The Cleaner Plate Club

Do you like stories? Because I’m in the mood for a story.

Once upon a time, there was a little chemical called bisphenol A, or BPA. BPA was small and lumpy. It looked kinda’ like this:

Oh, sure, you know this story, right? We’ve talked about BPA before (here and here). Oh, but listen to this story, won’t you? It’s a good one.

Well, BPA may have been small, but it had a big impact. It was a boon to the multi-billion dollar plastics industry, for example. It was used in polycarbonate plastic — the hard, clear, shatterproof plastics that comprise water bottles, food packaging, and many infant bottles. It was also found in epoxy resins — the stuff that lines the tops of bottles, and many food cans and infant formula cans.

(Gosh, it sounds like it’s found everywhere! Why, yes, indeed! In fact a study suggests that it’s in the urine of 93% of the American population!).

This little ol’ chemical had a big impact in another way. Because it mimicked human hormones, it appeared to cause a whole host of health problems, including developmental toxicity, neurological damage, early onset of puberty, cancer, obesity, diabetes, fertility problems, and other nasty things.

Fortunately for BPA, it had friends in very important places. And I’m not just talking about the American Chemistry Council, who assured for years, despite a wealth of evidence to the contrary, that BPA makes our lives “healthier and safer, each and every day.” I’m not just talking about the manufacturers, either. Let’s meet some other friends of BPA — also known as The Villains of Tonight’s Story.

Enter Villain #1

This is the Washington DC home of the Weinberg Group (boo! hiss!) which was hired by Sunoco, a BPA manufacturer, to help defend the product against all those loonies who don’t like carcinogenic, fat-boosting, fertility-messing, brain-damaging chemicals. The Weinberg Group is a self-declared “international scientific and regulatory consulting firm.” The company’s clients include such winning products as Agent Orange, tobacco, and highly toxic pesticides.

The Weinberg Group knows all about public relations science. For example, they know that good public relations science isn’t about whether the product you sell is actually hurting anybody. Rather, good public relations science is about convincing people that the product you sell isn’t hurting anybody. That’s why, in a letter to another client, they said “[W]e will harness, focus and involve the scientific and intellectual capital of our company with one goal in mind—creating the outcome our client desires.”

(Science: it’s whatever our clients want it to be.)

They once even bragged on their web site about how they kept a harmful pharmaceutical product on the market for an additional 10 whole years after the FDA proposed cancellation (they’re that good). Apparently you can know good public relations science and still not be smart enough to keep that kind of thing off your web site. (more on that here, including the original page, if you want to see for yourself).

Enter Villain #2:

This would be the home of Sciences International (boo! hiss!), a contractor hired by the National Institutes of Health’s Center for the Evaluation of Risk to Human Reproduction. In 2003, the NIH hired Sciences International to evaluate BPA as a reproductive and developmental toxin. Sciences International performed a literature review for BPA toxicity. They chose and summarized studies for an expert advisory panel, who — based on this work — said, “No problem! BPA is safe! So safe!”

Unfortunately, it was later revealed that Sciences International had also been hired to work for Dow Chemical and BASF — both of which manufacture BPA! This called their findings into question. Just a little bit.

Oh, but come on. What’s a little BPA among friends? After all, scientists are most concerned about BPA’s impact on children! And the world has so many children! Besides, I believe children are the future. But the plastics and chemical companies are the now! Why don’t you get that?

Just to put this little story in context: there’s not much controversy about BPA’s health impact, even at low levels. Unless, say, you work for the plastics industry. As Grist reports, independent science tips heavily to the “not-safe” category. A survey reported in Environmental Health Perspectives reviewed 115 studies of BPA; of those, 94 (82%) show harmful effects. Yet another survey shows that while all 11 plastic industry-funded studies on BPA conclude that it poses no danger; 90% of 104 government- or university-funded studies say “Uh huh! Oh, yes, it does!”

Enter a Hero

If you’re like me, you’re looking for a hero right about now. I like to imagine him. I picture that he works for one of the chemical companies, or perhaps one of the Science-for-Sale contractors hired by the chemical companies. Our hero stands up at one of the strategy meetings — the one where they’re talking about how many more years they can suck out of this nightmare of a product — and says something dramatic, like “But the children! We must think about the children!”

He’s handsome in a skinny sort of way, our hero is. Glasses, dark brooding look to him. He’s an unlikely hero, speaks in a British accent perhaps. Maybe he looks a little like this:

Unfortunately, despite any resemblances to anyone else, this lone voice of reason has no special powers, and he totally sucks at quidditch — so much so that their company has lost the annual Really Bad Dudes quidditch tournament (to Monsanto, of course) three years running. So instead of letting him wage battle on behalf of consumers everywhere, his colleagues decide to poison him and he’s never, ever heard from again.

(Joke! That part of the story is totally made up! Lighten up, people! This is an industry that poisons people slowly, not quickly! Everyone knows that!!).

Enter Hero #2

Oh! Here’s an idea! The FDA can be our hero! Isn’t that part of their job, to make sure that products on the shelves aren’t hurting American consumers?

Wait. What? You’re telling me that when the FDA considered whether BPA was safe in infant formula cans, they ignored 100 published studies by government scientists and university laboratories? And they based their position on just two studies? And that both of these studies had been funded by the American Plastics Council? And one of them wasn’t even peer-reviewed? So now the agency is being investigated by Congress???

Okay. Forget the FDA. They totally suck at the hero thing.

Enter Hero #3

Don’t worry, folks! We do have a hero, and he looks like this:

Stop laughing. This is Tony Clement, Health Minister of Canada. Tony! My Man! My Main Maple Leaf Man! He’s the guy that announced that BPA would be officially listed as a toxic substance in Canada, a step that would allow Canada eventually to ban the manufacture, import or sale of baby bottles made with polycarbonate. That was a shot heard ’round the world. Within days, Wal-Mart announced they would pull baby products that contained BPA. So did Toys R Us. And Nalgene. And Playtex. among others.

(which is great, but just for the record, I do not put these companies in the “hero” category. Not like my unlikely stud-muffin of a conservative politician, Tony Clement!!! The reason? This issue started getting coverage five freakin’ years ago — five years during which my kids drank from BPA-leaching bottles, sucked on BPA-leaching pacifiers and consumed foods that had been in BPA-lined cans. Patagonia phased out BPA three whole years ago. These companies? Nope. They just kept making toxic products for me to put in my kids’ mouths, until my studerooni Tony told them it was time to cut the crap).

Now, thanks in part to my cute-n-cuddly lover-not-a-fighter brand new boyfriend Tony Clement, this whole BPA thing is finally getting mainstream coverage — like here and here and here and here. Even the U.S. government, our shamed Un-hero, is paying attention. The U.S. government’s National Toxicology Program (of the National Health Institutes) has officially declared that there is “some concern” about BPA, and the FDA is at last reviewing the chemical again. (hey, guys, here’s a tip: this time don’t just rely on 2 industry studies. Take a look at the other hundreds of studies, too, ‘kay?)

For all of us parents, there’s now a whole web site dedicated to BPA free kids products — bottles, dishes, sippy cups, pacifiers, spoons, you name it.

For your food storage needs, check out Culinate’s nice, simple overview of food storage options that won’t kill you or the planet.

Some other tips: wherever possible, buy foodstuffs that are packaged in glass instead of plastic (or better yet, buy fresh). Don’t drink anything hot from plastic. Avoid #7 plastics like the Plague. And for your own drinking needs, go for one of these water bottles.

And they lived happily ever after…

Tony and I did, that is. In our BPA-free little world. Now how long does it take for that stuff to leave our pee?!!

I whipped up a tasty, kid-friendly egg drop soup last night. There’s a recipe below, if you can hang in that long.

The short version of how this recipe came to be is quite simple: Merrie loves egg drop soup. She adores the stuff. At least three times a week, she begs to go to the local Chinese-Sushi-Korean dive just so that she can slurp up a bowl. This egg drop soup frightens me, however. It is yellow — bright, bright yellow. It is a shade of yellow that shouldn’t be allowed to exist. It is highlighter yellow. Neon yellow. I’m certain it’s filled with food coloring that’s going to knock five points off of her IQ each and every time she eats it.

Seriously. Their soup is so bright it’s almost…radioactive.

Which brings me to the second part of the story behind the soup. As many of you know, I’ve had a couple of bad weeks. Abdominal stuff. Pain. Bloating. Nausea. More recently, I’ve been feeling better. Not yet 100%, but so, so much better. When I was at my worst, my physician had ordered a bunch of tests (my endoscope went fine, thank you, and I have a very pretty stomach interior. I’d be happy to post the photos if anyone wants to see). One of the tests — a scan to see if I have a weak gallbladder — was scheduled for yesterday morning. I didn’t know much about the test beside the fact that I couldn’t eat beforehand.

Blair took the day off to be with me. We had an hour and a half between dropping the kids off and my appointment, so we went for a hike together. It was a beautiful, blustery spring morning, apple blossoms in bloom, gray clouds rolling overhead. Even with the test looming, we had fun. Lots of fun. After a decade of marriage, Blair still makes me laugh, and we still have plenty to talk about.

“We should do this more often,” I said. “We should do this on days when I don’t have to go take a stinkin’ test. We should do this, just the two of us, for no reason, and then go out to breakfast.”

Then, a short time later, we were sitting in a field of grass, looking at an expansive mountain view. Blair told me it was time to head over to the hospital. I sighed, picturing myself in a hospital johnny, lying on a table with a needle in my arm, some high-tech Siemens equipment taking pictures of my innards.

“Okay, but I like this part better,” I said. Then I sighed again. “I really wish we could go out to breakfast.”

Fast-forward 30 minutes. I’m seated in a hospital waiting room with Blair, marveling that there is a 2-year-old Time magazine is still on display (Al Gore: will he run for president in ‘08?). A friendly radiology tech in floral scrubs, cropped hair, us into a windowless, fluorescent-lit room. At the center of this room is an imposing machine. The machine looks like it could eat me. As she sets up the equipment, she asks casually, “and you won’t be around young kids today, will you?”

And I answer, “Yes, I will. I’ve got two.”

She stops what she’s doing, looks me in the eye. “Okay, well, I’m not going to say that you can’t be around them, but you don’t want to hold them in your lap.”

I stare at her. Not hold my kids in my lap? Why would —? Huh?

“You’ll be radioactive,” she says.

I try to make sense of her words. Surely I mis-heard. “I’ll be — what?”

“Radioactive. In this test, we inject you with a radioactive fluid. It will be in your system for 12 hours, during which time you will be radioactive. Please don’t hold your children.”

Blair told me later that at this moment, he thought, “Okay, THIS is not going to go well…” And he was right. Because this, friends, is where I start to panic. I gape at the radiology tech. I am picturing the scene in the opening credits of the Simpsons, the part where Homer gets the radioactive rod of plutonium stuck in his overalls. And I imagine that rod inside of me, lighting up my insides, house, my kids. Gee, kids, doesn’t Mommy have a special glow tonight?

And then the words come. I want to say something logical like, but I’m getting better! Not worse! Shouldn’t making me radioactive be a test of last resort? But I’m feeling trapped, and I can’t stop thinking about that plutonium rod — doesn’t Mommy look luminous tonight? — and panicked tears have started welling up in my eyes. I simply whisper, hoarsely, “This feels wrong.”

The tech eyes me carefully, then goes in search of a radiologist who can counsel me through this panic attack. Suddenly, I really notice all the “Caution: Radioactive” signs that are plastered around the room. But my kids! They’re too little to carry Geiger counters! For Pete’s sake, I try to keep them away from artificial food colorings! And if I’m too radioactive for them, how should I feel about this stuff being inside of me?

The radiologist arrives. Unfortunately for him, it is one of the two radiologists that I know personally — he owns a horse farm on our road, and he trot-trots past our house several times a week. We often chat. He and his wife bought a baby gift for Charlotte when she was born. They let the kids pet his horses. He thinks of me, no doubt, as a waving, smiling neighbor, not a crazy lady who panics in a medical imaging room.

He strides into the room, prepared to patiently counsel an irrational stranger. Then he notices it’s me, his neighbor, and that I’m crying. He is so caught off guard that he literally must turn on his heels, walk out of the room, regain his composure, and come in again.

We talk. “It’s a low risk,” he says. “But it’s not no-risk. Like flying in an airplane.”

I nod and look down at the floor. Gee, kids, isn’t Mommy just da’ bomb?

He thinks a minute. “But listen, if you’re feeling better lately, not worse, there’s really no need to take it today.”

I stared helplessly at him. He is saying the right thing, but I can’t get past the trapped feeling.

Gather ’round, kids! Mommy’s going to lead us in a round of “this little light of mine, I’m gonna’ let it shine…”

“Really,” he says. “Go home. If your symptoms get worse, you can come back. If they keep getting better, then you won’t need to worry about the test.”

The floral-scrubbed radiology tech smiles gently. “It’s okay to go,” she says. She wants to scream it, no doubt: Just go, Nutso! Stop wasting my time! Go! But she is too kind to scream. She’s in a healing profession. She’s a healer. A healer who was prepared to shoot gamma rays into my body. A healer who wields a terrifying medical device. But a healer nonetheless. “You won’t be the first to have decided not to do the test.”

Then I realize: they are handing me a get-out-of-jail-free card. I take it. I go. We thank them, walk out of the room, out of the hospital. We get some breakfast. Just like I wanted.

So then later, after picking up the girls, I’m able to hold them. I’m able to make egg drop soup with them — the first meal I’ve made with them for a while. After we eat, I help brush their teeth, read to them, and lie with them in their beds. On this night, these things feel better, more meaningful, than they do most night. While I do them, I do not worry about whether I should really be at Yucca Mountain (and with that comment I must confess that some Googling revealed that any risk to the kids was probably low, no worse than flying. But still. I never liked flying.)

And the soup? Merrie loved it. Charlotte loved it. Blair thought it was like the Chinese-Sushi-Koren restaurant’s egg drop soup, but “way-better.” It didn’t look radioactive. And you know what? Neither did I.

Here’s my super-easy, super-fast recipe for yummy non-radioactive egg drop soup:

Ingredients:
4 cups chicken broth, with half-cup reserved
2 scallions, chopped, white and green parts separated
1/8 tsp dried ginger
1/8 tsp white pepper
1/2 tsp sherry
1/2 tsp soy sauce
1/4 salt, or more to taste
Few drops of sesame oil
1.5 TBSP cornstarch
2 eggs, beaten

Directions:
Pour 3.5 of the cups of broth into a pan, reserving a half-cup for later. Add the white parts of scallions, the ginger, white pepper, sherry, and soy sauce. Bring to boil and let cook for 5 minutes. Add 2-3 drops sesame oil (a little goes a long way).

Mix cornstarch with remaining broth, and add to pan. Turn heat to low. Beat eggs, then add to broth while stirring rapidly in a clockwise motion. Stir for one minute, until the eggs have cooked and look like shreds.

Sprinkle with the scallion greens. Serve hot.

Note: if you’re not worried about a wee one’s palate, you can slightly increase the quantities of spice. But I preferred to ease into the spices, lest Merrie be turned off and then spend the rest of her life believing that the only good egg drop soup is neon in color.

Big thumbs up from the family on this one. As for me, I’m just glad to be back in the kitchen again.

I felt well enough today to avoid a $25 fee and keep a dentist’s appointment that I’d scheduled back in January. Not so pleasant (I love my dentist, lurve him, but still). Today was exciting, though. I lay there in the chair, getting my semi-annual dose of morning TV. And I’m lying there, stretched back, watching Kathy Lee Gifford, lights on me, and fingers (not mine) in my mouth. And I’m wondering, “how old is that woman? Why has she nary a wrinkle?”

But then who should I see before me but my cyber-buddy Mir, from Woulda Coulda Shoulda, who was featured in a Today Show program about blogging moms. Which was fun and quite exciting, because I got to say, “hey, I know her!”

Which came out sounding like, “huh uh eugh uh!”

Then my dentist and his assistant both said that they do not ‘get’ the blogging thing and they definitely don’t approve of people putting their kids’ photos online, not in this crazy society, and I must agree with them, right? And I had to kind of shrug and say sheepishly (fingers no longer in my mouth). “I blog. Sometimes I post the kids’ pictures.” And they looked at me, totally silent, and I tried to fill the awkward silence by talking about how there are like, tens of millions of blogs, and how Flickr hosts, like, two and a half billion photos and really what are the chances of something happening to one of my kids from this, and how I don’t want to live my life in fear and so on and so forth and my voice got higher and higher and I started talking fasterandfasterandfaster.

And my dentist said simply, “you don’t watch Dateline.”

But that’s an aside, and it’s not even what I came here to talk about. I actually came here to talk about potatoes.

I’m eating again, mostly. I’m getting ’scoped — one of those tests where they stick a camera down your throat and into your tum-tum to see what they can see (like part of my stomach lining eroded due to some virus that I never noticed having in the first place?) — tomorrow morning. Which sounds like not so much fun, although I did get to wake up this morning singing twenny twenny twenny-four hours to go…I wanna’ be sedated, and the truth is I’m curious to see the pictures.

At this point, I must note that all this being sick stuff makes me feel so much more connected to this body of mine. It’s easy to take it for granted when you’re well. And then you get sick, and it’s like — whammo! — look how well this all works most of the time! For 37 years, this body of mine has been pumping blood and digesting food and filtering toxins and making glycoproteins and producing cells (100 billion red blood cells an hour? Seriously?) non-stop. It’s remarkable, really. It’s more than remarkable; excuse my French, but the whole thing is a frickin’ miracle.

But again, that’s not what I’m here to talk about. I’m a little rusty on the blog posting, so forgive me my meandering style. I really am here to talk about the potato.

I’ve been eating plenty of potatoes lately — it’s an easy first food back — and am grateful not only to have a body that works well most of the time, but also to have potatoes that I can feed to this body of mine.

I know, some of you (hi, Anna!) can’t do potatoes. And I apologize for talking about foods that not everyone can have. I’ll get back to general-interest vegetables soon. But this is, in fact, the Year of the Potato as declared by the UN, and these tubers have paved my way back toward other foods, like split pea soup and miso soup and bananas and non-dairy ice cream. (and it’s all workin’ for me, knock wood. All of it). I just had to take a moment to celebrate them.

If you can eat them, you should. Yes, they’ve got carbs, which makes them a pariah food among South Beach types. But they’re no Wonder bread; they actually rival broccoli and Brussels sprouts in health-boosting phytochemicals. From World’s Healthiest Foods (with my emphasis):

Roy Navarre has identified 60 different kinds of phytochemicals and vitamins in the skins and flesh of 100 wild and commercially grown potatoes. Analysis of Red and Norkotah potatoes revealed that these spuds’ phenolic content rivals that of broccoli, spinach and Brussels sprouts, and includes flavonoids with protective activity against cardiovascular disease, respiratory problems and certain cancers. These last compounds, which have blood pressure lowering potential, have only been found in one other plant, Lycium chinense (a.k.a., wolfberry/gogi berry).

(and have you seen the price of gogi berries, friends? They’re about 15-20 times the cost of a potato).

Yeah, potatoes are super-cheap, even with all their vitamin C and B-vitamins and potassium and copper and fiber, and even as the prices for wheat and rice skyrocket. They are a low-cost, high-fiber, free-radical-destroyin’, heart-helpin’, amino acid-synthesizin’ wonder-food.

And? My microwave has a baked potato setting.

I think that baked potatoes are simple little packages of perfection. But if you’re looking to do more, they are also wildly versatile.

Try some rustic potato chowder from the truly fabulous Heidi Swanson. Oh, heck - let’s stay with Heidi for a moment (she’s that good) and try her kale and olive oil mashed Potatoes, or her potato croutons.

Even though we’re no longer in the holiday season, you can still whip up some lattkes (think tater-tots, but larger and with more of a tradition around them). There’s the traditional route, or the Asian kind with soy dipping sauce (by way of Velveteen Rabbi — hi, Rachel!). B’teavon.

Or try some potato-parsnip puree. Or three-ingredient mustard roasted potatoes. Or gourmet potatoes with white wine, thyme, and olives. Really, the possibilities go on and on. I’ve even see people make healthy nachos, using potato wedges instead of chips.

See? You know I’m feeling a little better if I can even think about these recipes.

As for types of potatoes. I prefer russet for baking, Yukon gold for soups or pancakes or other cooking. If I’m roasting, I always love red new potatoes or little fingerlings, otherwise I’ll use Yukon gold. If I’m mashing, I’ll use any or all of the above.

Just a few tips: Cut away the eyes (they’re toxic), store potatoes in the dark, always unrefrigerated, and don’t eat any part of the potato that’s turned green. This is one food where green does not equal healthier.

Me? I’m just grateful for them. This week more than most.

So I’m still not cooking, still not eating. But soon? Hopefully soon. Yes. Hopefully soon. For the time being, my abdomen has stumped the experts. For that I would feel proud if only I felt better.

Reading, though? Yes. I can do that. So I must steer you toward this excellent series on the food crisis from the Washington Post. They’ve done a great job connecting the dots between malnourished toddlers in Mauritania, riots in Bangladesh, the move toward biofuels, and recent uptick in coupon clipping in the U.S., a reverse of a 7 year downward trend. The series is absolutely worth a read.

Three things stood out while I read this. First was simply an awareness of how connected we all are, every one of us, all across the globe. It’s like the old butterfly-flaps-its-wings-and-causes-a-tsunami story. We think we are so far away, here in the U.S. We think we are far away from a desperate goat farmer in Nouakchott, or a grain producer in the Ukraine. We hear about a prolonged drought in Australia, or hungry Haitians, and we think, “that’s elsewhere. That’s some other land, some other place, some other issue.” But then you pull on a single string, just one, and find that we are all connected. That string is food, or perhaps at its most basic level, it is the planet that we all live on.

The second thing that struck me is the thing that strikes me always, whenever I read this stuff: how fortunate I am. Even as I cringe as my own groceries ring up, I must remember that over a billion people — a billion. Like, take every person of every age in every town and city everywhere in America, and then triple that number — live on less than a dollar a day. Those people are already spending 70% or more of their income on food. Not to eat lavishly, but simply to get enough sustenance to stay alive. Here, we spend 10%. Not even. So, yes, it hurts when the prices of eggs rise by 35%. I don’t want to minimize that for anyone. But my God…what happens to those people who are already giving everything they have toward basic survival?

The last thing to strike me is how commoditized food has become. The article series opens with financial traders in big cities watching the computer screens at America’s great grain exchanges. These people in suits, watching up-to-the-instant tickers about rice, wheat, corn. Same as the folks who are watching tickers about GE, or about Yahoo, or Pfizer. And yet these commodities, these grains, are so much more than what they seem on the big boards. It’s not like watching Microsoft, really, even though in so many ways, it is. It’s food.

As Jeff Voge, chairman of the Kansas City Board of Trade, is quoted in the article: “We have never seen anything like this before. Prices are going up more in one day than they have during entire years in the past. But no matter the price, there always seems to be a buyer. . . . This isn’t just any commodity. It is food, and people need to eat.”

The whole thing is sobering, and it will really make you stop and savor whatever it is you’re about to eat, or just ate. (yes, even if that thing is simply some dry toast, as it’s been in my house for a week).

Once you’re done with that serious reading, you might be in the mood for something to make you laugh. Not ha-ha laugh, mind you, more like WTF? kind of laughter. Like, say, some $3,000 tours of Whole Foods? Sounds crazy, but this New York Times article highlights the work of Nancy Weiser, a lifestyle coach to those wishing to adopt a more wholesome approach to eating. Nancy promises to permanently change clients’ relationship to the food supply, and I’m sure she does; as a society, we have gotten so far away from any kind of healthful relationship to food that any informed discussion about food choices is bound to open eyes. Weiser’s goal is to teach people how to return to a simpler set of food choices, like not eating anything that “wouldn’t grow in the ground.” Along the way, she teaches people how to make stuff with, say, kale.

And bless her for that. Really. But just a word to those folks who are paying $3,000 for 12 classes? Pssst. There’s plenty of good information online, and you can get lots of it for free.

Like cooking with kale? A brief visit to Nancy’s web site shows that she’s got a great recipe for krispy kale. And the recipe seems…somehow…familiar. Because, oh, that’s right! You saw it here. And here. And here. And elsewhere, with poetry.

Anyhow, it makes me laugh, because Nancy’s would be kind of a dream job if I lived in a neighborhood where people actually had $3,000 to spare, instead of where, say, the guy who owns the property next door once lived inside a school bus. And it makes me cry, because, well, the job is hers. Not mine.

I promise I’ll be back in the weather (as opposed to under it) soon, with more recipes and more fun. And I won’t even charge you three-grand for it.

…to be ill. Not “what’s in your meat” ill. But, like, seriously ill.

It’s a shame. There’s so much to talk about. There’s President Bush advising people to eat locally grown foods as a creative solution to the world food crisis. There’s Expat’s scathing response to his comments, which is basically “hello? That’d be nice, but thanks to our agricultural policy only 4% of the farms in the U.S. even grow fruits and vegetables and meanwhile you’re pushing to convert even more farmland to corn production to boost dubious ethanol production…” There’s the absurd Cookie Diet (thanks to the Ethicurean for the link). There are parts II and III to the food crisis posts — how we can save money on groceries without resorting to total crap — which I’d really like to return to.

I can’t talk about any of that, though. I just don’t want to think about food at all. I’m sick as a dog. Nausea, abdominal pain, dry heaves, all of it. Some funky bug? Who knows. Actually, they thought it might be my gallbladder — they wanted to yank that sucker out of me, and yesterday morning, I even had an IV stuck in my arm in preparation for surgery — but then the ultrasound showed no stones.

(My gallbladder??? But I eat vegetables! I’m the only one I know who can eat a bowl of beets happily! I don’t go on cookie diets!)

So it’s a mystery. And hopefully it’s just something that clears, miraculously, on its own. Like, today. Voila! Poof! Gone! Here’s hoping.

In the meantime, here I am, not eating food, not writing about food, not thinking about food. I got me some apple juice, and that’s as much as I can handle.

A brief haiku for my body parts on this retch-filled Wednesday:

I like my organs.
I’d prefer to keep them, ‘kay?
(gallbladder too. Please).

Every winter, it feels the same. I hit a certain point — it starts in February most years — when I cease to believe that it will ever be warm again. I just stop believing in summer. My faith gets shattered. The endless gray, the sleet, the wind…I reach a point where that’s all I expect. Ever.

And then. And then. Suddenly my magnolia tree bursts into bloom:

It always seems like some kind of miracle. I suppose it is, really. This year, I’ve got another, more practical, reason to welcome spring: my grocery bill.

Man, those food prices hurt, don’t they? Of course, even as I say this, I feel guilty for whining. Truth is, I’m damned fortunate not to live in any of the dozens of countries who are at risk of upheaval because of rising food prices. But, yeah, sometimes it makes me cringe. Particularly when the cost of organic milk nears $7 a gallon.

(You might wonder who’s doing well amid all of this? It’s probably no surprise: big farm special interests, who are continuing to receive subsidies even though their net income — that’s net, not gross — is at an all-time high).

But back to your grocery bill. Alanna Kellogg over at Blogher has posted a long article filled with worthwhile tips save on food. I really love so many of her ideas — think food, not “groceries;” get the most out of everything you buy; cook more; limit packaging; pay for nutrition, not snacks; eat seasonally.

So many of her points feel so right — common-sense, frugal, humble, on target. Funny, too, how her tips for frugality are the same ones that promote better health.

There’s just one point with which I take issue: she says that most locally produced foods remain more expensive than their grocery-store counterparts. It’s not true — it’s just not true at all — if you’re shopping at farmer’s markets.

For proof, check out Leftover Queen’s analysis on farmers’ market costs vs. grocery store costs. She compares an array of items, and the farmers’ market prices are either less than, or on par with, grocery store costs. Get Rich Slowly did a similar analysis, concluding that “during the peak of the harvest, at least, the produce stand offers the best balance of quality and cost.” Becks and Posh came to the same conclusion. As have others.

There are other advantages to the farmers’ market, too. You get to meet the people who grew your food. You’re not tempted to plunk down your hard-earned cash on what Michael Pollan calls “edible food-like substances” and non-essentials. Plus, you get more of a community; sociologists have found that people have ten times more conversations at farmers’ markets than they do at grocery stores.

Plus, you’ll be helping your local economy, as well; in an era where less then 10 cents of every dollar you spend on food goes to the grower — the rest goes toward corporations involved with distribution, packaging, and reselling — this is a way to give 100% of the cash to the nearby farmers who grew the food.

We’re still a month away from farmers markets in the Northeast. But they’re coming, I know now that they’re really coming, and I can’t wait. Since spring greens are some of the first items that I’ll find, I’ll go armed with this roundup of great recipes from Apartment Therapy. They all feature spring greens, and they look phenomenal.

Perhaps your farmers’ market is in swing? If so, head over. While you’re there, do your own cost-analysis. Let me know what you find out.

Okay, omnivores. Here’s a great twist on an American staple, and a fantastic, foolproof dinnertime option: Expat Chef’s brilliant Meatloaf Florentine, which she posted last fall in honor of National Meatloaf Day. It’s awesome. And it’s easy. And it’s a flexible recipe.

But I don’t want to tell you about the meatloaf yet. First, please indulge me briefly while I tell you about the meat I used, and why I used what I did.

I don’t buy conventional beef anymore. I just can’t do it. Last year, thirty-three million pounds of beef were recalled during 20 different recalls. This year, we witnessed downer cows being forklifted so they could be processed for our food supply, after which the USDA recalled 143 million pounds of beef. All of which might make a person feel safer (I mean, the bad meat is recalled, right?), except that the majority of recalled meat is never recovered and likely eaten. And the downer cow scandal? The processing facility was picked at random by undercover investigators (from the Humane Society, mind you. Not from anyone who’s actually paid to be investigating this stuff). Just doesn’t make me feel reassured.

It’s tough to say ‘no’ to conventional beef, though, for one main reason: the pasture-raised stuff is much more expensive. Like most things, you do get what you pay for — grass-fed beef also has far less overall fat, less saturated fat, more of the good fats like omega-3s and conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), and lots more vitamin A, vitamin E, and beta-carotene. The ratio of omega-6s to omega-3s is closer to 1:1, whereas in conventional beef, it’s as much as 20:1— an imbalance that is increasingly linked with cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and depression, among other nasty things.

Still, I really can’t swing $12.99 per pound, particularly when I’m working with a recipe that calls for 3 lbs of meat. Thirty-nine dollars worth of meatloaf is just out of the question in our house.

So what to do? I did what so many people have already done on their journey toward Real Food: I went direct to the farmer. At nearby Cricket Creek Farm, pastured ground beef, from a facility that is exceedingly clean and lovely, and from cows that are some of the healthiest I’ve ever seen, goes for $4/lb. More expensive than grocery store? Yes. But in a more affordable range, particularly when the meal is stretched with veggies and lasts many, many days? You betcha’.

Here’s a nice photo of the farm, taken last summer (it’s not nearly so green in New England this time of year):

Besides, the experience of buying the meat was about as heart-warming as it gets. The kids got to pet friendly barnyard cats. They ate some fresh-baked cookies that sell alongside the meats and cheeses. They frolicked outdoors. Charlotte found herself enamored by the pigs:

Whereas Merrie discovered she was something of a chicken whisperer:

It was one of those gorgeous New England spring days, and it was an absolutely lovely way to pass the afternoon. The entire time, I just kept thinking how grateful I was to have a farm like this nearby, and a part of our lives.

Anyhow, the meatloaf. Yes, it’s great, and I like that Expat allows you to “stretch” your meat by sneaking in greens. My version was a variation of what’s on Expat’s site. To keep costs down, I used a can of tomato paste instead of ketchup (her suggestion).

But basically, I took all of these ingredients:

(that would be: 1 medium onion, finely diced; 1 large clove garlic, minced; 1 can tomato paste; 1.5 cups of fresh greens (spinach and chard, mixed), chopped; 1/2 cup of herbs (parsley, mostly, with a little fresh thyme and some dried basil); 2 eggs; 1 cup + 1 TBSP bread crumbs; a half-cup of grated parmesan; 1 tsp kosher sea salt; some black pepper; and a few sprinkles of red pepper flakes)

Then I sauteed the onion and garlic in olive oil first, then I combined it all — everything, all at once — with 3 lbs of grass-fed meat. Yes, with my hands. Which aren’t actually claws, despite how it may appear:

Then I stuck it in two loaf pans in a 350-degree oven for an hour, until my meat thermometer said that the meatloaf had reached 180-degrees:

And guys? It’s awesome. I mean, it’s a really nice meatloaf. Everyone ate it, and Blair kept saying, “what is it about this that’s so good? What’s the secret ingredient?” And I didn’t know the answer — maybe it’s the quality meat, maybe it’s Expat’s great touch, maybe something about the lovely afternoon we’d spent got absorbed right into those ingredients.

The recipe makes two loaves — it would have been plenty for a good-size dinner party; as is, we ate one over two different nights, plus a lunch. Then the rest of it we’ll be adding to other dishes, like pasta sauce, soup, and homemade pizza. I’m guessing that in the end, we’ll have gotten 4 family meals out of it, plus several lunches — not bad for $12 worth of meat.

When we first sat down at the table, Merrie turned her nose up at the meatloaf. “I don’t think I like this,” she said, grumpily, as soon as she saw it.

I ignored that comment, and then about 30 seconds later, I said “Hey, Merrie, this is made with the meat you helped me buy at Cricket Creek.”

Her eyes got bright for a moment, and she asked, “Mom, can we go back there again tomorrow?”

“Soon,” I promised.

Then I tried not to smile when I saw her lift her fork and start to eat.

Over the weekend, I took Merrie down to the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass. Yes, I know that Rockwell is the scourge of the art world. I know he is dismissed as saccharine, unchallenging, simplified, utterly corny. And I’ll admit that for decades, I myself have ever-so-slightly rolled my eyes every time I see a hokey Rockwell print hanging on a doctor’s wall, or adorning the hallway of some sentimental grandma. Something about him made my teeth hurt.

Still, I knew Merrie would enjoy his pictures, the way they tell a whole story in a single image. I knew she’d enjoy his images of happy children, and the safe, simple world in which they appear to live. So we packed ourselves into the car, armed with coffee (for mom) and a muffin (for daughter), and headed south.

As expected, Merrie dug the paintings. But here’s what surprised me: I was really moved by the visit.

It’s true: Rockwell’s world is relentlessly sweet. It’s a world of white picket fences and big-hearted grannies. It’s a world of backyard baseball games, humble prayer, and drug store soda fountains. The freckled, apple-cheeked kids are always smiling. Adults are all hard-working, earnest. In Rockwell’s world, the worst trouble a child can get into is to ignore a “No Swimming” sign only to be chased, naked, from the pond. In Rockwell’s world, every runaway child will be discovered by a gentle police officer, then taken out for ice cream. It’s Pleasantville, plain and simple.

Insipid? I’d always thought so. But while I was there, I began thinking about the historic context in which he painted — the Great Depression. The rise of Hitler, World War II. I tried to imagine what it would be like to learn for the first time about the horrors of the Holocaust.

I tried explaining some of these events to Merrie. I tried explaining that the world can be dark and depraved, and Rockwell’s freckled faces — even his goofy hobos and heroic returning soldiers — were a kind of antidote to this, a call to Americans to cling to our own goodness even as we lost our own innocence.

It is a difficult thing, explaining Hitler to a 6-year-old. It is equally hard to look at Rockwell’s Four Freedoms paintings, the ones inspired by FDR’s 1941 speech to Congress, and to try to explain that they are just as relevant today as they were in 1943. That even today, people are still hungry, they are still oppressed, they are still fearful, and they can’t always worship as they wish.

I’m frankly embarrassed to admit it. But I was moved.

The next evening, I baked oatmeal chocolate chip cookies — I typically make up a batch of cookies, then freeze them and take out a couple at a time for Merrie’s lunches. I’d been reading about natural sweeteners, and so I tried using sucanat — which is sort of like a grainy brown sugar that has more nutrients than most refined stuff — which I had bought in bulk, alongside my organic rolled oats, which I’d also purchased in bulk. The girls were tucked in their beds, the kitchen smelled fabulous, and I was feeling frugal and wholesome, filling up plates with fresh-baked goodness.

And that’s when it hit me — I was doing a Norman Rockwell.

Not just the cookies, either. I mean this whole thing, this whole return-to-the-table, go natural, make-it-pure, buy-from-a-farmer thing. It’s very, very Rockwell-esque. And not only because it looks picturesque to go to a farmer’s market, or to serve a fresh-from-the-oven family dinner. I mean because it requires turning toward goodness, toward something wholesome, in a world that is still, and may always be, dark and depraved.

Sometimes I wonder about what I’m doing here, on this blog, talking about food when there are so many important things to talk about. It’s not like I don’t know that there’s a war on. It’s not like I’m unaware that close to a thousand U.S. soldiers have been killed since I started this blog, or that Pakistan has nuclear weapons, or that that global warming is increasing the virulence of existing diseases and may very likely release some terrifying new diseases, or that today alone close to 22,000 children will die from a preventable cause.

I know all of these things, and you do, too. These things are always looming, always hovering in the shadows. They are there as I write funny stories about getting my kids to eat vegetables, and they are there as we talk about sippy cups and meat recalls and brussels sprouts.

It’s true that I deeply believe that changing how we eat is one tangible thing we can do to change some of the world’s horrors — check out the UN report if you want to learn more about that. We eat over, and over, and over again. We do it many times, every day — it is one of the only things we do with such frequency — and if we can make some of our eating choices with an eye toward how those choices impact the world around us, I do genuinely believe that we can improve that world.

Still, there is something else at work, too. For me, at least, food gives me something I can retreat into, some kind of escape from the world’s many nightmares. Food — real food — is nourishing, food is beautiful, food is grounding, food brings people together. And when I connect my food to the farm where it was grown, it is even more of these things.

I suspect I’m not alone here, that the eat-local movement, the anti-fast food movement reflects some kind of national zeitgeist that is in some way related to the fear and anxiety that exists elsewhere.

Take farmer’s markets, for example. Since 1994, farmers’ markets have increased by 150%; since 2000 alone, they’ve nearly doubled. Go to a farmer’s market, and you’ll wind up chatting with neighbors. Then you’ll take your produce home, and you’ll put on an apron, and you’ll chop and peel and then make a meal that reminds you of one that you once had at grandma’s. And it feels good. Not just right, but good, the way Norman Rockwell’s families appear invariably, undeniably, good.

Invite people over to dinner, and you’ll wind up around a table laughing. Stop by a U-Pick farm for Berries, and your kids’ faces will soon be smeared with berry juice. All of it, so Norman Rockwell.

High-art types be damned. It turns out that Norman and I have more in common than I ever imagined.

If you want to bring a little more Rockwell into your world, but you aren’t quite ready to hang a print on your wall, I offer you my recipe for Norman Rockwell-esque sucanat-based oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. They’re not just tasty. They’re good.

Ingredients:
Half pound (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 cup sucanat (buy it in bulk or it’s too expensive)
Half-cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 and a half cups unbleached flour
3 cups rolled oats (buy in bulk for best price, least packaging)
1 teaspoon baking soda
Half-teaspoon salt
Half a pound chocolate chips (again…go bulk!)

Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix softened butter, sucanat, and sugar together. Add vanilla and eggs. In separate bowl, combine flour, oats, baking soda, and salt - mix these well. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the butter-egg mix. Blend in chocolate chips. Drop in small spoonfuls onto your baking pan, then Bake in oven for about 9-10 minutes. Note that because you’re using succanat, it’s hard to tell when the cookies are “browned.” You want to remove them when they’re formed, but still soft.

Set up the DVR; King Corn is on PBS this week. Might even be tonight on your local station; check here to find out when it’s showing in your neck of the woods.

The short story behind this film: a couple of cutie-pie Yale grads move to Iowa to plant an acre of corn. As they watch it grow, they learn about American food — what it is, and why it is what it is. The film is more fun than shrill, even if it did tick off the National Corn Growers Association.

Here’s my review, haiku-style:

The story? Not new,
But these fellas make it fresh;
Corn’s king. They’re dumplings.

photo credit: Curt Ellis.

I know, I’m all like “Blah blah blahbity blah blah Monsanto blah blah blahbity Additives blahbity blahbity blah blah More vegetables blahbity blah blah My house is a mess blah blah blah Cook more blah.”

But as long as I’m on a roll….

Over in Britain, they’re phasing out a bunch of food additives that are damaging childrens brains. Apparently the damage to children’s brains caused by these additives (about 5.5 IQ points) is as bad as the damage caused by lead in gasoline before they phased it out. They’re thinking that this move will cut the number of hyperactive children by a third.

Over there, the suspect additives are food colors: tartrazine (E102); quinoline yellow (E104); sunset yellow (E110); carmoisine (E122); ponceau 4R (E124); and allura red (E129).

Don’t recognize them? Don’t feel reassured. Three of the banned additives are approved and widely used in the U.S. — their more familiar names to us Yanks include: FD&C Yellow 5; Yellow 6; and Red #40. Now you recognize ‘em, right?  Sigh.

Just another reminder to blah blah blahbity buy foods that are as whole as possible blah blah blah blah stay away from foods with ingredients that you don’t recognize blahbity blah blah farmers’ markets blah blah nutrition blah blah blah.

Many thanks to Jack from Fork and Bottle for the link.