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.

Smart eating tips for Easter and Passover

For the upcoming Easter and Passover celebrations, we have some tips that can guide you well. Some of them are applicable regardless of holiday, and some of them are rather specific. We live in a world with more intermingling, so it's possible you will be at a seder and a Easter table.

-- Peeps are not really food.
-- Butter in the shape of a lamb has as many calories and as much fat as regular butter.
-- If you do eat cheeseburgers, you don't have to bring that up at the table.
-- Try to smile even though it's the 100th time someone has done the Jesus M&Ms joke.
-- Kosher for Passover is not the same as Kosher. When in doubt, ask.
-- Remind yourself that there is wonderful protein inside those colorful casings.
-- There is more to Easter than candy.
-- People do eat lamb outside Easter, even if it's the only time of year you see it.
-- Did we mention that Peeps are not food.

Easter and Passover are about friends, family, food, and sharing. Make them your focus. And if you think you're eating too much, spring holidays encourage more walking than Christmas and Hanukkah.

Editor's Note: This will serve in place of Temptation of the Week this week. Enjoy the holiday.

Temptation of the Week: Eating fish and seafood on Fridays during Lent

One of my favorite Dr. Demento songs is "Wet Dream in the Gulf Stream" — a bunch of fish and seafood puns from Kip Addotta. You groan through the rapid-fire puns, but the other emotion you get at the end of the song is hunger for seafood.

Last week, we profiled the temptation of eating meat on a Friday during Lent. So we thought we should give equal time to the fishy creatures of the sea.

Theologians can recite the tale of why creatures of the sea are OK during Lent but not those who live on land. After all, fish and seafood are alive and can feel pain, especially when a lobster is placed in boiling water.

Vegetarians consider fish and seafood to be "meat" — what comes out of a crab leg looks nothing like a cow steak, but they still come from animals.

Since we get the all-clear, our society associates fish with Fridays, such as fish frys. Or the fact that Filet O'Fish sandwiches get more publicity during Lent. You don't have to be a Catholic during Lent to appreciate a seafood dinner on a Friday.

Growing up, most of the seafood I ate was fish sticks and fried clams at Bill Knapp's. Well, canned tuna was also on the list. I had a deprived childhood, seafood-wise.

Since then, I've learned to love not-fried clams, calamari, mussels, lobster, smoked salmon, crab, fish, scallops, shrimp, prawns, and so much more. Still trapped in the Midwest, the seafood isn't as good as it would be fresh from the ocean. And the vast majority of seafood I've eaten, even as an adult, was cooked by someone else.

Those who grew up in seafood-friendly areas might feel the same way about steak. Even at this point, cooking fish and seafood isn't as instinctual as cooking hamburgers and steak.

Fish and seafood, when properly prepared, provide better nutrition (Omega 3s) than meat and still provides a lot of protein. Like Regis Philbin during his Prince Edward Island seafood adventure, too many Americans love seafood only if it's deep-fried.

If you are one of those people, experiment with seafood. Try a spice-filled recipe. Cajun a fish. Saute some scallops. Find a way to make fish and seafood a true temptation of the week.

Temptation of the Week: Eating meat on Fridays in Lent

If it weren't for Leap Year, St. Patrick's Day would be today Friday. This would have caused a religious conundrum of Biblical proportions. How can you eat corned beef (with cabbage) on St. Patrick's Day if you couldn't eat meat on Fridays during Lent?

Dispensations are regularly granted to Catholics to allow them to eat corned beef on a Friday St. Patrick's Day.

The Catholic faith requires abstaining from meat on Ash Wednesday and the Fridays in Lent, which is a total of 8 days. 8 days out of a possible 365/366 days doesn't seem like much of a sacrifice. After all, if you practice Meatless Mondays, you give up meat 52 days, more than 6 times as many as in Lent.

You may have gone a day without meat by accident. You may have been sick and had very little to eat in a day. You may have been tricked by a vegetarian friend into eating something that you thought was meat but wasn't.

But as someone who grew up Catholic (and is no longer practicing), when I was younger, the Lenten Fridays felt like a huge weight.

Yes, we didn't really eat meat for breakfast during the week. If you go to a Catholic school, it won't feed you meat for lunch. So all you had to worry about was dinner. One meal where you could eat fish, eggs, peanut butter, beans — just not meat. Somehow, that seemed like a challenge.

Growing up in the land-locked Midwest, seafood wasn't the treat it would be if we lived on the ocean, where eating fish, shellfish, or any other seafood would be a treat, not a sacrifice.

Of course, this is about perspective. After all, Orthodox Jews don't eat shellfish or pork or mix meat and milk year-round. 8 days without meat is a picnic compared to that.

As an adult, going a day without meat isn't a big deal. There are definitely days where I eat a small amount of meat just to get some protein. But it works for me if I just don't think about it.

When you're younger and the world around you treats it as a big deal that you don't eat meat on a particular day, the temptation is to eat meat out of spite. This is probably why I'm not practicing anymore.

Give me a day where I have a spinach, feta, and mushroom omelet for breakfast, spaghetti and mushrooms for lunch, and a nice lobster or crab legs dinner — I won't even remember what meat is like.

This isn't to attack religion or tradition, especially the Catholic religion. If you are in a situation where avoiding meat is difficult/impossible, make up for it somehow. This was a lesson I wish I had learned when I was rebelling from the Lenten meat restriction. If the pressure is too great or the timing is too difficult or if you accidentally forget, pick another day and go without meat.

Going without meat is a penance, but it shouldn't be seen as a sacrifice. This doesn't mean you have to do it every day or even two days in a row. Going without meat for a day allows so many other options. Explore them with an open heart, regardless of why you reached that point in the first place.

Fat Tuesday in a parallel universe

Editor's Note: The following takes place in a parallel universe, though the New Orleans in the parallel universe looks pretty similar to the New Orleans we all know.

Tom walks down Bourbon Street, munching on broccoli. The crunch almost keeps rhythm with the loud music all around. After all, this is Skinny Tuesday, the day before people will gorge themselves (except Sundays) for the next 40 days.

Taking in the sights, he goes back and forth between eating the broccoli and drinking from the bottle of pomegranate juice in his other hand. Tom does cheat a little by adding some blueberry juice, but given the dark red color, unless anyone else could smell or taste it, they wouldn't know it wasn't pure pomegranate juice.

He thinks about all the foods he gets to eat starting tomorrow. Grilled cheese sandwiches made with donuts, hot fudge sundaes, fried chicken skin in a bowl with whipped cream on top. Oh and French fries dipped in gravy, mayonnaise, ketchup, chili, nacho cheese. His favorite trick is to dip a fry into each condiment and eat the five fries all at once.

He has been getting ready for this time of the year. Hasn't had meat in 3 weeks. Whole grain pastas and bread dominate his diet. Tom made extra batches of his lentil and beans stew, which he freezes so he can have something to eat on Sundays. Gets plenty of vegetables, dipping them in dressing on the side made with extra virgin olive oil. He has been eating fruit for dessert. Tom is going to be so ready.

Tom is a little nervous about tomorrow. After all, he isn't used to eating the way you do after Skinny Tuesday. His body will not be used to the new diet. He isn't sure how he'll handle the taste. Once you have become used to the vitamin goodness of raw broccoli, can pork rinds possibly give him that same satisfaction?

Tom lets the music embrace all around him. He loves this moment when people are having a really great time before they make the sacrifice of eating junk food. Besides, Tom thinks to himself, it's only for a few weeks out of the year. And if Tom is honest with himself, he could stand to gain 10-15 pounds.

Paula Deen's reported Type 2 diabetes diagnosis should be met with concern, not scorn

 

Update: Obviously, Deen made it official this morning. Turns out Deen has been diagnosed for 3 years. Wow! After three years, you should be making a lot of progress, though not everyone does. Also, the rumors are true that she is endorsing a diabetes medication. Her Web site is Diabetes in a New Light.

Depending on where and when you read this, Paula Deen may have admitted by now that she has been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. Deen appeared on the "Today" show to talk to Al Roker. The blogosphere has certainly known about the speculation for some time. The reaction to Paula Deen possibly having Type 2 diabetes was a little more joyful than one would expect.

As much as I follow the food scene, especially the TV food people, I know very little about Paula Deen. I know she loves butter and cooks high-fat Southern dishes on television. But I don't watch her shows and never gave much thought to her, pro or con.

Here's what I do know. Anyone who has suffered from Type 2 diabetes knows they wouldn't wish the disease on their worst enemy. Full disclosure: I know of what I speak, though my numbers have been excellent since then.

Getting the diagnosis throws your world in a rainbow of directions. Being a public figure who deals with food getting the diagnosis? Can't even imagine.

If the speculation is true, Deen has had the diagnosis for at least 9 months, and she reportedly has made changes to her diet. If so, good for her.

That sentiment is not universally shared. Sentiments of "I told you so" and "I knew this would happen to her" flow across the Internet sky.

Ouch!

The sad truth is that Type 2 diabetes does hit people who are thinner than Deen, eat better than Deen, and are younger than Deen. And some people are heavier than her, eat worse than her, and are older than her and don't get Type 2 diabetes.

"Serves her right," is the ardent cry.

In the bizarro world that is the U.S. health care system, if you have a fasting blood sugar of 800, you are "healthy" as long as you are not diagnosed. If your fasting blood sugar is 180 (normal fasting blood sugar is between 70-110) and you are diagnosed, you are branded with a scarlet D for diabetic. At least with the scarlet A, you supposedly had sex.

Since few very people come forward about the diagnosis, having role models would help newcomers to Type 2 diabetes to show them that you can get better, you can improve your life. Whether Paula Deen wants to be one of those role models remains to be seen.

Changing one's life after a Type 2 diabetes diagnosis requires strength, determination, and support. Since Deen isn't getting much help from the modern food community, she can look to the past for a similar scenario.

Graham Kerr was on our TV sets as the Galloping Gourmet who didn't do as much galloping as he should as he suffered a heart attack. The heart attack changed his life and his TV career, coming back years ago with lighter recipes.

Kerr got a lot more sympathy for his heart attack than Deen has for Type 2 diabetes. We think we know heart attacks: family history, diet, stress, hypertension, weight. What do we know about Type 2 diabetes? People eat badly, people don't move around well enough, people get Type 2 diabetes.

Bobby Deen, Paula's son, is hosting a show on Cooking Channel ("Not My Mama's Meals") that foreshadows what may be a new direction for his mother. Changing Southern cooking is an arduous task. I also know from experience: I have a lot of Southern relatives with a history of all the bad stuff.

Having Type 2 diabetes is a stigma, a way to look down at you for your behavior. So what if you eat the way you do because of emotional eating or a reaction to anorexia or mindless eating? Get more exercise, eat less and healthier and you'll be fine.

That advice is true, regardless of whether you have Type 2 diabetes. This is the fastest growing disease over the last decade or so, and our sympathy levels are still near zero. Even children who suffer from the disease are left to wonder if hiding the diagnosis is the better strategy.

Whatever we think about the disease and those who suffer from it, they need to be told that they can do certain things to reduce the impact of the disease. Portion control, be smarter about carbs, lose 10% of your body weight, move, move, and move. They should also take their medication, as needed. Kicking someone when they're down? How about holding out a hand to say, "Hey, we can help."

Paula Deen may not have many friends in the food community with the news that she reportedly has Type 2 diabetes. At BalanceofFood.com, she has a friend in us because she needs help. We don't care how many butter recipes she has served up on TV. She needs help, love, and support. For the moment, her TV career be damned; Deen needs to see the way to get better is out there; Paula Deen needs to find her own Balance of Food.

Make healthier choices in your donated food to food pantries

Under regular circumstances, we have a wall between those that can eat better and those who struggle to do so, mostly due to financial issues. When things get bad enough where people are compelled to go to a food pantry, being selective on what you get is definitely not part of the etiquette.

As badly as food pantries are struggling with not enough food and too many customers, is it too much to ask for that donations be healthier choices?

If you have seen the contents of a food pantry, you run across a lot of white flour products. After all, carbohydrates are cheap, white flour carbohydrates are even cheaper, and this way, you can donate more food for the same amount of money.

Unfortunately, this creates a divide where those who can afford to donate give food that they likely wouldn't eat themselves.

This call for healthier donations made me a little torn. After all, we extolled the virtues of spending little to make a big difference in someone else's life. Spending little doesn't mean you have to go cheap on what you buy.

So in this holiday season, here are some tips to still watch your budget, help those in need, and have them eat just a little bit healthier.

-- The easiest donations are food you've already bought. You are making a dish and you buy more than you need. You've already spent the money; make a good deed out of it. That way, you are giving away the kind of food you would actually eat.
-- If you have 1-2 people in your household, you hate sales designed to appeal to families of 5-6 people. "Buy 1, Get 1 free." Well, take the 2nd of the pair and donate it. You can buy 2, get 2 free, and donate 3.
-- In donating pasta, look for blends of whole wheat and white flour pasta if that appeals better to your pocketbook. Better to find sales on whole wheat pasta, but make your best choice.
-- Canned soups are a popular choice, but look to find something a bit more like food out of said can. If nothing else, try lower-sodium options.
-- Peanut butter is an overlooked choice. Peanut butter keeps well and offers a lot of nutrition. Okay, peanut butter prices are rising dramatically, but the protein vs. cost is still worthwhile. True, peanut butter does have fat, but if you use a healthier peanut butter, from a cost standpoint, peanut butter is one of the better shelf-stable options.
-- If you cook, foods that you find versatile (shelf-stable, of course) could inspire your recipient to do more cooking, a win-win all around.
-- If you live near a Trader Joe's or a Mexican supermercado, you can find quality products for lower prices than you might find otherwise.
-- Consider suggestions from the article, including low-sugar cereal such as Cheerios or Chex, canned vegetables, any variety, marked lite or low-sodium, pinto or black beans, and rice.
-- Treat the food donation like a secret Santa. Make two shopping lists: one for you, one for the recipient. Secret Santas usually cost $5-$10 and if you shop wisely, can go a long way toward helping someone who isn't getting enough food.
-- Unless you are concerned with mercury, canned tuna is cost-effective and supplies quality nutrition. You can often find canned tuna on sale.
-- Holidays are a time to splurge on ourselves and our fellow people. Make that an element in your holiday food buying. This doesn't mean buying caviar, but pick one item regardless of price to put in your food donation.

Giving white flour macaroni and cream of mushroom soup to a food pantry is better than giving nothing. But consider the receipients on the other end of the exchange. Look inside your grocery bag of donations and ask yourself if this is what you want in your time of need.

Temptation of the Week: Balancing holiday temptation with reality

Did your Thanksgiving go well?

Perhaps you did really well: enjoyed your food, had a lot but not too much and spread it around several food groups. Or maybe you had a little too much a little too often. Or you could have been surrounded by enough family guilt that you overstuffed and then went into the bathroom to sneak more food.

Even if you did well over the long holiday weekend, you might still be wary of the holiday period to come, regardless of which holiday. After all, Thanksgiving lasts 4-5 days. Right now, you are looking at another 25 days.

Yikes!

The proposal presented two weeks ago in the Temptation of the Week was a bit radical and some could interpret in an anti-family, almost Scroogesque take on the holidays. If you took it literally and it worked for you so far, congratulations. The proposal was meant literally but also could be seen as metaphorical. You would still be surrounded by family, friends, and co-workers in candy cane sweaters, but you would be more in control of making good holiday eating decisions.

Or you could still eat what you want to eat, how much you want to eat, and still add 10% to your consumption just to spite the Balance of Food.

Holidays are a tricky time for a lot of reasons. Maybe you've been good for most of the fall in hopes of eating more in December. Maybe you don't get to see Grandma but this time of year and her homemade pecan pie is the best ever. Maybe you and your spouse are going through a rough patch, or maybe you are more alone than normal. Maybe an extra piece of or slice of will make a difference.

As much as we hope to have a sterile environment around this time of year to steer us away from holiday temptation, holidays involve real people doing real things with real holiday pressures. Sometimes as strong as we would like to think we are, we're only human. We strive to have well-behaved children, inferring that they may not be as well-rewarded if they don't behave. Sometimes children are children and we receive unprecedented joy from the experience. People being human.

This isn't to contradict what I wrote before Thanksgiving: I stand by every word. This week, we are presenting the other side: reality. Sometimes, success in the holiday season is a matter of doing the best you can while having some fun. Redefining what fun is can help you not go too far in the holiday season, but the holiday time is meant for fun, family, friends, and co-workers, though not always candy cane sweaters.

Halal may not mean better taste, but something was improved

The food quality focus is on how animals are raised, as that effects the quality of the meat. But is there any truth to the idea that how an animal's life ends makes a difference on the plate?

Those who eat Kosher or Halal think how the animal is slain makes a difference for religious reasons. And from what we've seen on the killing floor, you have to wonder based on the cleaning process if going Kosher or Halal makes a difference in taste.

Just for the record, I am not either Jewish or Muslim. And I hope desperately to not offend those who are by my ignorance (please feel free to leave a comment to correct any religious element within the story).

Halal is a Muslim term that is similar in vein to kosher that apply to how the animals are slain.

Sometime ago, I noticed a sign at a nearby KFC that the outlet was halal, not a huge surprise in that area. So I thought this would be a good experiment since unlike other establishments, I would be able to tell "before" and "after."

I ordered a breast and a wing with 2 sides and a biscuit for my sample meal. The chicken came out with a darker brown color than I have had in awhile. My unofficial theory is that KFC tasted better when I was a child in part because the chicken skin was dark brown, not the lighter skinned chicken we see today from KFC. (Yes, it was freshly cooked back then as well.) This chicken didn't quite reach the color level of my childhood, but I was impressed.

[Side note: when I tried the Double Down, I noticed that the picture of the Double Down had a similar dark brown color unlike my actual sandwich. If only I could order the sandwich in the picture.]

Color was good and encouraging, but taste would have to rule out. The chicken certainly was the juiciest KFC bird I had eaten in, well, I couldn't remember. So often in eating KFC, I tough it out with the meat, trying to counterbalance (somewhat) the skin.

Color, taste, expectations? Numerous reasons for why the bird was much better than normal. Can I give full credit to halal? I would have to think that halal made a difference, and kosher would, too.

Other than Kosher beef hot dogs, I don't think I have had kosher or halal meat before this, and hot dogs aren't the best judge of meat quality. But if I feel like the quality is significantly better, my eyes are now open to Kosher and Halal, regardless of religion.

Temptation of the Week: Hunger strikes

This week's temptation has little to do with food, but more about the significance of food ...

News of the famine in Somalia has been lost in debt ceiling crisis stories and the usual celebrity pop news. And this is likely difficult to believe given how much food people have in the United States, but more people are starving or underfed in new ways.

Being poor can often mean you don't have much, but you have some food. When you are very poor and food prices are rising at amazing levels, harder choices are the result.

This summer, outside a major downtown metropolis farmers market, I have seen two different people for two different reasons on a hunger strike.

Having a hunger strike outside a farmers market is only part of the point; the market is right across the street from City Hall. But the juxtaposition of food and hunger strike, plus the world's rising food costs, made for a curious question. For what reason would you go on a hunger strike? And how long would that strike likely be?

We are also in the month of Ramadan, the Muslim observance where they fast from dawn to dusk, but then feast once the sun is down. Ramadan is going without food as a sacrifice, not as a hunger strike.

Unfortunately, some people have a harder time doing a hunger strike because of low blood sugar.

Naturally, we go about 10 hours without food on a regular basis each day. We sleep during that time. But the idea of going 20 hours without food is extraordinary.

When you are on a hunger strike — a real hunger strike — you go 24, 48, 72 hours, and longer without food.

Whether your cause is social, political, or some other form of -al, hunger strikes are serious business. And even if you go a short time without food, maybe even in solidarity with someone's cause, you might just appreciate food all the more, especially when you live in a country with an abundance of food.