I dealt with a gram was in Chemistry class. When I bake, I deal with teaspoons and tablespoons. You have to have a conversion table to turn grams into tablespoons into calories. Yikes! How will we ever figure out the value of our food!? 

If you manage to wade through that, then you're confronted with the FDA's allowance of completely meaningless statements on those labels. "No Trans-Fats!" "Organic." "No high fructose corn syrup." "Low carb." What does all of that garbage really mean? The answer is, it doesn't mean much of anything. It is all designed to draw our attention and con us into thinking that food is healthy. But "no trans-fat" doesn't mean no fat. And really, why did we all suddenly become terrified of something that is a natural companion to eating meat? "Organic" probably isn't anything of the kind, unless you grew it yourself without pesticides or fertilizers. "No high fructose corn syrup" doesn't automatically signal safety to diabetics or even low sugar content. And when did carbohydrates become the spawn of the devil? The one of these that ticks me off the most is "5 grams of whole grains!" on a package of crackers. What!? All that means is that they made sure there were some chunks of "grains" visible in the final product. If you really want whole grains, you should jaunt on down to the rice isle where you can buy long grain brown rice, whole oats, barley, legumes, and beans. I guarantee you none of those bags brags about how many grams of whole grains one serving contains, and any one of them is better nutrition than that puffed up cracker. We are intelligent people who have been jargoned into a state of frantic dithering by a governmental body with no soul and the brain of a mad scientist in its collective head.

Am I being overly harsh? I mean, "mad scientist brain..." Really? Well, consider with me the two "zero calorie sweeteners" that the FDA considers "safe." You've heard the horror stories about aspartame by now, I'm sure. You've heard how it brakes down in your body into what is basically embalming fluid. Phenyketonurics beware, because it contains phenyalanine. Linked to everything from headaches to Alzheimers, aspartame is the elephant in your diet soda can. Ignore it at your peril. As public opinion turned against aspartame, we began to turn to The Safe no calorie sweetener: Splenda. Wonder-substance! No calories! Tastes more like sugar! As a matter of fact, friends, it IS sugar, just with the molecule rearranged so that you body rejects it! It's like magic, isn't it? No. In fact, it is more like alchemy. That rearranged sugar molecule has had three atoms of chlorine added, among other things. Sure, your body dumps the sugar... but it keeps the chlorine. What? We all have carbon filters on our faucets or buy bottled water to get rid of that chlorine, and now we're going to add it back in? Oops. Don't worry, though. The Fraud Dissemination Administration says you're safe. Go ahead and bake that stuff into the cookies for your kids.

So what is the chemical conscious, sweet beverage craving average American to do? You can't just drink soda. We all know by now what your body does in the first hour after that can of Coke hits the stomach. If you don't, here it is, and not in my words, either:

• In The First 10 minutes: 10 teaspoons of sugar hit your system. (100% of your recommended daily intake.) You don’t immediately vomit from the overwhelming sweetness because phosphoric acid cuts the flavor allowing you to keep it down.
• 20 minutes: Your blood sugar spikes, causing an insulin burst. Your liver responds to this by turning any sugar it can get its hands on into fat. (There’s plenty of that at this particular moment)
• 40 minutes: Caffeine absorption is complete. Your pupils dilate, your blood pressure rises, as a response your livers dumps more sugar into your bloodstream. The adenosine receptors in your brain are now blocked preventing drowsiness.
• 45 minutes: Your body ups your dopamine production stimulating the pleasure centers of your brain. This is physically the same way heroin works, by the way.
• 60 minutes: The phosphoric acid binds calcium, magnesium and zinc in your lower intestine, providing a further boost in metabolism. This is compounded by high doses of sugar and artificial sweeteners also increasing the urinary excretion of calcium.
• 60 Minutes: The caffeine’s diuretic properties come into play. (It makes you have to pee.) It is now assured that you’ll evacuate the bonded calcium, magnesium and zinc that was headed to your bones as well as sodium, electrolyte and water.
• 60 minutes: As the rave inside of you dies down you’ll start to have a sugar crash. You may become irritable and/or sluggish. You’ve also now, literally, pissed away all the water that was in the Coke. But not before infusing it with valuable nutrients your body could have used for things like even having the ability to hydrate your system or build strong bones and teeth.

From the above, we draw a mistaken and wildly extrapolated conclusion. Sugar is evil. That, right there, is what set off the whole frantic dithering, fraud disseminating debacle in the first place. Somehow, we all almost simultaneously became convinced that food as produced by the natural world is terrible for us. Fat! Sugar! Carbohydrates! Oh my! Wait. Calm down. It isn't sugar we need to fear. Sugar isn't terrible for you. After all, you find it in fruits and vegetables alike, along with honey or agave, and starches. The problem is our overindulgence in it. (And lets not forget that the other problem with those sodas is caffeine and phosphoric acid with their attendant side effects.) We have increased our sugar intake by something like 1,000% over the last 100 years.  The taste of "sweet" used to indicate energy producing goodness in a morsel of food. Now we run the other direction... or at least we run to the chemical isle. The solution is not to turn to dicey chemical additives to get the sweetness we crave. Keep your sugar bowl. Just use less. A lot less. Sorry to say it, but it's true. There is no "easy solution." We want sweetness because it is a natural indicator within our body of the potential energy contained in food. But if we don't want diabetes, obesity, mood disorders, and a myriad other problems, we're just going to have to exercise a little wisdom. The first thing we need to do is get over our addiction to "easy" and develop some self control. Then there won't be a problem and we'll be able to quit freaking out about a solution.You want something sweet? Eat an apple. Put honey on your oatmeal. Oh, and by the way, if you were giving your kids the drink with Splenda in it because you don't want them "sugared up and hyper," you might want to read the fine print about how these chemical sweeteners can cause hyperactivity and mood swings in test subjects, then give the kids a glass of milk instead.

Now, I know some people might read that last and say, "But wait, dairy products are no good. You should go dairy free." And probably whole foods, or raw foods, or vegetarian... Friends, whatever works for you, you must do. All I'm saying is, I intend to search for food that is as close to its natural form as I can find it and I won't be following any more trends without doing my own research. And I don't trust the FDA. But don't take my word for it. Read Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food, for a start. You may look at the contents of your cabinet in a whole new way.

Linky Malinky:

The Truth About Splenda

Michael Pollan, author of Omnivore's Dilemma

If You Grow It, You Can Trust It

Find a Farmer's Market

One Small Look At Carbs

How Not To Go To The Krohn's Conservatory Butterfly Show

First, select two highly energetic and somewhat stubborn children of your acquaintance to take along.

Second, under no circumstances should you plan anything ahead of time. Planning ahead is likely to prevent you from deciding to go to the butterfly show in Cincinnati on the same day and at the same time as a Red's home game.

Third, somehow do not notice the neon orange 35 mile per hour reduced speed limit sign and get a speeding ticket. Cry hysterically for a little while, then suck it up and keep going to the butterfly show.

Fourth, while still stewing about how to pay for said speeding ticket, go on autopilot and take the wrong exit off of the freeway. End up in downtown Red's game gridlockesque traffic.

Fifth, while slowly wending your way through downtown, get stuck behind a metro bus in a sketchy part of town.

Sixth, threaten to turn around and go home if one of the two aforementioned children asks you one more time, "Is the butterfly show closed now!?"

Seventh, drive up a really steep hill through an area where breaking down is likely to get you killed. In your nervous state, turn the wrong way down a one way block. Giggle somewhat hysterically.

Eighth, when you finally get back to Reading Road, first turn one street too soon for the Conservatory and instead end up in a parking lot with a very interesting tree next to an art museum. Then take one fork too many off the the roundabout and end  up in yet another scary neighborhood. 

Finally, drive around for at least fifteen minutes trying to find a place to park, since evidently you were not the only person insane enough to venture out on the same day as a Red's game.

Now that you have finally arrived, enjoy the bonsais, butterflies, flowers, and coy ponds. Avoid the souvenir shop if you value your life.

Sometimes, spontaneity is highly overrated... 

 Charlie talks to the Bonsai Guy.

 Orchid... orchid...

 Monarch chrysalides

 

 

 Proof that my boys are sweet! Yeah!

And proof that we, at least, are probably descended from apes... (No, I don't really believe that...)

I Will Now Subject You To My Poetry

Cut Flower's Lament

Chicory
Dies elegantly
On still-green stems.
Soft Indigo petals curl,
Fade eloquently
To Titanium White,
This vase an urn.
 

Of Thing That Hiss and Things That Zap

When I put my mind to it, I can remember being a kid in the country. Riding my bike to the mulberry tree with my brother and coming home dotted with purple stains. Walking back to the woods and coming back at a dead run being pursued by the biggest horsefly ever to exist on Earth. Riding on hay wagons with my uncle while he made up ridiculous lyrics to old hymn tunes. And the benchmark of country kid-dom: the first time I grabbed the electric fence. I can remember just about exactly where I was when that happened: the Eastern pasture field, just about parallel with the kitchen window. Dad was mending fences, and I was "helping." I knew that wire had electricity buzzing through it. Didn't Joel and I lay blades of grass between that wire and the parallel one on the pasture fence to watch them burn in half? And couldn't you hear the faint zzz-zzz-zzz as the current pulsed through? But my attention was elsewhere, and I stumbled, and reached out to steady myself... and that electric wire was what I grabbed. As I recall it, the wire froze the muscles of my hand around it and I couldn't get off of the thing until Dad yanked me loose. That's something I don't think I forgot twice. The wonderful phenomenon of natural consequences...

So Charlie had his first encounter with an electric fence a couple of days ago, and it wasn't even the poor kid's fault. We were driving down the road when I slammed on the breaks, as I often do, to observe natural phenomena. Well, not on the freeway or anything. I only do that on back roads. In this case, it was the road I live on at a low-traffic hour, and the natural phenomenon was a black snake sunning itself. We jumped out of the car to photograph the snake which, as anyone who reads this knows, is also a compulsion of mine; photographing random nature. The snake obligingly posed for me, stuck his black tongue out, and rattled his tail in the grass, pretending to be way tougher than he actually was. Since I knew him to be a common black racer, shy and non-venomous, his bluff didn't phase me. What did phase me was Charlie shrieking in my right ear. Evidently, the electric fence between us and the snake was turned on for the first time in the entire five years we've lived here, and I had forgotten to warn Charlie that yellow plastic insulators mean "This Fence Will Zap You" in the unspoken language of the country. I cuddled Charlie, and he didn't even cry, brave soul, but he did ask me, "Is my heart going to stop now!?" Yeesh. Do we really do our children any favors when we tell them terrifying things to keep them from sticking pennies in electrical sockets?

Okay, well, maybe, but terrorizing in the name of safety can be taken too far. Charlie, for instance, doesn't want to go into water deeper than his waist without a floaty, and if it is creek water deeper than the knee, he is convinced it will have snapping turtles, snakes, and alligators in it. Did one of us tell him tall tales to ward off drowning? Shame on us. Why don't kids come with user's manuals, eh? I need one, for sure. As an example, I clearly lost my mind today when I decided at 10 a.m. that it was a good idea to walk one and a half miles to the creek in ninety degree weather with four granola bars, two liters of water, a jar of peanut butter, three spoons, SPF 45, one dog, and two children under the age of seven. If you add up the numbers in that sentence and divide by three, you get my rough IQ.

The walk there went fine. Abraham said, "I walk!" and proceeded to do so for most of the way there. The walk in the creek went fine. We walked downstream instead of up, to see new things. What we got was a flatter, calmer stream, but wilder underbrush. We found a wonderful swimming hole that came up to mommy's waist. We also found a dollar in the creek water. When I proclaimed that this was the perfect place to swim, and paid us to swim there, so therefore we need not go to the Kincaid Lake pool this summer, Charlie staged a mutiny. So much for economy. What posed the greatest challenge about today's adventure was, of course, the walk home. We had been in the sun for hours, consumed our granola and spoonful's of peanut butter. Our water had gotten warm.  I was the only one still wearing a hat. We had forgotten to reapply our sunscreen, and the walk home was mostly uphill. Charlie reenacted the Israelites wandering in the wilderness. "Mo-om! Did you bring us out here to die!?" I could produce no manna, or quail, or even any more interesting reptiles, so I did my best with butterflies and flowers. Alas, I think they've outlived their fascination to small boys. Note to self: next time I decide to walk to the creek, take the wagon. And possibly a ice cream.

Pictorial for the Week 

(I won't bore you with plant details)

Isn't he vogue?

 More hearts.

Look! I'm so Amish! No, in fact, I've decided that the only way to get anything done is to take it outside and do it while the kids are getting sun-stroke. Thus, outdoor dishes! Applaud my ingenuity. Or perhaps insanity.

Check it out! We found a baby toad, smaller than a penny! We released him back into the wild, though. Being stared at by Abraham Lincoln seemed to really freak him out.

But I'm Such A Fungi!

We had a very wet Spring, which will come as a great shock to no one, I'm sure. When it rains as much as it did through April and May, people often start to complain. It doesn't bother me, though, because it brings so many blessings. For one thing, my cistern stays full even when I do 19 loads of laundry a day. For another, the wet brings forth all kinds of interesting plant life, and yes, fungi to delight us in our ramblings along the side of the road... or the pond, or wherever.

Coming back from the creek one day, the boys and I discovered we had a particularly spectacular fungus among us growing in a cascade off of the back of a roadside tree. I consider it a piece of special luck that I was able to get this picture since the owner of the property on which it was growing is just stupidly snobbish enough to consider this amazing piece of natural color an eyesore.

 A closer look? Love that orange!

It seems like our wet spell is drying up, now, though. Soon people will be complaining about not having enough rain. God must feel like I do when I'm trying to get my kids to eat a meal. "It's impossible to please you little monsters!" Thankfully, His patience is greater than mine. I'll try not to complain, at any rate, because this is the season for three of my favorite flowers. Daisies, Rough Fruited Cinquefoil (honestly, what is wrong with the people who name these things?), and Chicory. I love to see the bright yellow on pale yellow of the Cinquefoil in the tall roadside grass, despite the terrible name, and Chicory is the best shade of blue God ever invented. Both flowers defy cutting. They are wilted before you can get them in a vase, which I suppose is appropriate. You can't just go a clip a wild thing. and expect it to tolerate it.

June is butterfly, dragonfly, lady bug, and bumble bee time. Abraham is timid when he sees a butterfly, telling it, "Bu-ertie, don't huwt me," yet is completely unfazed by dragonflies and "biders." He is wisely wary of "bunny-beetles," (as he calls bumblebees) but will let a lady bug or caterpillar crawl on his finger. 

June is Honeysuckle and Multiflora Rose time too. As we drive slowly down our windy, narrow road, with the windows open, I say, "Mmmm! Smell that honeysuckle!" And a quarter mile later, Charlie says, "Mmmm! Smell that cow poo!" Well, we're just taking in the fresh country air!

And now for your (hopefully) weekly pictorial trip down a country lane somewhere in Kentucky...

 "Miami Mist," Waterleaf family, McKinneysburg Rd., late May

 Charlie named this kitten "Hannah."

Emerald Moth pays a visit to my siding.

 Look, he blends in perfectly with common clover in the yard...

not so perfectly with my rose that I put him on for a contrasting picture.

 Why do moths never learn that they're supposed to be pretending to be wood grain, not siding?

 Hairy Beardtongue... Yep, botanists are wildly sentimental namers.

 Fledgling Red Wing Blackbird says, "You can't see me..." I wish I could've gotten a picture of his daddy hovering above my head, freaking out while I menaced the baby with a camera.

Late May evening rainbow. Yay!

 A study...

 of textures...

Hearts...

 Dew-dusted Yarrow, Mark Haley Rd.

 Juniper berries, another of God's coolest colors.

 Musk Thistle, pre-bloom, Mark Haley Rd.

 Japanese Honeysuckle, a lovely invader.

Purple Marten takes a breather.

 Short-Sepal Beardtongue... See what I mean!?

 Venus's Looking Glass, Bluebell family, Butch's Pond

 Little Fritillary, Butch's Pond, Memorial Day weekend.

 Common White Tail. When I told all the men sitting around drinking beer at Butch's on Memorial Day weekend that I was going to take a picture of the "White Tail" they jumped up and got their rifles...

 Lady Bug says, "You can't see... Oops..."

 Stout Blue Eyed Grass, Butch's pond.

Little gray bird-dropping moth...

"Vivid Dancer" damselfly, Butch's Pond, Memorial Day weekend