I just read a powerful article in this week's New Yorker, The Last Bite: Is the World's Food System Collapsing? In the last few years, food as a social issue has really grabbed a hold of me. I guess it makes perfect sense... anyone who knows me knows I LOVE TO EAT, and that I LOVE TO COOK. Hopefully, you also know that social justice, here in my neighborhood and around the world is something I care deeply about. The mix of social justice and food started with my reading and cooking from these two amazing cookbooks: More-with-less and Extending the Table. I started thinking... hmmm, the way I eat is affects not just my own body...
Then I watched the movie Supersize Me, which sent me into being a vegetarian for about a year and a half.... remember that? I did it to try to live in solidarity with the world's majority who cannot affort to eat at the top of the food chain. I ran a marathon while a vegetarian... not a good idea, ya'll! (I wondered how I could possibly train for a marathon and not seem to loose weight and with almost no energy during the day!) Back on topic... then I read Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and started thinking that maybe there was a better way to go about eating.
The New Yorker article gave me some new tips and summed up a way to eat that is loving towards all our other brothers and sisters: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly Plants." As I think about the fact that there is a drought in Ethiopia where my dear children and their dear biological families live, I have to realize that just because I work at EarthFare and CAN now buy and pig out on fancy imported cheeses, delectable chocolates, exotic spreads and you name it doesn't mean that I SHOULD. It is amazing how quickly these things cease to be special when you have them in abundance!
Eat food. Not too much. Mostly Plants. I really want to try - the new challenge from this is the "not too much" part.
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PS Okay, it has been 9 months today! If I were pregnant, I'd be bursting... or birthing... WHATEVER. I am pregnant of the heart (as Brazilians say it) and I AM BURSTING! I want my babes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank you for inviting me along to follow your journey! I will keep you posted on ours as well!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your posts! :)
I need to learn and remember that motto! "Not too much. Mostly plants." Since I started running I eat SO MUCH. Really. I eat a ton. Way too much. If I lost 10 pounds I could not only be faster, but it would be good for the planet! Hey, that is a more noble motivation. I'd love to hear more about your marathon experience. I am, frankly, scared to death. In 8days I'll be doing it.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the nine months go... wow. It has been a long time, and you know it is going to be a lot longer. But do EVERYTHING now that you want to do, because it gets really hard to find "me" time when the kids come along! I know, that doesn't make it any easier. :)
One thing that really helped me during the wait was meeting with an Ethiopian lady to learn some Amharic, and often she just talked about Ethiopia. At first I paid her, then when we got to know each other she wouldn't take the $ anymore. I always left her feeling so optimistic and like the adoption was really the right thing to do. I met her at the grocery store, by chance. Maybe you will meet some Ethiopia-Americans there, too!
OK, this is getting to be a book. Have a great weekend. :)
Stacy
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ReplyDeleteEvelyn, thank you so much for your number, that is so nice of you! Just for fun I'm going to add you to my cell phone contacts. :)
ReplyDeleteThanks... it would be fun to talk one day!
ReplyDeleteYou marathoners and your miniscule percentages of body fat crack me up! Okay, I'm just jealous. And very impressed.
ReplyDeleteThe "not too much" part is the problem for me. I'm a gluttonous pig who feels tremendously guilty about my love affair with food.
The idea of a mother or father or anybody dealing with the completely inhumane situation of not being able to provide the most basic things on earth, food and water, to themselves and their families, is unjust and sad beyond words. I feel stupid even typing this. You know what I mean.
Katy - thanks for the comment on the serious part of what I wrote. I really enjoyed the "Girl Effect" piece on your blog. This world has a lot of injustice, but also HOPE!
ReplyDeleteOn the not so serious part of what I wrote... miniscule body fat!!! Ha!! I have learned to like my body as it is, but I do have body fat. I've always (even as a child) had the company of body fat, which I have tried to befriend and obliterate all at once :)
By the way, from your blog pictures, you look like you don't have any body fat yourself!
Hey, Evelyn, Dan's in Col. for training and the girls are in ballet class this week (!) so I'm waiting for two little leotards to come out of the wash and catching up on a month or more of your blog.
ReplyDeleteWe had also read the Newsweek article re that guy's book "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." where he pokes fun at this clunky -- but effective -- mantra. I like it a lot. Just the hunt to find any prepared foods for my kids without food coloring, preservatives or corn syrup has been interesting! Have you ever read Diet for a Small Planet? We just got a copy -- it's in its umpteenth edition now -- because our friend Nancy is credited; she put together a lot of the recipes when she was living out in Berkeley in the 70s and sharing a house with a woman who worked on this book. You'd like it if you haven't read it.
Re vegetarianism: a preschool mom friend here has been a vegetarian from birth because her parents never fed her meat and she physically can't stand to eat it now. . . but she isn't raising her kids that way; she wants them to be able to eat meat. . . she said if she'd been able to, she might not have gained 70 pounds per pregnancy (!)
Hi Evelyn,
ReplyDeleteI took a food policy class last semester where one of the books we read is called "The Omnivore's Dilemma." The quote you have of "Eat Food. Not Much. Mostly plants" is from the author of that book, Michael Pollan. A definite read! It shows you everything that is wrong with the current industrial food model.
Thanks for filling us in with that inspiring email btw! And we hope your babies come soon :)