Food Inc.

So I finally watched Food Inc.  It took me a while because I am overly sensitive to factory farming footage. Ever since I read about it right when Fast Food Nation came out, I quit eating meat and that was only reading descriptive words.  I was veggie for just under 10 years, and now I eat chicken and turkey again.  I have not yet started to eat Red Meat, and this documentary didn't really help.  Overall, I thought it was informative, well filmed, and they brought up GREAT points, but I will say I fast forward through some parts (yeah, I know I'm a wuss).  Here is the trailer of the movie, don't be scared to watch this documentary!

Organic v. Conventional

Eating organic is pretty damn easy where I currently live.  In fact, in the downtown grocery store/co-op it's hard to find conventional vegetables which is bothersome on my penny pinching days.  My personal view is that eating locally is more important than eating organic.  Support the local community.  I always do all my big food shopping at a giant grocery store chain then run to the downtown co-op to buy a gallon of local milk, because in this state, the cows are plentiful and the dairy is good. 

So, local vs. organic eating aside, I found this "Shopper's Guide" on foodnews.com, and it helps you understand which fruits and vegetables absorb the most pesticides.  

Take a peek:

I asked a couple of my own questions, and researched for answers, all which are found from the Environmental Working Group

Why Should I even care about pesticides?

Scientific evidence shows that even small doses of pesticides and other chemicals can adversely affect people, especially during crucial times of fetal development and childhood - where the effects are long lasting.  It is wise to minimize exposure to these chemicals because the outcomes can be quite worrisome.

Okay, well what about washing or peeling them?

While washing and peeling your fruits and veggies will reduce the chemicals and toxins found in food, it will not entirely eliminate them. The best option is to eat a varied diet, thoroughly wash fresh produce, and buy organic when able. $$ :(

Does Organic taste better?

No scientific data, but taste is a varied individual preference.  Many chefs across the world are choosing to cook with organic veggies not only because it is hip and trendy, but because they feel they have superior taste and quality.

Is organic healthier?

No significant studies have been done other than the fact that your not getting a bunch of chemicals in your body.  The only thing people have found is that organic tomatoes have higher levels of Vitamin C and phytochemicals. 

Should I eat only Organic?

Personally, I can't. ABSO-freaking-LUTLY cant.  It's waaaay too expensive, but with this little guide posted above, you can pick and choose your pesticide battles.  I would much prefer to spend money on an organic peach then buy some stupid organic granola bar.  (No offense)

So, take all the organic mumbo-jumbo with a grain of salt, and think about the fragile and toxin absorbing produce when you're deciding between the two at the store.

Song of the Day

beautiful.

The Bay State

Driving down to good ol' Massachusetts tonight after a long day at both jobs. It's a terribly long work day followed by a terribly boring night drive, but it’s all to see my sister at University of Massachusetts, then seeing my parents out in the hometown. I may be bringing down a pint of ice-cream I just bought that was insanely good.

Hannah Teter brought home the silver metal in Women’s half pipe up in Canada a couple of weeks ago. She is from Vermont which is why Ben and Jerry’s got her to make a flavor. She’s the first athlete to create an ice cream flavor, and they did a wonderful job. It’s maple ice-cream blended with bits of blond brownies and maple caramel swirls. The maple connection is due to being a Vermont native, but Teter also started a charity called Hannah’s Gold. Hannah’s Gold sells delicious maple syrup and she donates all profits to the children of Kenya. This ice-cream should be on store shelves nation wide, so pick up a pint soon!

Rolling Eggs

Egg rolls are a common appetizer in Eastern Asia, especially within the Cantonese/Southern portion of China. They are also delicious. Since I don't eat too much pork (if any at all), I tend to get Spring Rolls when I'm at a Chinese place, and I miss the added protein. On Super Bowl Sunday a couple weeks ago, we went to a friend's place where he  made 2 types of delicious egg rolls. There was also a $75 delivery purchase of wings, a plethora of pizza, 4 types of homemade dip, bread, crackers, cheese, icecream...the list goes on. I think everyone drank about fifteen Keystone Lights, and still no one got a buzz on due the absurd amounts of food.

The said friend that hosted this smorgasbord football party created two types of egg rolls; he made traditional egg rolls without meat and banana cream cheese egg rolls.  Both were great.

I made egg rolls the other night with J but we attempted at making them "healthy".  It's pretty hard to make something that's deep friend into something healthy, so we hardly used any oil when frying them at the end.

I chopped up half a head of cabbage, a carrot, 3 green onions, 3 mushrooms, and a handful of snow peas and bean sprouts.   I sauteed them on a low heat until everything was soft with some rice vinegar, soy sauce, and cheriyaki sauce.  In a seperate pan I chopped up 2 whole chicken breasts into very small/fine peices of cooked them on low heat with some rice vinegar.  When the vegetables were done cooking, I added the chicken, and now we were ready to roll.

By this point in the process, I was starving so every other fork full of the chicken vegetable stuffing either went into an egg roll or directly into my mouth.  We continued to roll and got ready to fry them up! Yeah, they weren't the most beautiful little pieces of artwork but I knew they were going to taste damn good.

We used Nasoya brand egg roll wrappers, which is a premium tofu company.  They have other great products I have tested out like the wonton wrappers, silken, organic tofu, Asian noodles, and nayonaise.  Forgive me for the photo below, they sure tasted good but this isn't a great photo of the egg rolls we made.  Although we didn't use a lot of oil (usually calls for being deep fried or submerged in an inch of oil), they still tasted good and were crunchy on the outside and soft and flavorful on the inside.

You can add whatever you want to egg rolls for the inside. A common ingredient for the protien is meat, but you can also use ground turkey, beef, tofu, or just all veggies.  You can also try new things like the banana cream cheese egg rolls that we put caramel sauce on.  My only qualm was that we didn't put any ginger in ours, and I think that may be an important ingredient to tie all the flavors together.  Have fun making creative egg rolls....Ni Hao!!

Judgment Free Zone

I pay a ridiculously low monthly fee to work out at Planet Fitness. It took me a while to get used to not having all the amenities that Orchard Hills had, which also broke the bank at the undiscounted price of $75 per month. I had a corporate discount making it $50 per month and at this point I was living at my parents’ house, had no car payments, or much of any financial responsibilities due to living at home, so it wasn’t too much to offer up. Orchard Hills had classes going from before dawn and after dark, indoor pool, outdoor pool with water slide, indoor and outdoor tennis, indoor and outdoor basketball, indoor track, insane amount of weights and machines, not to mention the thousands of variations of cardio machines. Just simply walking into this facility made me feel happy and motivated. I guess the fifty bucks automatically coming out of my bank account motivated me just as well.

Well, so now I go to planet fitness which has no classes, courts, pools, or anything CLOSE to what I’m used to (yeah yeah, I’m a snob…). But with the help of someone (thanks J!), I have learned how to motivated myself without all the fancy services and classes, although I do miss the free yoga. Planet Fitness’s “thing” is that it’s the judgment free zone. Yeah…right… I’m all for not judging at the gym, because it can be pretty intimidating at times when you feel new and out of place, but at the same time I feel planet fitness goes against what they’re going for by having the “Lunk Alarm”.  As one can see, the link alarm is a planet fitness made up slang for one who grunts, drops weights, or judges.  I have seen this go off twice, and its horribly awkward. They are judging people who actually want to lift weights. Want to see the lunk alarm go bad? Watch this video:



yeah, when it went off at my planet fitness, that didn't happen...thank goodness.