Balance of Food

Balance of Food on why it's ethical to eat meat

Today being May 1, those who are too cheap or lazy (yours truly included) to subscribe to The New York Times online can use their first free read to see the top 6 results of "why it's ethical to eat meat" essay contest.

As you may have guessed, I entered the contest and, shock, did not place in the top 6. Compared to the winners, my essay wasn't as heartfelt or full of crazy stories. Mine was too practical and realistic, hallmark traits of my work here at BalanceofFood.com. Since this audience will appreciate it more than The New York Times, here is the essay in its entirety. Oh, and feel free to eat some meat, hopefully well-grown, while reading my essay.

Man is not the only animal that eats meat, but it's the only one who gives it any thought. Eat cow and chicken, but not dog and cat. Eat white meat but not dark meat. Eat the lean meat, not the liver. Eat cows but not veal.

When a tiger rips into the flesh of a smaller animal, the tiger never asks, "Was this grass-fed?" The tiger eats the meat, no questions asked.

Man used to justify eating meat out of self-defense. If he didn't kill the saber-tooth tiger, the tiger would eat him.

Man no longer needs to feel threatened by the animals in his world. The cow does not look at us as his dinner. Cows, chickens and pigs are meant to be vegetarians. Buffaloes eat grass.

So now man questions whether we should eat meat.

The Christian imagery in the United States is Adam having the animals at his disposal. Native peoples speak of respect for the animal, using all parts of the animal. The understanding: we have access to the animals in question, but in return, we must respect the animals.

The lack of respect for the animals is a major reason why mankind currently contemplates a world where animals are not eaten, and why many people have recently converted to vegetarianism. "If only we treat the animals better," is a common reason for new vegetarians.

About three generations ago, we had a society where we treated animals better, even as we were eating them. People ate dark meat and livers. We appreciated tougher cuts of meat because meat was expensive. Having meat on your table was a big deal.

The Interstate Highway System and fast food made for a convenient marriage. We decided we needed more meat but certain cuts, and meat had to be cheaper. We started being pickier about what meat we ate. Gone was the flavorful dark meat of the chicken. "Give me some of that white meat with 11 herbs and spices and deep fry it."

Then we decided that cows and chickens weren't fat enough fast enough. So we came up with a system to feed corn to cows. "Who cares if they can't stomach that corn? Feed them antibiotics and hormones to solve the problem."

We take inedible parts of the animal, clean them up with ammonia, and feed it to school children. Our value of the animal has been reduced to "pink slime."

So if we somehow magically go back to a time where we do treat our animals with respect, should we still eat them?

Humans can't eat grass, but cows and buffalo can eat grass. You eat what the animals you eat have eaten. When done properly and ethically, meat supplies mankind with nutrients in a distinctive and flavorful fashion.

In a world where we don't eat meat, we would have fewer cows, pigs, and chickens. Who would take care of those remaining animals? Farmers would be too busy raising vegetarian crops to feed people.

Do we want to shift our land priorities to bury cows and pigs? What about the deer overpopulation?

We would be better off if we ate less meat and more well-raised meat. The world also benefits from having more vegetarians, regardless of reason, and flexitarians, those who occasionally eat meat.

Pulling back to a time where meat was more rare (in temperature and availability) would make us appreciate the gift we have of the animals all around us.

'Federal Food Nannies' aren't real, despite Chicago Tribune editorial

"Federal Food Nannies"

The term "Federal Food Nannies" sounds like something you would read in a letter to the editor of a small town newspaper, not in an editorial from the largest newspaper in America's #3 market.

The Chicago Tribune leans so Republican that it falls down a lot, so "government interference" is trying to get people to eat better.

"Our take is that government campaigns won't get many people to eat healthy. The current arsenal, heavy on hectoring Americans, isn't working. P.S. It's not just Americans who are snubbing the eat-less eat-smart call: Global obesity rates have doubled worldwide in the last three decades."

In the last three decades, high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) has come to dominate the sweetener category. And we all know how the Chicago Tribune feels about HFCS. Thanks to NAFTA, the U.S. exports HFCS to Canada and Mexico.

Food safety and regulation standards have fallen. And having a misleading label in the front of a food package is now the established norm.

"Health advocates, accept the bitter truth: Americans — people — like to eat tasty stuff that is not good for them."

This is true. The Tribune editorial accepts this as undeniable fact, as if little can be done about this. But keep in mind that the "tasty stuff" — even when unhealthy — is less healthy than it was 30 years ago.

Government, on both sides of the aisle, has played multiple key roles in this slide. But the Chicago Tribune editorial board isn't crazy about government playing a role in people eating better. And doesn't seem concerned about government making things worse for people who are trying to do better.

Zina Murray runs the Logan Square Kitchen in Chicago. Food entrepreneurs rent kitchen space by the hour, helping them save costs by not operating a bricks-and-mortar site. But the City of Chicago's Health Department has inspected the Logan Square Kitchen 11 times in the last 9 months, and 19 times in the last 2 years. Restaurants in Chicago typically get inspected twice a year.

Where did we learn all of this about the Logan Square Kitchen? The Chicago Tribune.

"The Federal Food Nannies covet a world without Hardee's 1,320-calorie Monster Thickburger to tempt people. We disagree."

The Trib editorial paints a murky picture of calorie-counting bureaucrats. You can sleep soundly knowing that this monster is imaginary. Barack Obama eats Five Guys. Michelle Obama eats ribs and Shake Shack. If most Americans managed the challenge of the temptations of the Thickburger as well as the Obamas do, our health care costs would be a lot lower.

As for BalanceofFood.com, we have always welcomed the most obnoxious of participants into unhealthy food. Because only when faced with the worst food makers have to offer, and if we survive those temptations to do mostly well most of the time, then we have overcome the largest challenge.

Summertime great for fruit, smarter choices are in abundance

Fruit is nature's candy, so we are told. And summer time is the best time to eat fruit. So what can go wrong?

For those who are freaking out over fruit from a diet perspective, you can still eat fruit, but you might need to think about what fruit and how much fruit.

The new ChooseMyPlate.gov focuses on giving fruits a portion of the plate, but still less space than vegetables. And the pyramid lumped fruit in with vegetables, so sometimes you couldn't tell where fruit ended and vegetables began.

There has been concern lately about whether we are getting too much fruit in our diet, and/or choosing less ideal fruits. Of course, in human nature, others aren't getting enough fruit in their diet. Some with diabetes issues have limits on how much fruit they can eat.

And serving size can depend on the size of the fruit within that fruit. A serving is fruit includes a medium-sized fruit. Our eyes don't see portion control now. And 4 oz. of juice is a serving of fruit in an environment where we pour huge glasses of orange juice thinking that is one serving.

Some quick rules to ponder:

-- a serving size of fruit can sneak up on you
-- you can eat more low sugar fruit (think berries and lemons/limes)
-- fruit still better for fiber than juice
-- dried fruit is highly concentrated in sugars, and often comes with extra sugar

So have some fruit, not too much, pick wisely as to what and how, and relax. Summer is great for fresh fruit. Have fun with fruit.

North Carolina holds on to radical views on medium-rare burgers

If you find yourself traveling to North Carolina, and you want a decent burger, you are going to have to cook it yourself.

North Carolina law forces restaurants to not serve a burger short of medium (or medium well, depending on interpretation by the restaurant). Steaks can still be cooked rare or medium-rare. If David Shaw weren't already dead, he would keel over at the thought.

Of course, this is an overreaction to a) poorly assembled beef, and b) the e-coli scare from Jack in the Box back in the early 1990s. But there is actual hope that North Carolina would adopt the federal code on the matter sometime next year.

Many reports have noted that overcooking meat can lead to increased carcinogens, which can increase the risk for stomach cancer.

In a state known for smoking, the idea that a medium-rare burger being illegal is ludicrous. So if you are going to be in North Carolina for a short time, get the chicken or the steak. And if you are going to be in the Tar Heel state for some time, buy a grill and do it legally yourself.

Would you try a diet program based on Consumer Reports?

I once worked for a consumer magazine that covered diet plans, but there was a huge difference. The article dug into the hype of the low-carb diet craze to give the straight scoop. While I did not write the article, I pitched the idea for the article and supplied some helpful knowledge to the editing process.

Consumers Reports actually ranked diet programs, established weight-loss setups. For what it's worth, Jenny Craig blew away the competition. Weight Watchers, which we mentioned yesterday, came in third.

Ranking cars, blenders, and lawn mowers is more practical and makes more sense because they will work the same for everyone who uses them. Diet programs do different things for different people, which is why they don't always do well.

The true test of diet programs is long-term, something that can't be judged in a fly-by basis.

Slim-Fast came in second, and the program consists of shakes and bars. It fails the concept of "program." And Consumer Reports only did famous plans, so your grandma's cod liver oil program wouldn't make the list.

If the information works for you, so be it. You'll get some perspective on diet programs. But chances are that you'll come up with your own solution outside anything Consumer Reports tells you.

Podcast: What makes a 'foodie'

This week's podcast deals with the multiple definitions of a "foodie."

To access the podcasts, check them out in the podcast library.

Podcast 050611

Sugar might be toxic, but reducing sugar needs to be primary conversation point

Is sugar toxic?

Those three words are floating around the office water cooler and the Internet in the last few weeks. I have even had a couple people ask me if I had read the story.

Of those three words in the sentence, the definitions of two of them are fairly broad. "Is" is still is.

Sugar is defined in the article as "anything that is sweet." Toxic means poison. But what does "Is sugar toxic?" mean for the food we eat?

"High-fructose corn syrup, sugar — no difference" is within The New York Times article. All sugars are lumped together, which sounds dramatic but doesn't spark a dialogue. At BalanceofFood.com, we don't think that is true.

To further complicate the topic, sugar is also defined as the byproduct when you eat starchy foods.

To clarify, fruit and milk have natural sugars that don't affect the body like other sugars. Carrots are naturally sweet. Things that are naturally sweet aren't worth the sweat.

"Naturally sweet" is also in use for those who believe in using honey and agave nectar to sweeten items. There are advantages over refined sugar, but how much depends on the amount used.

We are told that natural and artificial sweeteners are used because their sweetness level is higher, therefore we can use less to achieve sweetness. The problem is our foods are too sweet, regardless of what we use to sweeten them.

Because HFCS is so cheap, more of it is used in foods and in foods that otherwise aren't sweet.

So we are getting too much "sugar," too much of it in the right foods and the wrong foods, and more in a way that if it weren't there, we wouldn't miss it.

A limited amount of sugar isn't going to kill us. "Limited" is the key word.

To say that sugar is poison is designed to scare us. Taking it literally is dangerous; ignoring the overall message that we are getting too much "sugar" is also dangerous.

Find alternatives that are less sweet. When practical, make your own version and add the sugar level you want. Though I haven't seen a Kool-Aid ad in years, its commercials used to preach the message of letting Mom decide how much sugar her children would get. And you can't buy high-fructose corn syrup.

If you are concerned that you are consuming too many calories, reducing your sugar intake is the easiest way to fix that. This doesn't mean you have to go without, though.

BalanceofFood.com friend and dietitian Melissa Dobbins pointed out in a recent TV segment that you could use 25% less sugar in a baking recipe and not lose sweetness or consistency.

Getting used to eating less sweet will take time. And try to resist temptation to pile on the artificial sweeteners. You are trying to diminish your sweet tooth.

Food trucks need to combine portability with accessibility

Food trucks have proven to be a dilemma for us at BalanceofFood.com. We love the portability in a size and setup better suited than ice cream trucks. Given the rate of restaurant failure, food trucks allow restauranteurs a chance to succeed where they otherwise might not have a chance. And there is the fun of using this vehicle (pun intended) using that motif to bring unique foods to people who otherwise might not be exposed to them.

At the same time, the coverage of food trucks comes across as bringing pseudo pretentious fusion to people who have access to that kind of food anyway, missing a marvelous chance to make great use of portability to help those who really need better quality food.

There was the story last week of a grass roots movement in Chicago — Food Desert Action — that is converting a CTA bus into a mobile produce stand. This is where portability can help the masses. Food deserts exist mere miles away from people who have plenty of food options clamoring for food trucks, and this disconnect bothers us greatly at BalanceofFood.com.

There are a few communities that are doing similar ventures to Food Desert Action, but they are drops in a sea of people who don’t have regular access to fresh fruits and vegetables. And this isn’t just about the food itself; having someone who cares about them enough to want them to eat better can lift communities that need the help and encouragement to do better with food.

The other crucial occurrence was getting a chance to educate myself as to how food trucks work. While I live in a big city (Chicago), I live in one with a paranoid mayor (the soon-to-be retiring Richard M. Daley) where he wouldn’t allow food trucks to cook on the truck, defeating the purpose of, well, a food truck. If we are going to complain about elementary schools only being able to warm up lunches made elsewhere, we will complain about food trucks for adults that do the same thing.

There was a food truck summit in Chicago last week in what started out as a rainstorm and became a borderline monsoon. We were cold and wet under a tent that leaked, but we were surrounded by food trucks. Other than seeing a cupcake truck (that was there) downtown, this was my first exposure to food trucks. True, I have eaten off food carts in Chicago, Toronto, and Vancouver, even Windsor, Ontario. But those were hot dog type carts, nothing fancy.

There was an empanada truck, a tamale truck, a couple of sweets trucks, a mac ‘n’ cheese truck, a naan sandwich truck (it has a bricks and mortar location where I have eaten), and a truck that has Italian meatballs, flavored French fries, mushroom soup — couldn’t classify it easily. The offer was select items for around $3, a tasting of some of their most popular items.

The food truck I couldn’t classify was one from Evanston, a border suburb to the north (home of Northwestern University). Trucks in Evanston can cook on board since its mayor isn’t paranoid. I got a chicken sandwich with pickled radishes and onions with a chili aioli on ciabatta bread. The aioli wasn’t that spicy, the vegetables were a nice touch even though they blended into the background. The chicken wasn’t that good nor visually appealing; though it would be grilled but looked breaded, something I would find in the frozen foods section.

I waited in a rather long line at the empanada truck. There were 6 choices, went for the BBQ chicken one. The other choices were around $3, but the empanadas were $2. Admittedly, they were small; the woman in front of me bought one of each for her and her boyfriend. The one I had was tasty and a nice little snack. I couldn’t help but wonder how good it would have been if freshly prepared on the truck.

The dessert had to be a cupcake since I had passed by the cupcake truck before in its regular motif. It felt like I was in line for something female-centric, such as tampons. Not a whole lot of testosterone in line.

I got a chocolate raspberry selection, chocolate cake with raspberry filling and raspberry cream cheese frosting. Height-wise, the cupcake was 50% frosting, only adding to the girly element. The frosting was more visual than taste — lots of calories with little taste is a bad thing in my world. The cupcake itself was pretty good, though nowhere near the value assigned to the $3.25 price tag.

The evening's expenditure, before the storm crashed down on the event, cost $8.25 and I came away with a good amount of taste and decent full levels. Next time in a similar scenario, I would have skipped dessert, maybe gone for the mushroom soup, and bought 1 or 2 more empanadas. But I'm not sure I would get that excited to chase one down, unless, possibly, they can start cooking on the truck.

Having watched shows about food trucks in other cities, often they will congregate in a particular spot, giving people the chance to roam from truck to truck. This adds to the variety yet reduces the portability.

If food trucks are going to duplicate what is out there among people who can get similar type food, that will be boring. Putting too much restriction on food trucks will hurt the business (e.g., Toronto's food cart troubles). But food trucks would also serve a higher purpose if they would roam to food deserts.

You can't make food trucks do this noble deed, but encouragement can't be too bad an idea. This is what I wrote about the Green Truck, as featured in Jamie Oliver's Season 1:

Green Truck is a mobile truck service that serves healthier food that is local in origin. Oliver mentioned the Green Truck and pointed out that they serve local food, in this case, specifically bison burgers, bison dogs, salads.

Oliver noted that Green Truck serves the "same kind of foods, just better ingredients, less processed, less refined, leaner meats."

I would go to a food truck to get a bison burger or bison dog, since I can't find too many of them. Ironically, the restaurant I mourned earlier this year did return, but without its signature buffalo burger.

Local healthy food traveling to those who need healthy food is the best use of the ideas behind the food truck. There is plenty of room for overhyped fusion places on food trucks in good neighborhoods. Just don't forget the people who really could use a little help — from a food truck.

Eat around the world just by going to Toronto

Couldn't help linking to this entry on our sister blog, CanadianCrossing.com, since it involved eating your way through multiple nationalities by never leaving the general area around downtown Toronto.

The article is from Monica Eng, who covers food for the Chicago Tribune (full disclosure: I know Monica), and she likes trying different foods from different nationalities.

All of the destinations (two of which I have had personally) are within reasonable walking distance of downtown Toronto or a short bus, streetcar, or subway ride away. Which is good because you need to burn off all those calories.

Americans much more obese than Canadians, according to a new study

Americans like to think they are #1 in numerous categories. The consensus is that Americans are the most obese, and given that the Americans beat out Canada in a recent CDC study, the U.S. can take the gold ... plated chocolates.

In the CDC study, 34% of Americans are considered obese vs. 24% of Canadians.

Let's be honest: Canada was the only country that had the potential to defeat the U.S. on the obesity front. Most of Canada gets really cold and you end up eating a lot of fattening food to keep warm.

This was the first time that the CDC compared the United States to a different country.

Among children, the numbers were closer. U.S. has a childhood obesity rate of 15.5%; Canada has 12%, the difference being within the margin of error.

Oh, and I definitely reported this story on my sister blog, CanadianCrossing.com.

(Full disclosure: I went to college with Mike Stobbe, the AP writer who wrote the story on the CDC study. Stobbe covers the health beat, so linking to his story makes a lot of sense, objectively.)