Healthy Food in Brittish Hospitals?

Check out the article linked below. Here I am worrying about public schools and I totally missed the irony of terrible food in hospitals. I once spent a candy-striping summer working in a hospital kitchen and I can tell you assuredly that American hospital food is just as terrible.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/07/bad-food-feeding-hospital-boycott

Ellen Gustafson: Obesity + Hunger = 1 global food issue

Vegan "Activism"

I am writing this in response to a poorly written, disappointingly insubstantial, article written by Steven Stern and posted on CNN.com. It read to me like someone looking for a filler article who wrote down some pessimistic thoughts about vegetarians and backed them up with a quick google search of "Vegan and Controversy."

While it is clear Mr. Stern has probably never in his life considered a vegetarian diet, what really bothered me was not his indicated standpoint against vegan activism, but rather the vagueness of his viewpoint and the dismissive way in which he treated his own article, and thus, vegan activists in general.

The article is entitled "Vegetarian Activists Try In-Your-Face tactics". Opening with a rather snarky comment, Stern's intent is clear :

Not content to sit quietly at home eating their tofu cutlets, more and more vegetarians, it seems, are taking action, trying to get the carnivorous masses to change their ways.

The article then hastily outlines some of those tactics. From some anonymous rogue pie throwers at a lecture given by Lierre Keith (trust me, when I finish her book, you will get a heavy dose of my thoughts on her), to PETA's attempt to get a racy ad to air on the Superbowl a year ago.

Stern points out the vegetarian activists have learned that "sex sells" and seams to suggests that media attention is the central goal of a vegetarian activist. He states:

Still, recipes only go so far. And, more to the point, they don't get as much media attention. For many vegan and vegetarian activists, getting coverage is an art.

While I felt the article had a dismissive, negative spin to it, I think the topic of vegan representation Stern hastily brings up is, when give real weight and consideration, an interesting one. I think anyone who is a vegetarian or a vegan is inherently an activist in the sense that we "lead by example." But the extent of our dedication to activism in the sense of "conversion" varies wildly.

I spend a lot of time consciously aware of the stereotype put upon me for being a vegan. A lot of people assume vegan is synonymous with adjectives like "extreme" or "crazy liberal" or "irrational" and even the less harmful but still generalizing "hippie" and "tree-hugger." Vegans are thought by many to be difficult, rigid, judgmental, and (usually) wrong. I've never found a fictional character in movies, television, or books who was a vegan and didn't inhabit these traits. Making fun of a vegan and their beliefs is fair game, especially now that it is so hard to make fun of other groups these days without an instant backlash.

"Not content to sit at home eating their fried chicken, more and more african americans, it seems, are taking action, trying to get the white masses to change their ways."

Or how about -

"Not content to sit at home eating their matzoh ball soup, more and more jews, it seems, are taking action, trying to get the Goy masses to change their ways."

And lastly -

"Not content to sit at home listening to Lady Gaga, more and more gays, it seems, are taking action, trying to get the straight masses to change their ways."

To see a CNN article so callously play into the vegan stereotype, by stringing together a series of unrelated minor events by various groups and individuals, is hurtful. To forsake serious examination of why some activists do take the in-your-face-approach is disappointing.

But all stereotypes exist for a reason. There are people who take extreme approaches when desperate for attention, this is true for any side of any debate. I do agree that PETA often takes advantage of this. I do think that dumping a ton of manure in front of Gordon Ramsay's restaurant is antagonistic and the equivalent of hurling a bowl of vinegar at your flies. While I understand the anger that feeds those actions, I think that it is important to keep such anger in check, especially if your goal is to get people to listen.

However, I personally do not have a problem with harmless publicity stunts. Sexy ladies clad in only lettuce handing out veggie hot dogs? Fine by me. An army of zombies protesting outside a KFC - sounds like fun. People have a right to speak their mind and, with so many people doing so these days, creativity definitely earns one a few points.

So what really got me so hot and bothered about this silly little article?

I fight really hard to get people to take my beliefs about food seriously. I enjoy a good discussion, especially with someone who does not share my opinions, as long as we are both willing to listen and engage in the debate. That is why I am reading Keith's book, and why I am loving doing so.

I became a vegan because I wasn't afraid to challenge my way of thinking. All I ask of others is to take a similar responsibility for their own beliefs and subsequent actions. And I want to never lose my own fearlessness, because I would never want to loose that freedom of thought.

I think the way we raise and grow food in this country is atrocious. I think we are killing the environment, we are killing each other, and we are killing our fellow creatures. I want more people to care, and I want to engage more people in the controversy over food. I want to end factory farms. I want revolutionize the food industry so that people are not eating themselves into early graves. I want to learn how to grow food sustainably. I want to help feed and nourish the hungry.

So no, Mr. Stern, I am not content to sit quietly at home eating my tofu cutlets.

Slow Food

Congress is updating the Child Nutrition Act. Email your legislators to tell them you support helping schools serve real food. Check out this website dedicated to advocating for better food in school.

http://www.slowfoodusa.org/index.php/campaign/time_for_lunch/

Jamie Oliver

Every year the TED Conference awards at least one of its speakers a "TED PRIZE" to "an exceptional individual who receives $100,000 and, much more important, "One Wish to Change the World." Designed to leverage the TED community's exceptional array of talent and resources, the Prize leads to collaborative initiatives with far-reaching impact." This years recipient was Jamie Oliver, and this week he revealed his wish to the world.

I wish for your help to create a strong, sustainable movement to educate every child about food, inspire families to cook again and empower people everywhere to fight obesity.

He speaks passionately about the need to educate children and parents about food. Repeating the haunting mantra expressed by so many other nutrition experts - that we have welcomed in a generation of children whose life span is less than their parents - he implores people to accept the reality of the situation and, even more important, accept the responsibility of it as well. He talks about obesity and bad health as a very serious and deadly epidemic (with diet-related diseases sporting a higher death toll than all other leading causes of death combined). Yet, unlike AIDS or Cancer, it is not only completely preventable, it is reversible as well. He presents simple facts and necessary solutions. Don't listen to me summarize - check it out for yourself in the video above.

Jamie Oliver is a celebrity chef who worked to revolutionize food in the British school system by launching a campaign entitled "Feed Me Better" and now has his sites set on America with an upcoming reality show "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution" on ABC, where he takes on the fattest city in the nation, Huntington, West Virginia, in hopes of turning around their eating habits.

I am happy to see him gaining attention and finding a way to bring this topic into mainstream media outlets. Its truly embarrassing what we feed kids in schools, and our justifications for it just don't hold up.

His talk got me to thinking and I realized that most of the issues I feel passionate about, with regard to food, stem from us as a global culture distancing ourselves from food. We distance ourselves from the unpleasantries of factory farming, we distances ourselves from the environmental strain of large scale agriculture, we distance ourselves from knowledge about where our food comes from - we don't properly understand its nutritional value, and often times eat things that contain ingredients we know absolutely nothing about. We distance ourselves from the responsibility all these revelations entail. When we are not properly educated we are helpless. Below is a list of a couple of things Oliver outlined in his talk to help the US get back on track.

• Every child in the U.S. should learn to cook 10 meals before leaving high school.
• Supermarkets should appoint "food ambassadors" to explain to customers how they can prepare local, fresh and seasonal foods.
• Food companies should make education a central part of their business.
• Food labeling should be improved to accurately warn people about unhealthy food. In his video he calls America's current food-labeling system a "farce."

Ann Cooper: Renegade Lunch Lady

Rainy mornings are for peach tea and TED talks. Thinking seriously of rewarding my 7:30 AM wake up with a 9:30 AM nap, I decided instead to watch an online video of Ann Cooper speak, and her talk mesmerized me. Who is Ann Cooper? She is the director of nutrition services for the Berkeley (California) Unified School District, and she's an outspoken activist for serving fresh, sustainable food to kids. Following her talk I visited her website and following her website I read an online interview from 2006. She is very clear and direct in her mission to provide kids with healthy food.

According to her, reforming school lunches is a "social justice issue." Hardly giving you time to process the information, in her talk she hurls out at you one statistic after another about government subsidizing and big agribusiness leaving kids with unsuitable, detestable, barely-edible lunches that are making them sick. Sick to the point where we are ushering in a generation that is expected to have a lifespan shorter than their parents. 70% of all antibiotics consumed in America is consumed by animal husbandry. The result? We get diseases (like e coli) that we cannot cure. Not only that but by feeding children a diet high in suguar and saturated fat, we undermine their chance at a healthy life. According to Ann Cooper :: "The Centers for Disease Control estimates that of US children born in the year 2000...one out of three will develop diabetes in their lifetime."

Her talk got me to reflect on my personal school lunch experiences. When I was about 7 years old, and living in San Diego, California, I would pretend to get a corn dog for lunch (even though I hated them) so that the lunch lady would serve me ketchup (which I loved to eat on its own - gross). By 6th grade my palate had evolved and i was now living in Corpus Christie, Texas. I ate chili-cheese Frito's and an ice cream snickers bar every single day for lunch. I was perfectly ok with that. I was 11 years old. High school found me back in San Diego, where we didn't even have a cafeteria. Food was served at one or two "food carts" which were bright orange carts on wheels, smaller than the kinds found at football games. It offered an array of chips, microwavable burritos, cup 'o noodles, and cookies. When I decided to become a vegan at 15, needless to say I started bringing my own lunch.

None of this seemed odd to me. We go to school to learn and without knowing it, I learned how to eat (poorly as it turned out). 7 year old ketchup-loving me doesn't care about nutrition, or sustainability, or organic produce, unless someone is there to guide and educate me otherwise. Of course I was ok with chili-cheese Frito's and microwaved burritos, I never knew any better. No one explained to me the consequences, the long term costs. No one taught me how to grow my own vegetable garden, how to cook, how to tell a ripe avocado from a rotten one. And if we don't learn how to eat healthy in school, where are we supposed to figure it out? If eating this way, 5 times or more a day over the span of 13 years, is not only the norm but a norm sanctioned by our teachers - the ultimate figures of authority, then why would we break out of this habit once we leave school? We don't. And we pass this misinformation on to our own children and the cycle continues until it is so protected by tradition that we have to label anyone who cries for its upheaval as a "renegade."

Ann Cooper is trying to change this. When she started in the Berkley school system, the only tool in the kitchen was a box cutter. There are kids who have never seen fresh produce, who do not know that strawberries come from the ground, not from a bush or a tree.

I could go on and on inarticulately parroting the things i have learned from her today. I would rather people explore for themselves. Let 20 min of your day whiz by as you look at this video. Its worth it.

I've included a picture as well of her "meal wheel" I think its awesome and far more accurate than the bogus pyramid we all grew up with. Yes, bogus.