The Cleaner Plate Club

Thank goodness someone was watching for that Rachael-Ray-Wears-a-Scarf thing. I mean, seriously.

(Oh, you live under a rock? One more impermeable than my own? Here’s the deal: Rachael Ray wore a paisley scarf in a Dunkin’ Donuts ad. I mean…jeesh.)

Fortunately, some bloggers were all over that sh*t. They were like, she can’t wear a paisley scarf! No way, man! What is she, some kind of jihadist apologist? A cigar may sometimes just be a cigar, but a scarf? That’s, like, totally terrorism, man. Dunkin’ Donuts no likey-likey the pressure from these bloggers. They pulled the ad.

Now, we can all be grateful that we are that much safer…from paisley scarves.

There’s certainly nothing else worth discussing. It’s not, for example, worth discussing that a Vanilla Bean Coolata contains sodium benzoate, which is linked with ADHD, cirrhosis of the liver, and Parkinson’s disease. Or that a Dunkin’ Donuts jelly donut contains not simply sodium benzoate, but also TBHQ, a likely carcinogen that’s a major ingredient in varnish and laquer; Red 40, which researchers link with ADHD and behavioral problems and is banned in many other countries; and trans-fats, which the New England Journal of Medicine estimates are responsible for between 30,000 and 100,000 cardiac deaths per year in the United States. Or even the fact that Dunkin’ Donuts annual advertising budget alone is nearly eight times more than the annual 5-a-Day budget — used to promote food that doesn’t kill us — ever was.

And yeah, I know that Dunkin’ Donuts has done some good things recently, like going with Fair Trade espresso beans. But that’s not relevant either. None of these things are.

What matters is Rachael Ray’s paisley scarf. Because if we don’t talk about paisley, the terrorists will win. So we shall fight perky bosoms terrorism and henley T-shirts all who wish us harm and words like Yum-O, you. Yeah, you, too!  Just ’cause!

And we shall do it by talking about absolutely nothing paisley!

Seriously. I’m SO gonna’ go suck down some TBHQ and sodium benzoate now. And I’m gonna’ do it happily, knowing that, at last, I’m safe from paisley scarves.

Listen, friends, there are some things you won’t read here. Stories of rugby practices held mostly at a bar? Photos of seafood-stuffed cleavage? Stolen cable television? Tales of boys’ jeans in a heap on the floor, told precariously close to words like “shag”?

You’ll have to go elsewhere for that. Even if it is a bit of my own past.

Here, we talk food. Here, we might talk about soba noodles, Japanese buckwheat pasta that is high in fiber and protein. Or we might talk about sea scallops, and how it’s important not to overcook these little fellas.

Better yet, we might combine the two to discuss the soba-scallop noodles that Jenn and I made earlier this week, as our children ran wild in the backyard and dogs sniffed around the counters and snarfed the occasional spilled bean.

The short story: Many veggies. Soba noodles. Edamame. Scallops cooked by Jenn. A little too much sauce (by which I mean tamari sauce, not the fun stuff, not this time). Two old roommates making messes and neglecting wee ones as we dished up both dinner and gossip aplenty.

Continue reading ‘No stolen cable. No shag. Just noodles.’

Let’s start with the hypocrisy disclosure: I have purchased Vitamin Water. I have allowed my children to drink the stuff.

Now, the background:

A while ago, a friend emailed me, suggesting that I “do a little rant about the evil of crystalline fructose found in Vitamin Water.” Said she:

I started drinking that stuff as a substitute for regular and diet soda (my only real vice). I figured it was healthy (’cuz of the calories) and not evil (because it doesn’t contain high fructose corn syrup). After drinking it for a week or so, I felt worse than if I had been drinking soda. I did some digging around the internet and discovered that “crystalline fructose” seems to be just a fancier form of HFCS. I feel duped! Honestly, a red flag went up once (the grocery store) started selling it for a buck a bottle. Anyway, I’m on a mission now to get the word out that this stuff probably isn’t as healthy as it makes itself out to be.

Ahh, she’s a girl after my own heart. Just look at how she packed all my favorite buzzwords — rant, HFCS, duped, mission, evil — into a single email!

So, let’s take a little look-see at the stuff, shall we?

Turns out my friend is not alone in feeling nasty after drinking Vitamin Water; scroll through the comments of this post, and you’ll note several people reporting feeling crappy after drinking Vitamin Water; icky after-effects include headaches, stomachaches, and, more commonly, the runs. Ew.

So what’s up with crystalline fructose, Vitamin Water’s sweetener of choice? According to the Sugar Association, crystalline fructose develops when you take a “fructose-enriched corn syrup” (sounds suspiciously like high fructose corn syrup, no?) and then allow this syrup to harden into crystal form. The result is a product that, according to fructose.org (PDF), is almost 100% fructose.

We’ve talked about fructose before, back when I started the high fructose corn syrup challenge, but the short story is that our bodies process fructose differently from glucose. From Dr. Andrew Weil:

The body doesn’t handle large amounts of fructose well. You can maintain life with intravenous glucose, but not with intravenous fructose; severe derangement of liver function results. There’s also evidence that a high intake of fructose elevates levels of circulating fats (serum triglycerides), increasing the risk of heart disease. I never use fructose in my home.

Researchers at the University of Florida and UF and the Baylor College of Medicine studied rats fed a high-fructose diet for 10 weeks. Compared with rats fed a control diet, those on the high-fructose diet experienced a rise in uric acid in the bloodstream and developed insulin resistance, a biochemical chain reaction that researchers say could trigger weight gain and other features of metabolic syndrome, the main precursor to type 2 diabetes. Other researchers have showed that unlike sucrose, fructose fails to prompt the production of the hormones that help us regulate appetite and fat storage.

Liver derangement. Heart disease. Insulin resistance. Weight gain. Metabolic syndrome. Type 2 diabetes. Such ugly words, these.

And while the most common form of high fructose corn syrup — which generally gets all the bad-for-you attention — contains 55% fructose to 45% glucose (compared with a 50-50 ratio of most table sugar), crystalline fructose is (I’m repeating for emphasis) 100% fructose.

And, um, here’s the kicker: crystalline fructose also contains arsenic. That’s not urban myth; check out Archer Daniels Midland’s little sales sheet (PDF) for the stuff. Arsenic is listed, right there in the chemical specifications. So are lead, chloride, and “heavy metals.”

Arsenic, lead, chloride, and heavy metals. Huh.

Suddenly, Vitamin Water is a whole lot less appealing. Turns out we won’t be missing much; Scienceline points out that although the stuff is colorful and fun, much like Vegas in a Bottle, it contains more sugar that’s good for you, and your body probably can’t even absorb some of the fat-soluble vitamins they’ve added, like A and E (maybe that’s why all those folks were experiencing Montezuma’s revenge after drinking the stuff).

Dr. Sears doesn’t like Vitamin Water either, noting that the stuff can damage teeth, depress your immune system, and teach your kids to expect their water to be colorful, sweet, and flavored like Jello.

Not to mention, bottled water in general? So bad for our country. Simply making those bottles burns 1.5 million gallons of oil annually — and that’s before you even transport them. And in 2003, nearly 40 million water bottles per day went into the trash or became litter.

All of this said, let’s return to my hypocrisy. Why — why, oh why, oh why — have I spent money on this product? Allowed my kids to drink it? The easy answer: because I wasn’t paying attention. And that’s true, but the slightly more honest answer is that it always seemed like such a benign alternative to sodas — a way to give the kids a colorful treat when when we’re on the road, or out-and-about. In a world where I feel like I’m always, always, saying “no,” it was refreshing to once in a while say “okay.”

Truth be told, if given a choice between soda and Vitamin Water right now, I’d still reach for Vitamin Water. But, man, that’s a hollow choice: will it be arsenic or benzene for you today?

Next time, we might work a little harder at the other alternative: neither.

About a hundred years ago, I started blogging about food prices, and how we can save our hard-earned cash without resorting to creating gourmet meals from Dollar Store ingredients. Let’s return to that theme, the one of eating on the cheap, shall we?

I recently toured my freezer and pantry and realized that I could, if I had to, serve at least a week of family dinners without plunking down a penny, and without even resorting to cereal. Perhaps some of you remember that I made my own pesto last summer? Still plenty of it left, in plastic bags. I’ve also got bags and bags of frozen fruit and vegetables. Plus a few cartons of silken tofu — the fruit + tofu made awesome smoothies. Frozen veggies are plenty healthful — sometimes even more so than the fresh stuff. I’ve got frozen chicken breasts, frozen cranberry-pear crumble, boxes of chicken broth, bags of rice. I’ve got potatoes growing eyes, cans of tomato paste, and plenty of dried fruit. I’ve got stale bread for breadcrumbs. I’ve got sauces. I’ve got oil.

So what am I saving this stuff for? Why don’t I just go ahead and eat it? Continue reading ‘Un-gourmet work-it canned salmon’

First: if there exists a gum that can enhance breast size by up to 80%, can you still call it a gum? And would you take it if you could? (oh, but you can).

Second: if the winner of the Pillsbury Bake-Off contest earns a cool million for a recipe that’s almost entirely based on slice-and-bake refrigerated rolls, have we reached a new point in the history of culinology?

Culinology: I made that word up. Okay, turns out I didn’t. But I did make up culisophical.

Third: if a vegetarian pride parade ends with a giant pink replica of a human colon, complete with polyps and a sullied colostomy bag, does it actually make you want to eat vegetables, or does it instead make you want to swear off food altogether? Or, let’s say a certain Subway vigilante — someone who shot four youths in 1984 when he feared they might rob him — is in attendance at the parade, lamenting people’s “distant, shallow and bad” attitudes toward animals. Might, then, the whole event be better called “ironic?”

(aah, don’t get me wrong: I’m a big believer in more veggies-less meat, and I would have enjoyed being there in a giant broccoli costume. I’m just thinkin’ that perhaps Bernie Goetz — who shot four (admittedly scary) dudes and admitted he wanted to “murder them, to hurt them, to make them suffer as much as possible” — might not be the most effective ambassador for the kinder, gentler lifestyle that is veganism).

Just thinkin’ here, friends. Just thinkin’ on a Monday afternoon.

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.