Friday, January 5, 2024

Food Is Good....UltraProcessed Crap Isn't

 So, here's the danger of reading science stuff, sometimes it makes you do stuff that is good for you.  Not always, often, it is BS but this time...it makes sense.


I read and listened to the book UltraProcessed People by Chris Van Tulleken several times and will do that a few more times.

I'd already read/listened to various other books and articles on how the ultraprocessed food messed with our bodies, brains, moods, economies, human rights, farming, soil, weather and on and on.

This one though, it brings it all together and the dude has a nice british accent of some sort so it's an easy listen.

Turns out, frankenfood is bad for you! I mean, I KNEW that but I didn't get scared straight.  I'm getting there now.  

For years I've been working on the diet.  Decades.  And the exercise.

NOW though...I have the means, the time, the motivation and group of friends and colleagues who also are a bit into it in their own ways.  Is that what you extraverts call a support system?

So, last year I avoided cheap grocery store sugary foods.   That made a major change in the diet and budget.  Good for both as it turns out.   If I really really wanted a treat, I didn't buy Reese's (this will be a complete shock to those who know me...I haven't had an industrial candy bar, even an expensive "good" one in over a year), instead, I either made it or went to a business, all turned out to be local, where someone actually MADE the thing.   Like Moscow Candy in Moscow, Idaho where I got a really good peanut butter cup for 1$ or a "Bruttle" (what Butterfingers WISH they were) that is made in Spokane for 1.50$.   They are smaller than the industrial versions, cost about the same or less and are astoundingly BETTER.  Also, there are some  road blocks to getting them.  I'm not in Moscow most days.

Occasionally, I would get a locally made cinnamon roll or piece of pie or cookie.  And occasionally I would make them.

This year, cutting back UPF, ultraprocessed food, as defined by the NOVA system.   None of it is good and it turns out all of it wrecks my health.   

FORTUNATELY I have the means in money and location and skills now to do that.  I have enough $$ to buy eggs and live close enough to people who raise chickens that go outside.  I know people who hunt (and hope to be one of them this year) and trade them informally for game meat.  I know how to butcher chickens and other small things and can them.  I live with enough outdoor space to have a garden and near lots of people who garden.  I have enough money to buy produce from local farmers.  

While it costs more upfront for the food, by avoiding the fast food and convenience foods, my total food spend for 2023 went up very little.  Pretty much on par with inflation.

Recently people at work got into similar things and I talked one into reading the above mentioned book.  Now he and I share labor on processing (not ULTRAprocessing...very different) meat and fish.  For the holidays I gave home made mustard, ketchup, and vanilla extract.  In return I got deer and elk meat, and some smoked salmon.   We are all happy with that.

Now...to buy a 2024 hunting and fishing permit.  The hope is to ACTUALLY use it this year.  Especially for fishing because that's easy and doesn't have to result in 100lbs of meat like killing big game.




Saturday, December 16, 2023

Natural Fiber, Quality, Durable Clothing is Important. Getting That 2nd Hand Is Even Better

 All that cheap crap synthetic fiber clothing you buy, then return or wear a few times and "donate" or throw out (most of the donated can't be used because it is crap and no one wants it so it is thrown out).


Here is a summary of the post-purchase, even if "returned" and you got your money back, damage it does:

https://youtu.be/tAw_LCfHJtM?si=C4l6zWGve7Z79oCx



SO DON'T.

Here's my latest thrift, at least 2nd hand maybe 3rd or 4th hand purchase:




Pure wool (yeah..I totally took that phot in a bathroom...), in great shape.  Warm as hell. 6$.  It is from the 1970s to 1980s.  Looks like the zipper has been replaced.  The zipper is heavy duty metal so it will last longer than I will.

How many coats/sweaters have I thrown out?   Zero in the last 20 years.  Donated?  Maybe 2 and those were "redonated" since I had gotten them 2nd hand as gifts or thrifts.  And they were in good shape.  I mend things as I can.

The natural fiber in this jacket will not become microplastics killing fish and birds and staying in the environment for eons.   The bits that come off when I wash this will get picked up by birds or critters for nests (since I hand wash outside with these wool type garments)  (also they rarely need to be washed).

I do have a pure wool sweater that wore out (holes in the elbows, so thin you could read through it, the seams gave way.  I had had it 15 years and it was used when I bought it).  I cut it into rags and am still using a couple of those.   

The jeans that recently disintegrated off my person at the end of a work day (eventually cotton...I buy 100% cotton jeans at thrift) have been stripped of usable parts like zipper, waist band etc.   And now the bits of it are used as firestarters.  It was too thin and weak to use as rags though I do use it to stop up spills now and then.  Once it dries out, it is a fire starter again.  

My used clothes do NOT end up on the beach in a different country.  

If you actually used it up, wear it out, or make it do, or do with out, then you don't trash the damn planet. 

SO stop with the fast fashion.  It might be "fast" in that it spends little time in your possession but the damage it does to the world, your budget, the people who make it, ship it, and sell it (all underpaid and exploited and often poisoned by the substances used in production and transportation and even off-gassing in the stores) is NOT WORTH IT.  Also, it looks cheap and ugly.

So buy decent clothes you will actually wear, wash, mend and enjoy.  They are better, they feel better, they look better and they don't destroy the planet or  your soul.

End of rant.
















Monday, December 11, 2023

I Ate Pig Heart

 Not one of the transplanted ones. This one was NOT GMO like the transplanted ones.

It was the cheap healthy meat available at the winter market.

First...a tiny rant:  THE MARKET BOSSES LIMITED THE NUMBER OF BAKERS! to ONE per market. WTF?  I want sweet treats, BITCH.   The one baker there had some bread and some doughy looking cinnamon rolls.  Where were the cranky lefse ladies?  Where was my cute baker with her magical fig cake and lemon bars and every thing she makes?  EXCLUDED.   Plenty of crafts but here's something the market bosses might want to note:  people with low blood sugar don't impulse buy as much as people hopped up on artisanal tarts.


OK, so, I got eggs...some of the best eggs I've seen.   And a pig heart.  It was only 5$/lb for pastured meat.  I asked how to cook it as last time I got a pig heart it was rubber band texture.  And flavor.  It was also small which is nice.  2/3lb.  I cut off all the tendon and silver skin stuff I could which probably took 2oz of meat with it.  The seller told me she cooks it hot and fast after marinating it.   And that any tendon or silver skin would be gross.  (of course NOW I want to can hearts whole in pint jars with the gross bits still on them...what great valentine gifts!!!)

So I did that.  Not the canning, the trimming and marinating.  I used the last tablespoon of olive oil in a jar, some vinegar and a scoop of ras al hanout seasoning from a favorite Aunt (Thanks Chris!).   

I left that for the afternoon on Sunday.   Then heated up the woodstove since it was getting cold inside the wee shed.  And fried up slices of heart in a bit of coconut oil.  It is REALLY lean meat.  

The instructions were to get it to look about medium, take it off the heat and let it sit a few minutes.

I had eaten all my side dishes earlier so I was faced with a plate of heart chunks.  I got out some spicy mustard.

It wasn't bad!  So that's a great improvement on the last time I made it.  It was "meh".  The mustard helped.  It cooled off super fast since it was like 45 degrees in the shed.  I will try it again...and I really really want to try canning whole hearts in pint jars.  It would be so gross and cool.  

Thursday, November 2, 2023

COOKING "WITHOUT POWER"....??

 That's been a trending topic in the frugal and prepper youtubes and blogs.

Uh...you can't cook without power.   They mean without electricity.  Since any time I cook at home is is WITHOUT ELECTRICITY I do  not find this challenging.


Without "power" though...that's not a thing.  It takes power to make heat and heat to cook.  Ipso factoid: You need some type of power to cook.

Here are some of the not electric cooking methods I use all the freaking time and it is NOT a problem:


Wood...burn it.  Put the food to be cooked close to the flame.  Voila...cooked.

Butane...use a butane stove.  Put the food to be cooked close to the flame.  Voila...cooked.

Candles...use candles.  Put the food to be cooked close to the flame.  Voila...cooked.  Use only small amounts of food for this one and thin pans because candles do not put out a huge amount of heat. 

Solar...use the sun via a solar cooker (I have 3 types).  Put the food to be cooked in the solar cooker.  Voila...cooked.

Propane...use a propane stove or little heater burner.  Put the food to be cooked close to the flame.  Voila...cooked.


Tuesday, October 10, 2023

For Those Who Stayed

 So, I super left Iowa.  A couple of times.


For those who didn't, there is an excellent new song out:




Tuesday, August 1, 2023

A Month of Scratch Cooking

 July I did an experiment...or as Gramma would have called it...did nothing at all.

Nowadays cooking everything I ate from scratch ingredients myself for an entire month is not the norm.

By "ingredients" I mean no premixes (no "cake mix" "pancake mix" etc)flavored coffee, bag-o-salad,  prepped veggies from the store...whole veg and fruit YES, cut veg and fruit NO.


There were 2 exception meals.  I was invited to join friends in a meal made my a visitor from out of state.  They actually made almost everything from ingredients!  I had a few store bought pickles and some pimento stuffed olives.  The main dishes were bean soup from dry beans and chili with meat.  I had quite a bit of chili.  It was great!  I skipped the crackers and bread.

Fortunately I like making mustard so I had that as a condiment.  Along with all the flavored vinegars I make.  I needed to buy some kombucha from the folks who supply me with kombucha vinegar for free.  SO...I re-brewed the kombucha with berries and mango skins.  It re-fermented and we called it good. 

The other exception meal was a pre-committed meal at a work event my department was hosting.  It would be odd to cater a meal and refuse to eat it!  We catered in bbq pork sliders, raw veggies with dip (they were cut and I ate them but I skipped the "ranch"...I hate "ranch" so that was an easy miss).  We also had some coleslaw and another salad.  No pastries or cookies which was a choice by someone else, though I validate it in general.  The sliders were good! 

I definitely appreciated the meals I didn't cook and clean up from more than usual.

It was easy.  I just needed to think through the next day at some point of an evening.  If I had a field day coming up,  I made sure I had a "grab n go" option ready for the morning.  Mostly this was nuts and whole fruit or clean whole veg.   A few times it was boiled eggs and salad in one of my thrifted tiffins (those metal multi-tiered lunch carriers popular in India).  It gets lots of use and even more this month!  One person traveling with me was so impressed he kept asking about the tiffin.  I had a spare, also thrifted, that I use very little so I gave it to him the next day. 

Salad in a mason jar with nuts and chia seeds for protein is another good option.

I've been doing my own salad dressings for years so that's easy.  Just throw vinegar and oil and whatever herbs/spices are handy, bit of fresh ground pepper.  A dollop of my homemade mustard if I'm feeling fancy.  I'm not much on sweetening them.  All about the savory salads.

Once the serviceberries were coming on, a handful of those went in pretty much everything. 

I am growing greens so actually went the whole month just eating my own greens.  The bugs destroyed all but one kind this week so greens options are getting a bit thin.  

For meat/eggs....lots of my friend's free range eggs that she lets me "u-pick" without washing or refrigerating.  I ran out late last week and got a bit creative over the weekend.  At work we had canned a goat and no one seemed to want it so I've been eating up the goat meat to free up the jars.  We also got free salmon at work and I took one, cleaned it and am keeping it in the work freezer (a tiny one).  I took a piece home now and then to thaw and cook.

I have a fishing license and could have made more use of that or any use, if things got thin.  I also have good sources of frozen, local free range meat at a couple of farmers markets.

On days I was home, or going to be home in the late afternoon rather than not until late evening, I set up my simple solar cooker so lunch or dinner would be ready.  Even used it for late morning coffee sometimes but that's normal.  A new favorite meal is solar cooked quinoa and lentils with dried tomato and some herbs and a handful of service berries.  When it is done cooking, I thrown on vinegar, oil, pepper and a bit of salt.

Normally I don't add salt because any food not prepped at home is incredibly SALTY which bloats me up like a tic,  My sodium intake was consistently low to the point that on hot sweaty days, I actually included some salt to compensate.

Another result: I saved a boatload of money!  Came in at about half my usual food spend, which is groceries and all meals out and coffee out. So that helps.  I've cut back on meals out, coffee out is rare now, but I do buy pre-made bread at farmers markets and etc.

One factor in the low food bill is that my serviceberry bushes were bonkers so I ate a TON and have 7 or 8 quarts in kombucha vinegar to keep for the off season.  Critters were eating the free potatoes I planted so I harvested those and ate them.  Then all the canning at work resulted in quite a bit of free protein.  I have had coffee in stock and got a gift of another pound of coffee so didn't need to even buy coffee beans.

Still...what I did buy is clearly cheaper than prepared food.  For example, today I restocked with some ingredients, keep the habits going, and spent:  20$ for 4doz eggs and 8.50$ for a weeks worth of veggies.  

I expect another 30$ this week to stock up my coffee, grains, and dry beans/lentils because those are all pretty tapped out. 

I learned that having nuts on hand keeps me from running to the store for fieldwork lunches when I have low supplies of grab-n-go food.   Nuts or seeds and an apple or orange can get me through a day.


There is likely more but I'm supposed to be focused on a webinar...

Monday, July 31, 2023

R.I.Pee Wee

 

Paul Reubens, Pee Wee Herman, died today.







He will be missed




https://youtu.be/BodXwAYeTfM