Hunger Journal

As promised, below is my hunger scale journal of a little under 36 hours of observation.  Needless to say, it didn't really... work.  That is, I didn't really succeed in using the scale to cultivate healthful eating habits.  BUT I learned a lot as I monitored my hunger during these two days (as I re-read this, all I can think is gosh, look how much time I spent either hungry or thinking about how hungry I'm going to be - is that normal??)  Much of these realizations I plan to share in later posts.  But in the meantime, here is the journal, in its entirety and (mostly) unedited:

DAY ONE

3:15 pm - 6 (perfectly comfortable) sliding fairly quickly into 5 (comfortable).

I feel pretty good!  Nice way to start off my experiment.  Started getting peckish again immediately after lunch, but I ate a peach about a half hour ago and that seems to have done the trick, at least for now.  I can feel myself getting hungry fairly quickly though... talking about that peach made my stomach rumble a little.  Mmm.  Yup.  Just in the process of typing this, I'm a solid 5.

4:15 – Still sitting surprisingly well between 5 and 6.  

Wow, I definitely expected to feel hungry by now, but I'm still perfectly fine.  I can sense  the hunger creeping on, though, and it's making me nervous.  I wish I could snack on something, just to be on the safe side.  There are pickles in the walk-in that I could eat…  Will not, though, as an experiment, since the idea is to not eat anything when I'm feeling perfectly comfortable.

5:15 - WHOA.  Started biking home and dropped all the way down to a 3 (uncomfortable).  

I am HUNGRY.  When did that happen???

6:15 – 2 (Oh my god oh my god oh my god.)    

I'm still not home yet, and I'm so hungry.  I'm having trouble biking, I'm so hungry.  The wind feels like it's going to blow me over, I actually feel weak.

Now I'm worried.  I'm ready to EAT THE WORLD right now.  This is the point where I become a bottomless pit. 

If I had eaten those cucumbers even though I wasn't hungry, maybe I wouldn't be going batshit insane right now.  

Okay, game plan:  Go home, have a quick salad and a handful of almonds IMMEDIATELY in an attempt to sate me till I finish making dinner and stave off bad choices.  

7:15 – 4… I think?

Game plan did NOT work.  Immediately shoved a handful of almonds into my mouth and then got to work making the salad.  Accidentally ate, like, a pound of cheese.  I don't even know how that happened.  Opened the fridge to get the stuff dinner all the sudden the cheese was in my mouth.  And I didn't even care.  

Ate a big spinach salad and a decent-sized slice of pizza (homemade), which I decided was an appropriate-sized meal.  But despite having eaten cheese, almonds, salad and a big slice of pizza, was still hungry, holding steady at a 3, 3.5.  I tried to hold out for a full 20 minutes, as I've been told that's how long it takes for the stomach to process fullness... but I was just. too. damn. hungry.  UUUUUUUGGGGGHHHH.  Ate another (smaller) piece of pizza.  

It's been over 20 minutes now, and I'm still hungry.  Could definitely eat some more, but can refrain.  I guess that puts me at a 5?  No - no, I'm not comfortable, I'm still HUNGRY.  I'm a 4!  Wait, no, AM I a 4?  W

But when I think about how much I ate, I feel a little queasy, like I ate too much.... maybe I'm a 6, working up to a 7?  No, that CAN'T be right.  I can’t be a 4 and a 6 at the same time.  I don't know! 

How is it that I can’t TELL how hungry I am!?!?

8:15 – Ugh.  Officially FULL (7).  

Right at the number that I wasn't supposed to be at.  I'm not SUPER-full - not terribly uncomfortable, but definitely full.  And starting to think about how much cheese I ate.  Oh god, why did I eat that much cheese?  What is wrong with me??

9:15 – 4.  DUDE WHAT THE HELL?  

I'm hungry again.  “Slightly uncomfortable and starting to think about food again,” that's me.  Well, whatever tummy.  It almost time for bed.  That's all you get. 

DAY 2

5:45am – A low 3.

Heading to yoga on my bike, and I don't want to bite anybody's head off yet, but am about as hungry as I can be before reaching that point.  Not going to eat a thing, though, as during hot yoga you can feel every little thing in your stomach.

6:45 – N/A

In hot yoga.  Want to throw up, and never look at food again. 

7:45 – 2 and dropping.

If I had a fork, I would take out my breakfast and start eating them right now.  But I don't, so I have to wait. 

8:45 - Hunger level somehow moved back from a ravenous 2 to a manageable 3. 

AND it's finally breakfast time, so all is well!

9:45 – A meager 4.

So much for breakfast.  Still hungry, still thinking about food.  It’s only going to get worse from here and it's not even 10:00am.  And I have nothing to snack on.  It's going to be a long, hard trek through the morning.  I'll probably have to open a bottle of Perrier in an hour or so and hope the bubbles trick my stomach into thinking it's full long enough to get to lunch.

10:45 – Almost a 5.

Went for the Perrier and the bubbles trick is totally working.

11:45 – Back down to a low 4.

The bubbles never help for long.  Grabbed a handful of carrots meant for lunch about 45 minutes ago, but it didn’t help.  Lunch is a 1pm.  Think I can last without going crazy with hunger.

12:45 – Still sinking – now a low 3. 

REALLY hungry, thank God it’s lunch.

1:45 – 5 (finally.)

I could definitely eat more, but I've packed nothing more to eat and I'm okay with that.  I'm already getting hungry again, though, unbelievably. 

2:45 - A solid 4.

Which is not the worst at all.

3:45 – 3 and falling fast.

OMG OMG.  Was planning on getting a muffin and fruit salad at the coffee shop for dinner, but I need that muffin NOW.  Okay, muffin now, maybe a sandwich for dinner.  That seems like an extravagant snack, but at this point, I don’t effing care.

4:45 – 5.  Woo!

I seriously inhaled that muffin.  But I feel sooooooo much better.  And it’s practically dinner time – maybe I shouldn’t get a sandwich after all?

5:45 – Still 5 (!?!?)

Okay, sure!  Still feeling good, so I left the coffee shop for rehearsal this evening sandwichless.  I feel comfortable, but nervous about my choice.

6:45 – 4. Yeah. Bad choice.

Everyone around me is cracking open sack-dinners.  They look so good.  Rehearsal is until 10pm.  This is going to suck.

7:45 – 3.

God I’m dumb.

8:45 – 2.

Dammit.  When I get home I’m going to eat too late and too much.  

Practicing Mindfulness

58. It's okay to be a little hungry.
59. Don't let yourself get too hungry.
60. Consult your gut.

Right, so, as we all know by now, MP has a lot of rules not just about what to eat, but how to eat.  In fact, if you break it down, about 30% of the rules in the book are about how to eat - a ratio that is clearly not reflected in the blog.  Because, as I've also mentioned, these are the rules that I really, really want to pretend don't actually exist.

(UPDATE: I am doing NO BETTER at leaving food on my plate.  I'm compelled to lick the damn thing clean, God help me.)

So, in an effort to better listen, and react accordingly, to the cues my body is giving me, I employed the use of this nifty hunger chart I ran across recently while cruising the interwebs:

So this chart is lifted off a post on some British chick's blog (thanks, StumbleUpon!) about her philosophies on dieting and healthy lifestyle.  I agree with about 85% of what she says on the blog, and I think she's got the right idea with this hunger scale. 

I am, admittedly, slightly skeptical of the numbers this girl throws out there.  She recommends starting to eat when you hit a 4 on the scale, which is defined as "starting to feel hungry and think about food."  I find this utterly baffling, as I am always kind of hungry and thinking about food, so, basically, to fully follow this advice I'd have to eat all the time, which can't be right.  Furthermore, she advocates stopping eating at a 5, as defined as "more or less satisfied, but could eat a little," which falls pretty well in line with Pollan's ideas about stopping eating before you get too full.  BUT, that's only if you're trying to lose weight.  For those happy with their weight and simply trying to maintain, she recommends stopping at a 6, or "perfectly satisfied/content."  Conversely, Pollan repeatedly advocates for stopping while you're still a little hungry.  Rule 58: it's okay to be a little bit hungry.  Rule 55: Stop eating before you're full.  So, there's obviously a small difference in philosophy here.

But the general idea - pay attention to how you feel and don't stuff your face - is essentially the same.  So I decided to do a little experiment and check in with my place on the hunger scale for two full days.  The goal was to start eating when my hunger fell between a 3 and a 4, and to stop eating when it reached somewhere between 5 and 6.

The results were surprising.  I don't know what exactly I was expecting; my best guess was that I would fall on the hungry side of the scale most of the time, and occasionally - accidentally - be way too full.  Which is not actually not an inaccurate summation of my observations, but the little details I started to notice about why and when and how I moved from one number to another on the hunger scale were eye-opening.  The full journal proved fascinating, but somewhat epic, so I'm going to give it its own separate post.  Stay tuned tomorrow.  In the meantime, how do you think you would measure on the scale?

Sugar Addendum

So now we know all sweet things are not created equal, and it's preferrable to eat certain sweet things over others.

But you know what you should definitely not use?

Agave nectar!  That's right!  That's stuff they sell in the health food store and advertise as purest, most natural form of sugar ever. 

Not so, according to this article, which I found via the amazing Local Foods in New Mexico.  Apparently, it the article is to be believed, agave nectar is actually agave carbohydrates processed into its sugary components.  Just like corn syrup.  It's the high fructose corn syrup of agave.  High Fructose Agave Syrup.  AND it has an even higher percentage of fructose than high fructose corn syrup.

Ugh.  This just goes to show how alienated we are from our food.  Distributors can just make up stories about the products they sell us and we'll believe them because what do we know about where are food comes from?  

I don't know what the solution is here.  But the problem is worth pointing out.  Again.

Also, don't buy agave nectar.   

Pour Some Sugar On Me

38. Eat sweet foods as you find them in nature.
49. Regard nontraditional foods with skepticism.
50. Avoid ingredients that lie to your body.


A lot can be inferred from these three tiny rules about our relationship to sweet things.  Artificial sweetners are out; nothing more accurately defines an ingredient that "lies to your body," than the chemical cocktail in a diet soda.  But it's also worthwhile to point out that, if you've been playing along, diet soda was nixed a long time ago for a lot of different reasons.  But Pollan goes through the trouble of condemning diet sodas and fat-free alternatives and the like, not simply because they're full of chemicals, but specifically because those chemicals lie to your body. 

Why?  It's simple.  That artificial sweetner in your tea, say, may have zero calories for your body to process, but your body is still processing it.  You put it in your body, now your body has to do something with it.  You don't have to be a biologist or a chemist to understand that - that's just logic.  But how is your body processing it?  I think it's safe to say we don't really know.  It may not be doing the same thing real sugar is doing, but it is doing something.  Multiple studies have proven a link between the consumption of diet sweeteners and obesity.  It's not a get-out-of-jail-free card.

But artifical sweeteners aren't the only thing on Pollan's bad list.   It turns out nature is actually pretty smart about understanding how much of a sugar rush our bodies can handle all at once.  That even goes for things like juice - as Pollan points out, fruit juice, once freed of all the pulpy, fibery goodness that surrounds it, is sugar that gets immediately absorbed by your system.  It's natural but it's not "as it's found in nature." 

And if juice is out, then regular old granulated sugar is definitely out.  Sugar is definitely processed.  It's highly processed.  So, what's left?  Honey, I guess?  Raw honey, to be specific? Maybe maple syrup?  I'm not totally sure how maple syrup comes out of the tree.  And I'm not totally sure if even those count.  I thinking the point that Pollan is trying to make is that nature makes sweet things sweet (like apples) and makes not-sweet things not sweet (like broccoli).   If God didn't sweeten it for you, don't freaking sweeten it!  That's right, no brown sugar in your broccoli stir-fry! 

I find this rule to be totally unfair, and flies in the face of thousands of years of culinary tradition.  So I get around this a little loophole: I'll use regular sugar in anything I cook myself.  I mean, Pollan said I could eat all the junk food I want, as long as I cook it myself.  Is he gonna take that back now?  Is it, "all the junk food I want as long as it's made with raw honey" now?  No.  I refuse.

But his point is well taken.  Don't use artificial sweeteners if you can use real sugar.  Actually, scratch that.  Don't use artificial sweeteners EVER.  Don't use sugar if you can use honey or maple syrup or fruit juice.  But don't just drink fruit juice, it's not as healthy as you think.  And don't sweeten with anything if you can get away with it.

It's Pronounced "Keen-wah."

42.  "The whiter the bread, the sooner you’ll be dead." 
43.  Avoid sugary and starchy food if you're concerned about your weight. 
44.  Favor the kinds of oils and grains that have traditionally been stone-ground.


In case you've been wondering to yourself, WTF does a millet casserole look like?  It looks like this:

And this:

And since there seemed a lot of speculation in general about what on earth a millet casserole is, and why in God's name I would be inspired to make one, I thought the topic of millet and other lesser known grains merited a bit more discussion.

Millet is in my opinion, is a highly under-rated grain.  Often dismissed as birdseed, it's actually a nutrient rich whole grain packed with protein.  It's so good for you that I often find myself wondering, "what's the catch?"  It's way too delicious to be as good for you as it is; it's got a mild, bready flavor that I mentioned earlier makes a great base for a casserole.  I got turned on to millet, along with quinoa, buckwheat, kamut, barley, and farro last year, during the week and a half my friend Jenna somehow convinced me that it would be great to go on a macrobiotic diet.  I don't know how she convinced me of this; nothing about macrobiotics is in any way conducive to my lifestyle or tastes.  I mean, don't get me wrong, I think there's definitely something to the idea, but I just love bread and cheese way too much to adopt a largely vegan diet that relies heavily on whole grains.

And by whole grains, I don't mean whole grain like your bread is whole grain or like General Mills claims their cereal is "whole grain."  I mean, like the whole. grain.  The whole thing.  Apparently you don't just have to eat grains after they've been ground up into flour.  And apparently there are other grains besides wheat, rice and corn!  Who knew?  Before I went on my brief but informative macro-spree I was vaguely aware of such grains, but never considered them a viable option.

So the basic idea of macrobiotics (if I remember correctly, which I probably don't) is that you should eat leafy greans ALL THE TIME.  Just, like, all the time.  With every meal.  Tons.  And then you supplement with various vegetables and grains.  But whole grains; refined flour is kind of a no-no.  As are meats and other animal by-products.  But I did learn two important things from the experiment:  1) I really love leafy greens and 2) other grains exist besides wheat and rice.

These revelations proved to be important when starting this project because, as evidenced by the rules above, the Food Rules don't look too kindly on bread.  Definitely not white bread.  Number 42 speaks for itself; as for 43, I can't think of anything that says sugary and starchy better than a big, white baguette.  And what Pollan means when he says stick to grains that were traditionally stone ground is this:  if you had a mano and metate right now, and you ground those grains down yourself, would the flour make the bread you're eating now?  If you've got a piece of Wonderbread sitting in front of you, the answer is no.  You can't stone-grind white flour.  It's a whole process.  

I think if you were to really do the rules right, you might want to cut out bread all together.  I mean, when you think about just turning grain into flour is process, isn't it?  Of course, I can't get that hardcore.  Just sticking to whole wheat flour is a project in and of itself.  Sometimes I want to scream at the top of my lungs in the middle of the grocery store (the co-op, even), OH MY GOD SERIOUSLY PEOPLE HOW HARD IS IT TO GET A LOAF OF BREAD WITHOUT WHITE FLOUR WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE WORLD!?!?  


But I have been playing around with more whole grains under the basic philosophy that the whole-er, the better.  I made that millet bake last week.  I made a buttermilk farro salad this week:

For the recipe, click here.

Though, full disclosure: the faro is pearled, which means that some of the nutrient- and fiber-rich outer bran removed, like in white rice.  I'm not sure where things like that lie on the Food Rules continuum, but someone told me that grains that have had some of their goodness stripped away are still better for you than, say, whole wheat that's been turned into flour.  And at this point I feel so saturated with nutritional philosophies, I have no idea.  It probably depends on your definition of "good for you."  Anyway, pearled farro was what the co-op had, so pearled farro was what Leigh made.  And it was good. 

I'm getting off topic.  Moral of the story: whole grains unexplored healthy fun.  Even before I started this project, I rejoiced when I discovered all these new grains because, as much as love bread and pasta, everything eventually gets old.  So... next time you're feeling bored in the kitchen... try some millet?  And stop making fun of me for eating birdseed.

The Saddest Thing

51. Enjoy drinks that have been caffeinated by nature, not food science.
52. Have a glass of wine with dinner.

If I'm going to be completely honest, I would not have even considered this project, were it not for these two rules condoning the consumption of certain strong beverages.  Specifically, the coffee.  Limit myself to things caffeinated by nature?  No problem!  I don't care for Coke, and Red Bull terrifies me.  But Don't. Mess. With. My. Coffee.  I'll give up meat, I'll give up white flour, I'll give up delicious Morningstar Buffalo Wings.  But go without coffee?  I did that for the first 18 years of my life, and I don't care to do it again, thankyouverymuch.

And while I've never been a huge drinker, I've been taking full advantage of Pollan's encouragement to open the vino.  A glass of wine with dinner?  Don't mind if I do!  Normally, I'd refuse (extra calories - you know) but if my buddy MP says so... 

I've also, by extension, included beer in this line of logic.  No, Pollan doesn't specifically mention beer, and it doesn't really have any of the nutritive properties of red wine, but clearly alcohol is not verboten and if I'm drinking LOCAL beer... well, it's practically my duty. 

The only thing is, I fear my zealous embrace of the thumbs-up to wine and coffee isn't working for me. 

Oh.  It pains me to even type those words.

Okay, I know that the book is the Food Rules and not the Food Bible and that there are bound to be some things that don't work for everyone, and part of this journey is discovering what works for me.  But, man, it was SO much easier to say that not eating meat wasn't working for me.

But I've been feeling extremely emotionally volitile lately.  Except, "emotionally volitile" makes it sound so simple and sterile.  Here's the messy truth:  less than a year ago, I moved over a thousand miles away from the place I'd called home for the past ten years.  I violently shifted career paths; I started working three different jobs totaling a fifty-hour work-week if I'm lucky.  I'm exhausted, driven, exhilerated, terrified, focused, overwhelmed, lonely, confused, and determined, sometimes all in the same day.  Sometimes all in the same hour. 

And I don't think all the coffee and wine is helping.

Cutting down on the coffee is kind of a no-brainer.  There have already beens studies that have conclusively linked the consumption of caffeine to increased anxiety.  Wine and alcohol took me a little longer to figure out.  I mean, alcohol isn't a stimulant; it doesn't wind you up, it chills you out - and isn't that exactly what I need, to chill out? 

It's counter-intuitive to think about sitting back at the end of a rough shift with a glass of wine, or kicking back with a beer on the back porch on a Sunday and tell myself that, despite seeming like the best idea ever, this will actually stress you out more. 

But the fact is, alcohol and caffeine, no matter how benign they may seem, are still drugs.  And drugs affect your mood.  That's what they do.  That's what they're made to do.  So maybe, just maybe, when I'm not feeling in control of my emotions, I should cut out things that take that control away from me?  It's just a wacky idea. 

So, sorry, MP.  As much as it pains me to say it.  I think I've found a couple more of your rules that just don't work for me.

And in the meantime, a glass of sparkling mineral water mixed with muddled mint straight from my backyard is just as enjoyable on the back porch, and totally Food Rules-approved.

Spicy Success

46. Love your spices.
37. Sweeten and salt your food yourself.
82. Cook.

Unless you want to ask every server, barista, and counterperson at your favorite sandwich shop, "What is in this?  Is there any way I can see a complete list of ingredients?" (And - FYI - the answer to that question is almost always no), Rules 37 and 82 are pretty much unavoidable.  Still, when you live a busy life, you have to learn very quickly how to cook efficiently for yourself.  You need meals that are fast, simple, (link)utilize massive amounts of seasonal produce, that can be cooked in huge quantities and frozen easily for the weeks ahead.  It's rough and often deeply stressful tightrope to walk. 

Which is why I'm so extremely proud of the taco millet bake I made up last week: not only does it meet all the above requirements, it's also so rich in spices I don't even feel compelled to top it with cheese (a big feat for me - I want to add cheese to EVERYTHING).  This is the idea behind the "love your spices" philosophy, and an old standby in weight loss circles in general: if you spice your food properly, you won't have to slather it in so much fat and salt. 

I scavenged my recipe from a millet bake by Mark Bittman (who we've already established is awesome).  This is absolutely nothing like my taco bake, but it was the only thing I could find online with instructions for baking millet.  Millet is a lovely and undervalued food; it's a whole grain and loaded with all kinds of fiber and protein.  It's also got a very mild, bready flavor which I think makes it a great base for just about any kind of casserole. 
Unfortunately, since I just sort of made this dish up as I went along, I have nothing that bears any resemblence to a comprehendible recipe.  Instead, here's some detailed instructions for how you can make this casserole, if "you" are actually "me."  ...Which also serves as a pathetic peek into how Leigh functions in the kitchen.

1. Get out some ground meat from the freezer - you happen to grab a pound of lean, grassfed beef, but really any meat from a well-fed animal will do - and brown it.

2. While the ground beef is cooking, chop up every vegetable you can get your hands on; everything that you bought at the growers' market that weekend, plus some other stuff lying around that you did.  This could (and does) include red peppers, zucchini, summer squash, oyster mushrooms, and corn kernels.  Oh, and some organic black beans, because they're in your cupboard and why not? More protein.  Chop up an onion too, but set that aside to sautee with the millet.

3. Dump all the vegetables in a bowl with some tomato paste (note: it is difficult to find a can of tomato paste with just pure tomato puree and no weird stuff like sodium citrate, but not impossible) and nice big heap of cumin (probably a tablespoonish?) some salt, and some cayenne pepper if you want it spicy.  Mix it up so that all the vegetables are evenly coated.

4. Spread the veggies out on the bottom of a big casserole dish.... and then transfer to an even bigger casserole dish because there are a TON of veggies in there.  Layer the ground beef on top and set aside. 

5. Start sauteeing your onions in some oil until the onions are transucent.  Take out your millet, measure out a half a cup like in Bittman's recipe and then decide that a half a cup doesn't look like near enough, so just dump out all of it (probably another half a cup) into your pan and cook until the millet is golden brown and fragrant, just like Bittman says.

6. Layer the millet on top of the veggies and beef, and cover the top with a little more tomato puree, just for good measure.  Realize with all the extra millet, you have absolutely no idea how much liquid to add, so fill with vegetable broth until it covers the mixture by about an inch.  Hope that works. (It does.)

7. Cover with foil and bake at 400 degrees for... 20 minutes, maybe?  Half an hour?  Keep an eye on it, just to be safe, and bake until the millet is cooked.  It's obvious when it is - it changes color, and looks all puffy and delicious and edible.

8. Divide into individual portions, freeze and sprinkle with a little cilantro when served.  Congratulate yourself on NOT wasting precious time in the kitchen on an utter failure.  Good job!

Happy Independence Day

64. Spend as much time enjoying the meal as it took to prepare it 
65. Give some thought to where your food comes from.

Happy Independence Day, all.  It's late, and I'm just returning home from a spectacular barbecue with my family.  Chicken, corn on the cob, two different types of pasta salad, plenty of beer...

I'm not gonna lie, I broke a lot of rules.  We made "spiedies," which are essentially chicken kebabs with an italian marinade specific to my mom's hometown in upstate New York.  The marinade is dripping with more chemicals and preservatives than you can pronounce, but god are they good.  

But we also homemade vanilla ice cream topped with fresh berries made with my grandma's old, old school ice-cream maker, which we all took turns cranking until our arms fell off.  So I like to think that balances it out.

Remember these!?!?

It tasted like only fresh, homemade ice cream can taste, which is to say, heavenly, and totally worth the cramping biceps.  This is my grandma's classic recipe, to go with her classic ice cream maker.  Enjoy!

INGREDIENTS

• 6 eggs
• 2 c. sugar
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 3 Tbsp. vanilla
• 2 pt. whipping cream
• 3 pt. half & half
• milk "to fill"

It came out a little melty, but still delicious.

INSTRUCTIONS

Beat the eggs, sugar, salt and vanilla together, then mix in whipping cream and half & half until everything is incorporated.  Pour mixture into the ice cream maker.  Top off with milk until it is about three inches below the top of the container.  Put the top on the ice cream maker and fill the bucket around it with as much ice and rock salt (we used kosher salt) and crank until your arm falls off!  Seriously, crank until the ice cream is too stiff and the crank won't move.  Open it up, pull the paddles out, close it again, and cover the whole the with ice (we wrapped it up in a towel, too, to achieve maximum coldness) until you're ready to serve.

Very patriotic.

Happy 4th of July!

On Falling off the Wagon

83. Break the Rules Once in a While.

I totally fell off the wagon. Hard.

I mean, I don't mean to imply that I've spent the time last since last I wrote consumed in a hedonistic, Twinkie-fueled fury. I'm still doing the rules. I'm still plugging onward. But there's been a lot less devotion to the project and a lot more I'm-too-busy-to-make-this-from-scratch or I-don't-have-time-to-go-the-farmers-market, a bunch of oops-I-guess-I-shouldn't-have-eaten-that, a bit of oh-I-shouldn't-eh-forget-it and WAY too much well-it's-just-one-bite.

And there's clearly not been nearly enough writing.

If you want to analyze it, there are a lot of reasons you could give for why I've lost steam over past few weeks - I lost momentum while on vacation, my life suddenly got even busier (how is that possible?), I'm TIRED. But I don't want to analyze it, or make excuses for myself.  I want to spend some time actually thinking about what it means to fall off the wagon.

I've been a devoted wagon-faller-offer since I was thirteen years old, and I still don't really know how to deal with it.  The traditional wisdom is, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, get back on the horse (it's a horse now, not a wagon - keep up).  Don't get discouraged.  I get that, but I can't help feel that this is a massive over-simplification of a complicated human quality; plus it's way easier in theory than in practice.  If it were that easy to just get back up and keep going, you probably wouldn't have fallen of the wagon in the first place.

The fact is, we live in a world of abundant choice; wherever choices and people exist, what will inevitably follow after are rules.  And it goes without saying that hand-in-hand with rule-making is rule-breaking.  So why do we do it?  How can we do it less?  How can we turn what is essentially an unavoidable, messy part of the human condition and turn it into a constructive, motivating experience?

Pollan even speaks a little to this issue in Food Rules.  "Our experience over the past few decades suggests," he says, "that dieting and worrying too much about nutrition have made us no healthier or slimmer."  This makes sense to me: nowhere in our society is our abundance of choice more evident than in our diet.  Like heavy, frustrating dominos, more choice leads to more rules leads to more falling off the wagon.  But it doesn't matter what your poison is - shopping, drinking, messing around on Facebook (guilty) - there's bound to be something you do way too much of, just because you can.

Pollan's solution is to break the rules once in a while, which is another way of saying, don't be too hard on yourself - don't get discouraged.

This is fine.  I see the wisdom in this.  Many a time I've fallen victim to the cycle of experiencing a burst of self-improving energy, followed by eventual failure, followed by, well, that didn't work, and a return to my previous vices with equal or greater intensity than before.

But at the same time, I have to wonder if capitulation to discouragement is the real demon here.  Don't be too hard on yourself when you mess up, is the sage advice nearly every diet plan ever created will tell you.  But why SHOULDN'T we be hard on ourselves?  Isn't the problem sort of that we cut ourselves too much slack already?  Isn't every time I go to the fridge to munch on a tiny piece of cake and think to myself, "This isn't a SNACK, it's just one bite," - isn't that a kind of unwarranted forgiveness?

Look - I'm not saying that we should all go around hating ourselves for our shortcomings.  But I am saying that when we continue to do things that make us hate ourselves, I doubt that we do so just because change is hard and we got discouraged.

Discouragement or frustration is not what causes falling of the wagon, nor what prevents us from getting back up.  It, like falling off in the first place, is a symptom of a larger issue.  And those excuses I had for falling off the Food Rules wagon?  Too busy, too tired, lost focus, etc. - those are symptoms too.

The issue at stake is Control.

We lose focus, get discouraged, fall off and refuse to get back on when we stop understanding that the choices that we make are ours to make.  So you ate those nachos and did tequila shooters when really shouldn't have - or you caved and watched America's Next Top Model when you swore you were going to get your laundry done (note: these situations are *totally not real* and have never happened to me.)  Don't think to yourself, "Oh, I'm just so weak." Think, "Why did you do that, Lei- er, anonymous person who is totally not me?  Why did you make that stupid choice?"

Because it was my choice.  The human being is an amazing creature, and there's very little one can't accomplish if one invests enough time and effort.  So if you're saying to yourself, "I'm too tired, too fat, too weak, too busy," the odds are, you just haven't made what you want enough of a priority.

And guess who has the control to make it a priority.

Is this too harsh?  I think I live a life of extreme expectation - of the world, and of myself.  I'll be the first to admit, I spend a large percentage of it feeling frustrated and disappointed - and I would not have it any other way.  When I think of all the things I want myself to be, and all things I want the world to be, I can't think of anything else to do but keep falling on my face over and over and over again to realize them.

So take what I have to say with a grain of salt, is all.

Maybe I am being to harsh.  Maybe I only say all this because the only time I get things accomplished is when I have the guts to be harsh with myself.  I'm all for breaking the rules - I'm just saying, break them on your terms.  I think that whenever we get overwhelmed, or give up, or set aside an important goal we meant to reach, it's because we feel like we have no control over the situation, like the deck is insurmountably stacked against us.  And that's simply untrue.  So I guess what I'm saying is don't be afraid to get mad at yourself once in a while.  Because you're right - you can do better.  

Table Rules

73. Eat at a table
75. “No labels on the table.”
76. Place a flower on the table and everything will taste twice as nice

At least this is a dilemma I can avoid...

By the way? “A desk is not a table.” Pollan wastes no breath making that little caveat clear. Well, fine, MP, but is a coffee table a table?

It totally is.

I know, I know, that’s a totally semantic, flexible interpretation but... there’s something deeply depressing about eating alone at a big ol’ dinner table, isn’t there? Bouquet of flowers notwithstanding. I did it a couple of times and I just felt sad. I’m not one to go out and buy a bouquet of flowers just to spruce up my Tuesday night leftovers, but we do have a rather pretty bamboo shoot on our mantle that I moved over to the table a couple of times to see if it made my food taste better.

It didn’t. And it was still sad. So I said, you know what - forget the table rule. The whole point of the rule, in my opinion, is to appreciate and enjoy my food, and I just can’t do that while chewing silently and awkwardly alone at the dining room table. So screw it: a coffee table is a table.

I’ve actually had to get extremely comfortable with whole “upholding the spirit of the rule” thing, rather than upholding the rule itself, because you just can’t eat every meal at a table. I eat lunch at my desk every day because am I gonna waste 15 minutes of my precious lunch hour both ways leaving the building, heading down the street and finding a table at a nearby restaurant when my desk will do just fine? No, absolutely not.

Here’s how I see it: eat at a table = no distractions. Pay attention to what’s in front of you; appreciate it. Which is, as it would happen, also the intention behind the no-labels-on-the-table idea, and placing a flower there with you. Appreciate your meal. Respect it. Don’t ignore it or drown it out.

No TV. No internet.

If you bring your laptop to the table, it’s not a table. If you turn off your computer at your desk, it becomes a table. That’s how I’m choosing to play it.

I do make one notable exception to the no-distractions rule, and that is reading. Reading is allowed. Because, for me at least, reading is a quiet, thoughtful, introspective activity. And so that seems naturally in line with carrying out a quiet, thoughtful, introspective meal. And while I’m obviously in support of slowing down and appreciating what we consume, it seems to me it’s about as natural as a Cheeto to give my food my total and undivided focus. Eating is and should be an exercise in breathing, talking, laughing, thinking - to make it as silent and somber as a library is just silly.

What I Lack in Ability, I Make Up In Relentless Optimism.

33. Eat well-grown food from healthy soil.
81. Plant a vegetable garden if you have space, a window box if you don’t.

This seems like an appropriate rule upon which to ruminated this week, seeing as I just planted a garden for the first time in my entire life.

I don't have any pictures of my garden yet, so here's a picture of Sol Harvest Farm, where Ric gave me my plants. It's so pretty!

But I'm totally terrified.

You've got to understand this about me: I have a baffingly black thumb. No, you know what? Black doesn't even begin to describe it; it's as though somebody lit my thumb on fire, left the charred remains and then asked me to garden with it.

Once in my apartment back in New York, in a fit of productivity, I asked my friend Monica to give me a few of her plants to liven up my cramped living space. Monica, a permaculture expert, had so many plants in her in apartment, it was practically a greenhouse. "Be careful what you give me, though," I warned her. "I'm REALLY bad with plants."

"Don't worry!" she said, "I'm giving you my hardiest plants - trust me, they're impossible to kill."

Oh yes. I killed them all.

And if you want to get totally technical, I actually just finished planting a garden for the second time in my life - the first being a week and a half ago, when I somehow managed to kill it all in less than a fortnight.

I have no idea what I did. Did I give them too much water? Too little? Too much direct sunlight or too much shade? Did I transplant them too soon or too late? So I'm massively frustrated, and terrified I'm going to kill my second try in even less time. But, as my dad said, "Well, you can either try again or give up."

So, when Farmer Ric asked me on Monday, after spending the afternoon helping him weed at Sol Harvest, if I wanted a few of his extra plants, I said, "Hell yeah!" Though I did make him promise not to be offended if and when I accidentally kill his nice gifts. (He promised.)

I put the plants in the ground almost immediately, and I've stopped worrying about overwatering (it is the desert after all), and they seem to be doing okay so far. I even bought a soil test to discover my soil is too alkaline ("That's only all the soil in New Mexico," Ric scoffed) and I'm saving my eggshells to grind up in the soil to balance the pH levels. But mostly praying I somehow manage to get it right.

Just cross your fingers that in a month or two you'll be seeing photos of fat, luscious tomatoes and squash and not the withered little stalks of good intentions.

Leave Something for the Gods

54. ...Eat less
55. Stop eating before you’re full.
77. Leave something on your plate.

So, after all that good talk in the last post about accepting what you have and not assuming it's your right to consume whatever you want whenever you want, what did I do last night? I went home after work and thought, Ugh. It's my night off, and I want a nice meal. I really don't want any of those meals I cooked last weekend and put in the freezer. I just don't. I almost ordered a pizza. Don't worry, I didn't. I found some lasagna from the weekend in the fridge, poured m'self some wine (Rule 52) and made a night out of it.

And THEN I made a coffee-cup microwave cake for dessert (yeah, you read that right) because I was in a decadent mood. A decadent, petulant mood. I WANTED what I WANTED and I didn't want to think about the rules. And (surprise) realized too late that I broke a few.

I licked my plate clean, including the garlic bread I decided to make even though it wasn't remotely necessary. And despite the fact the recipe CLEARLY said the cake could easily feed 2-4, I went right ahead and ate it all. And then sat on the couch and thought, I'm really full. Wait... oops.

And truth be told, this wasn't an isolated event. Of all the rules in the book, these are probably the hardest for me. I've been known on several occasions to indulge delightedly in something I'm certain is rules-violation-free, only to realize that I may have over-indulged, and, oops, broken a rule.

I have an impossibly hard time with the concept of leaving something on my plate. I can't leave a bite behind. I just can't do it.

Come ON. How do you just throw that out???

Full confession (except it's not really a confession, because everyone who's seen me eat must know it): I'm that person who, even when everything in front of her has been consumed, scrapes her finger across edges and into eeeeevery tiny corner to get to the last crumbs. I inevitably want at least three more bites than I have left on my plate; it takes an incredible amount of restraint not to go back for seconds. It's just an affront not even to be able to eat my own full portion. And for what? To just throw out perfectly good food?

And yet, this is perhaps precisely why I should pay attention to this rule. Despite how wasteful and ungrateful it feels to toss the last bite, Pollan argues that our plate-licking mentality actually fosters an attitude of unbridled gluttony.

I've told myself that I don't really need leave something on my plate. It's a symbolic gesture anyway; the important thing is that I am mindful of how much I eat, and that I eat it slowly and consciously. I tell myself that it's enough not to eat everything on my plate just because it's there - to be okay with leaving something if I find I'm not hungry anymore. But maybe it's time to rethink that rational because, if my recent cake incident is any indicator, I'm not doing such a great job with the whole mindful eating thing. And if reserving that last bite really is a symbolic gesture, it's clearly a powerful one, judging by my reticence to part with it.

I don't really know what the answer is here - I think I'm just working some things out on paper. As convincing as the argument to leave something on you plate is, the fact stands that 9 times out of 10 when I get to that bite, I'm still hungry and it feels so wrong to throw out food when you're hungry.

On the other hand, I have to ask myself: why do I seem to have such a hard time eating slowly and carefully? I've told myself a million times, Leigh I say to myself, you would have such an easier time managing your weight if you just ate more carefully. Watch your portion size. Think about what you're eating. Eat slowly. Why is it that I'm willing swear off doughnuts forever in the name of health, but I refuse to take make the effort to see what would happen if I just ate the doughnut, but did so with deliberateness and thought? Why is that so hard? Shouldn't it be the easier of the two options? And if it is so hard, shouldn't I do anything in my power to break myself of that attitude?

I don't know. I really don't know. Am I just stubbornly digging my heels or do I have a valid complaint?

Who Is My Server?

28. Eat your colors.
34. Eat wild foods when you can.
66. Don't be a short-order cook.

Right, so, you know, I think I've done more than give Pollan's Food Rules the ol' college try; I've done everything in my power to follow each and every one in the full spirit in which they were intended. But there are a few rules where I am forced to draw the line. I don't want to - I just can't help it. It isn't going to happen.

Take Rule 34: eat wild foods when you can. Yeah. I live in New Mexico, arid land rich in squat cacti and dust. What am I gonna do? Hunt for jackrabbits and forage for tumbleweeds? We have an abundance of local food, if you take the time to find it, but all of it comes from a long and practiced agricultural tradition. To say, eat wild foods "when you can" is essentially to say eat wild foods never.

I can't really imagine foraging for truffles here.

The same goes for eating a variety of colors (Rule 28). Sure, that's doable - as long as those colors come in my weekly box from the local CSA. I know that my harvest box is the closest I'm going to get to all local, seasonal produce, and I know it's more than enough to last me the week. So I make a point not to shop elsewhere unless I run out. Which means that if I get a colorful box, hurrah! And if not? Well, too bad. I just can't have it all.

Which is where Rule 66 comes in because that's what that rule - don't be a short-order cook - is really all about: not having it all. When Pollan talks about not being a short-order cook, I assumed that this rule was geared toward parents. "When kids learn to think of the dinner table as a restaurant," Pollan says, "they’ll eat the way most people do in restaurants: too much." Not having kids, I thought this rule didn't really apply to me; I thought I would pretty much end up ignoring this one.

But what I didn't realize is how much I act like Pollan's "short order cook" for myself. I'm so used to the idea that I can make myself whatever I want, whenever I want - and why not? (I used to think.) I buy the groceries, I'm the only one I'm cooking for... why wouldn't I fix exactly what I want.

But take my limitations when it comes from eating from the wild and eating a variety of colors. Those are specific limitations bound to time and place. And when you take the time and effort to really consume what the ground under your own feet is yielding at that place and time, you find that those kinds limitations proliferate your plate. You realize how strange and wonderous it is that we can step into a magic, flourescently-lit room and purchase any food we wish and buy anything we can imagine at any time, when that structure is so contrary to the way Mother Nature originally laid it out.

And I'll be the first to admit, I'm far from enlightened here. It's hard. It's really hard to tell yourself, "No, you can't have a mango on your cereal. Mangoes grow in a tropical climate, and you're in the middle of the desert in the middle of winter," when all your life you've been told that if you want a mango on your cereal, just go get one. But I'm starting to see that I can want strawberries for breakfast and have to have grapefruit because that's all that came in my harvest box was grapefruit and I don't even really like grapefruit... and it's not the end of the world. I'm beginning to accept that if it's Thursday, and I don't want lentils and chard for lunch, but that's all I had time to cook this weekend so I HAVE to have lentils and chard... I won't die.

Grapefruit with honey... mmmm, not so bad...

Pollan encourages eating "what we're served, rather than what we might order or crave," When you're the one who serves yourself, recongizing that difference is tricky - but it's there. The more we understand that the abundance of choice the supermarket offers is hardly the only way to eat and certainly not our God-given right, the more spiritual, healthy, and mindful eaters we become. And, in turn, the more spiritual, healthy mindful consumers we become - better stewards of the world and ourselves. And that, to me, is what it's all about.

Magic Spinach Water

29. Drink the spinach water.

This was a new and illuminating rule for me. Apparently, the water in which you cook your vegetables retains much of the nutrients of the vegetables themselves. I had no idea. So Pollan suggests saving it and adding it to future dishes - boom, instant nutrient boost.

To be perfectly honest, I haven't been great at following this rule. I once saved the water in which I had steamed some broccoli... and then promptly let it sit in the refrigerator for several weeks. And that's about as proactive as I've gotten on this rule.

In my defense, I very rarely steam vegetables. I'm really much more of a grill/sautee kind of a gal. But that's no excuse; I can and should do better. A part of it is I wouldn't know what to do with my "spinach water" even if I had some. Pollan says it can be added to "sauces and soups," but as far as I'm concerned, that's way too vague to be helpful. So I'm giving a little love to this rule and trying to pay attention to ways I can "save the spinach water."

For starters, it occured to me that I could have thrown a little veggie water into the dish I made for lunches this week. Too late, of course - maybe next time. And in the meantime, I'm going to share the recipe anyway, because it was a)delicious, b) easy and c) healthy.

I took a picture of my own lentils, but it didn't turn out great. Green collard greens + green lentils + grey smoked turkey = not super photogenic (but still delicious). But it looks and tastes kind of like this. Mmmmm. Image courtesy of The Wednesday Chef, who, by the way, recommends using bacon rather than turkey and adding onions and balsamic vinegar. Which would probably also be good.

COLLARD GREENS WITH SMOKED TURKEY AND LENTILS
Ingredients
•3-5 cups of collard greens, stemmed and cut into strips

**note: I ran out of collard greens halfway through and switched to chard, which tasted just as good.**

•1 cup green lentils
•1 cup chicken or vegetable broth
•1 cup water
1/2 tsp salt
pepper to taste (read: a crapload)

Instructions
•Combine ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil.
•Reduce to a simmer, cover, and cook for 30 minutes.

And that's it! So easy. So good. And it would be equally easy to replace a little of that water with leftover vegetable water instead.

And while I'm thinking about it, here's a few other ways I can think of to add veggie-water to my cooking:

• Homemade dips, like ranch, or spinach and artichoke - then when you dip carrots or celery in it, you get DOUBLE the veggie magic.


• Salad dressings. What if you threw a little bit of veggie-water into a homemade vinaigrette?


• Rice, quinoa and other grains - just throw it back in the water. That would work, wouldn't it? It would get absorbed back into the grain. And, I'll bet, would kick the flavor way up too.

So that's a start. And if anyone can think of other ways to get creative with the spinach water, I'm all ears.

Cheats

45. Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself.
72. Limit your snacks to unprocessed plant foods.
79. Treat treats as treats.

So... I've been cheating a lot.

Accidentally! Accidentally! But still cheating.

See, I LOVE Rule 45. Pollan says we should feel free to indulge in anything we make with our own two hands, because most junk food, like fried chicken or chocolate cake, is time and labor-intensive and will, therefore, be a self-regulating system. But when Pollan gave the all-clear, I he seriously underestimated my dedication to junk food.

I two jobs and over 50 hours a week right now, but still I've managed to come home, think, "God, all really want is a cake," and somehow find the time to actually bake a cake.

Most recently I made Miraculous Matzo, which you could also probably call matzo crunch or matzo brickle if you wanted to sound less silly. It's a ridiculously easy and disgustingly delicious recipe: basically melted brown sugar and butter poured over matzo. Topped with chocolate of course. If you're like me and you have a lot of matzo leftover from Passover that you don't know what to do with, trust me, this is it.

Image from www.davidlebovitz.com

So I made probably a metric ton of these sinful cookies in about 20 minutes flat, and now everytime I walk by the fridge, I reach for a cookie: Michael Pollan said I could! I made it, so he said I could eat as much as I wanted!

But a little part of me knows I'm cheating.

There are still Rules 72 and 79. Treats are still treats and snacks are fruits, vegetables, and nuts. NOT a piece of toffee every time I walk by the fridge.

But it's not any rule or intepretation of that rule that makes me think this is a cheat. Because if you play the semantics and spin it just right, you can still make a case for my more lax, cookie-friendly interpretation of Rule 45. What makes me sure I'm cheating is the what I feel after the cookie-gluttony has subsided. It's not guilt, exactly, but it's still a kind of disappointment. I didn't eat that cookie because I chose to eat it, I ate it because it was there, and I really, really wanted to. There was no consideration there, no awareness.

What's the lesson here? I think it's that the rules are only so worth so much. Even with so many of them so carefully drawn-out, each and every one is still subject to innumerable interpretations. And if you want to know if your interpretation is a good one, you're not going to find that in a book. Because a big part of eating well - of what Pollan is on about - is being mindful and aware of how we consume. Have I really thought about what I'm eating today? Am I being honest and careful and kind to myself with this choice?

I know, I know, easier said than done. But in the toxic culinary environment we've created for ourselves, we can't afford to eat mindlessly. So we've got to try. And sometimes, when you look at a cookie, the answer to those questions is no. But sometimes, I think it's important to keep in mind, the answer is yes.

And in that spirit, if you want to make Miraculous Matzo for yourself (and you should), here's how. The variation I used is from David Lebovitz's blog, and is just perfect:

MIRACULOUS MATZO
Combine equal parts brown sugar and butter and heat until they start to bubble. The recipe I used called for one cup of brown sugar and one cup of butter, though I felt it worked better when I used 1 1/2 cups of each. (And yes, that means I made this TWICE.) After the mixture starts to bubble, pour it onto a cookie tray lined with parchment paper and matzo and then bake at 350 about 10 minutes, until the mixture starts to darken. Take it out, pour a cup of chocolate chips on top IMMEDIATELY, let it stand for about 5 minutes to let the chocolate chips melt and then spread them across the top. Set it the fridge to harden and, hooray! Miraculous matzo.

**Note. If you don't have matzo, but still want to make these cookies, you can substitute Saltines. I can tell you from experience that this works great, and the cookies are Amazing.**

Break Time

After a long and grueling 46-day period, I'm taking a short break from blogging to catch up on the rest of my life. I haven't abandoned the rules, not for a moment. I'm just taking a short breather from writing about it, to do things like, you know, taxes.

Following a brief spring cleaning of my life, I'll be back next week with your regularly scheduled programming.

See you next Monday!

Day 43

More on meat, and then I'll shut up about it. (Probably.)

Maybe I'm hyper-aware because of this project, but I keep seeing articles about the relative benefits and health risks of eating meat. Mostly the latter; it eating meat might still be the order of the day in contemporary American society, but if my Facebook page is any kind of social barometer, thinking it's cool is hopelessly passe.

To begin with, I'm very intrigued by this article that drifted my way, because it's a very intelligent argument in favor of synthetic meat products, which Pollan specifically condemns. Mark Bittman, by the way, is the same author who wrote the previous amazing NYT article about meat to which I linked last week.

The article argues that eating meat (again:) is not a healthy choice for our bodies or the environment. The author is optimistic and excited about new, more realistic fake-meat products. With fake meat this good, he posits, even died-in-the-wool meat-eaters will be eating less of it. Which is good news for us and the planet.

Pollan, on the other hand, argues that anything that's one thing masquerading as another thing (that is, vegetables masquerading as meat) is bad news from the start. Why? Because anything that is made to feel, look, and taste like something it's not has, by very definition, been highly, highly processed. And we all know how Pollan feels about processed food.

So the question is, what, exactly, is so bad about a little processed soybeans anyway? If you ask Bittman, food made out of nothing but soybeans and other veggies is practically a God-send.

And if you ask Michael Pollan, the answer is, we don't know, and that should be enough. "Nutrition science is, to put it charitably, a very young science," says Pollan in his introduction, "[It's] approximately where surgery was in the year 1650 - very promising, and very interesting to watch, but are you ready to let them operate you?"

A fair point, MP, but by those same standards, an innumerable amount of things in our everyday lives are a "very young science": cell phones, X-rays, microwaves. We trust doctors and scientists everyday to tell us, "This is perfectly safe," without even seeing a full generation that has lived and died not knowing a world without that science. If we trust some guy to say, "Look this big plastic box is pumping radiation into your food in order to heat it, but don't worry, it's totally not going to give you cancer; we did a study," trusting that same guy to say, "This food may look different, but it's really just the same soybeans people have been eating for hundreds of years, so it's completely fine," is no big thing.

And then there's also this little Huff-Po Op-Ed gem that essentially likens eating meat to smoking cigarettes. Which I think is a bit extreme, but in its defense, it has some fair points. There was a study conducted at Harvard a few years ago that everyone - my buddy MP included - loves to cite, clearly linking the consumption of red meat to mortality rates. It's hard to refute that evidence - although some have tried, citing unreliable information-gathering, and a failure to distinguish between cattle that were grass-fed and those that were corn-fed and factory-"grown."


Personally, I think that if you look at the nutritive difference between corn-fed and grass-fed beef, as well as the high rates of antibiotics and hormones found in factory-raised livestock, it's clear that this is an important distinction. Still, it's necessary to recognize that these are important points.

But I have a hard time getting behind it. And it's not because of the grass-fed argument, and it's not because of the data collection methods. It's basic, gut instinct when I think about how I feel when I include meat in my diet vs. when I don't.

And it's the fact that people have been eating meat for thousands of years and seemed to do just fine. You know when don't seem to be doing just fine? Right now. Heart disease and cancer are the leading causes of death in America, with diabetes not far behind, making this century the first time in human history that the top two causes of death are largely influenced by lifestyle choices, as opposed to accidents or communicable diseases.

It seems profoundly counterintuitive to blame meat for this.

To eat meat or not to eat meat? To embrace imitation meat products as a health- and eco-savior or to denounce it as part of the problem? In situations like this, I think the best we can do is make the choice that feels right and pray that in the end good intentions count for something.

I know what I choose. What do you think?

Day 40 (So I've Been Thinking)

I'm at Day 40 here, which is kind of a milestone, so I've been thinking.

With six days left to go until Easter, I thought I'd be pretty much through all the food rules on the blog at this point. Turns out, I'm not even halfway through.

These 40 days have also been an exercise in back-tracking, amending, and re-evaluating; it's been a constant stream inside my head of After thinking about it, I really shouldn't be doing this and, you know, maybe I should start doing that. In hindsight it's unsurprising, but it has nonetheless changed the rhythm and intention. Instead of being six intense weeks of full-stop dietary changes, it's gathered steam slowly. So many things - like joining a CSA and trying my hand at homemade condiments - I feel like I just began. It certainly doesn't feel like I've been doing this for a month and a half - not for real anyway.

So I've got to keep going. I think I'll keep plugging away until I get a chance to write about all 83 Food Rules - or until it really, really feels like I'm doing this for real, no cheating or forgetting or taking shortcuts. Whichever comes last.

...

Now that I've said it, I'm a little overwhelmed. If I'm going to be honest with myself, I'm a little terrified of this project stretching out in front of me with no forseeable end to it. But I've started it, and ending it next week would feel to much like giving up now. I've got to see it through.

(Oh Lord, what have I done?)

Day 36

26. Treat meat as a flavoring or special occasion food
27. "Eating what stands on one leg [mushrooms and plant foods] is better than eating what stands on two legs [fowl], which is better than eating what stands on four legs [cows, pigs and other mammals]."

These two rules essentially address the same concept: the less meat in one's diet the better.

I'm conflicted on this concept. On one hand, I get the idea that, as Americans, we tend to believe that a meal = one big honking piece of meat and some other stuff, which is not only misguided, but actually completely backwards. Human beings aren't meant to eat so much meat, and until the combination of rising affluence of the United States and completely whacked-out federal subsidization of the meat industry, we didn't. It was too cost-prohibitive.

(Side note regarding that chart: Michelle Obama's crusade for healthier childrens' diets completely baffles me. What is the point of her campaign when at the very same time US government tacitly supports this massively unhealthy way of thinking and eating through its subsidies?)

And according to this totally bad-ass article from the New York Times that EVERYBODY should go read RIGHT NOW because it explains exactly what is so toxic about the overly meat-dependent diet, Americans eat twice the daily recommended intake of protein, and almost all of it from animal protein. World meat consumption has also doubled since 1961.

So I'm also all for reversing that way of thinking. I mentioned earlier that I try to make a habit of asking myself if there is just one vegetable I can add to every meal. By the same token, before preparing each meal, I ask myself if there is any way I can make it without meat. I also strive for and tally my "vegetarian days," days where (duh) I eat no meat whatsoever. Actually, today looks like it's shaping up to be a vegetarian day. An apple, homemade granola and yogurt for breakfast, salad and homemade pasta for lunch, and leftover huevos rancheros for dinner. Go me!

So, I totally, totally get that that's important. But, on the other hand, there comes a point in observing this rule that I can no longer see eye to eye with Pollan.

Pollan claims that vegetarians, as a rule, are "generally healthier," than meat-eaters, and I'm sure this is true. I'm sure there's a study out there somewhere, that proves it. Here's what I know: I was a rubbish vegetarian. I ate too much bread and cheese, too little protein. I also was (and am, if I'm going to be completely honest) not nearly creative enough or generous enough with my use of fruits and vegetables. In the words of my co-worker, who could not have said it better than me: "I was a vegetarian for a while - I got so fat and so tired."

So Pollan specifically advocates only eating meat in about two meals per week, leaving a whopping 19 vegetarian meals to figure out every week.

Now, for me, reduction in my consumption of meat came naturally for me, especially in the beginning, before I had had a chance to stock up on meat from local, non-industrial sources, because of the observation of Rule 30 (Eat animals who have themselves eaten well.) I thought maybe, as a more mature and thoughtful eater, that I would be better at being a vegetarian than I was as a teenager. That might be true up to a point, but I could also see a dozen bad vegetarian habits that I was falling right back into.

So, now that I've been to the co-op and the fancy local deli and I have an ample source of acceptable meat, I've slackened the reigns considerably. My personal goal is to have at least two vegetarian days per week, and eat meat with only one meal the rest of the time. I don't always succeed, and when I don't I'm not too hard on myself, but I think it's safe to say that this is the goal; this is what I find reasonable.

I had to be so lax about The Rules, especially in the middle of a project dedictated to observing them as strictly as possible, but I really think I'm in the right here. When I began eating meat again at age 20, I felt the effects immediately. I was less tired, more focused, had more energy. I didn't feel weighed down all the time.

I'm not one of those people who are all, "your body will always tell you what to do." In fact, I have not observed that to be the case at all. My body doesn't speak very clearly most of the time. So when it DOES, I feel obligated to listen.

After all, Pollan himself says in his introduction that food science is still relatively new. "Nobody knows what's going on deep in the soul of a carrot to make it so good for you," and, by that same token, nobody must know exactly what is going on deep within my body that makes meat so important to my health. But I know it's true. So on this rule, MP, you and I are just going to have to part ways.