Amazing Art. Just Amazing.

Julia sent me a link to this museum yesterday. She told me about it on the phone in Italian, the only language she's allowed to speak right now, so I didn't get it at all. (I did understand it when she told me that in Italy the number 13 is good luck rather than bad, and that studying the Italian mafia is really interesting.) Creativity Explored!
is a nonprofit visual arts center where artists with developmental disabilities create, exhibit, and sell art. It has some of the most amazing artwork I've ever seen. This picture, Favorite Foods, is by Camille Holvoet. There were so many images that I absolutely loved that it was hard to choose just one. Browse the on-line listings. Savour. I mean it.

Forgive me. Another poem. It beats my complaints about so much wrong in the world, yes?

I read lots of on-line publications. I subscribe to lots of on-line newsletters. Most of them bring me news about what's wrong in the world. Alternet; The Tyee; Huff Post; Common Dreams; etc. You know the list.

Food issues - Ugh. Stay away from fast food. Stay out of the grocery store.
Ethanol - Ugh.
Bottled water - Ugh. Read Elizabeth Royte's book, Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It. In the meantime, stop buying it.
Sexism, Racism, Ageism, The War, The Environment . . . You know the list. It's long and getting longer all the time.

So, instead of ranting, how about a poem. Thanks to the Writer's Almanac. Lots of thanks.

The Man Next Door Is Teaching His Dog to Drive
by Cathryn Essinger

It all began when he came out one morning
and found the dog waiting for him behind the wheel.
He thought she looked pretty good sitting there,

so he started taking her into town with him
just so she could get a feel for the road.
They have made a few turns through the field,

him sitting beside her, his foot on the accelerator,
her muzzle on the wheel. Now they are practicing
going up and down the lane with him whispering

encouragement in her silky ear. She is a handsome
dog with long ears and a speckled muzzle and he
is a good teacher. Now my wife, Millie, he says,

she was always too timid on the road, but don't you
be afraid to let people know that you are there.
The dog seems to be thinking about this seriously.

Braking, however, is still a problem, but he is building
a mouthpiece which he hopes to attach to the steering
column, and when he upgrades to one of those new

Sports Utility Vehicles with the remote ignition device,
he will have solved the key and the lock problem.
Although he has not yet let her drive into town,

he thinks she will be ready sometime next month,
and when his eyes get bad and her hip dysplasia
gets worse, he thinks this will come in real handy.

"The Man Next Door Is Teaching His Dog to Drive" by Cathryn Essinger from My Dog Does Not Read Plato. © Main Street Rag Publishing Company.

I haven't read this yet. But I want to. You?

I read about this on AlterNet. Wanna read it right away. Here's what the publisher says about it. --

Half the world is malnourished, the other half obese-both symptoms of the corporate food monopoly. To show how a few powerful distributors control the health of the entire world, Raj Patel conducts a global investigation, traveling from the "green deserts"of Brazil and protester-packed streets of South Korea to bankrupt Ugandan coffee farms and barren fields of India. What he uncovers is shocking — the real reasons for famine in Asia and Africa, an epidemic of farmer suicides, and the false choices and conveniences in supermarkets. Yet he also finds hope — in international resistance movements working to create a more democratic, sustainable, and joyful food system.

From seed to store to plate, Stuffed and Starved explains the steps to regain control of the global food economy, stop the exploitation of farmers and consumers, and rebalance global sustenance.

About the Author: Raj Patel, former policy analyst for Food First, a leading food think tank, is a visiting scholar at the UC Berkeley Center for African Studies. He has written for the Los Angeles Times and Financial Times, and while he has worked for the World Bank, WTO, and the UN, he has also been tear-gassed on four continents protesting them.

Okay, so it's the job of the publisher to make it seem good in order to get me to buy it. And of course the ideals sound too high and lofty -- "stop the exploitation of farmers and consumers, and rebalance global sustenance" -- Sure it's that simple. Not. But, ya gotta start somewhere.

Sugar. Sugar substitutes. Calorie counts. Whatever happened to food?

I've been thinking about the The Washington Post article, "All Substitutes Are Not Equal" by Sally Squires, Tuesday, May 6, 2008; Page HE01. The HE in HE01 stands for Health. I'm confused. Promoting the continued and increasing consumption of artificial sweeteners is a healthy thing?

Despite the obesity epidemic, a new report in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association notes that Americans still eat more foods with added sugar and fat than they should and often fall short on the healthful fare. No surprise there.

But thanks to a growing number of sugar substitutes and other sweeteners, it's now possible for everyone -- even the estimated 71 million Americans dieting -- to soothe a sweet tooth without exceeding daily calorie goals. That's good, because the average adult has only about 200 "discretionary calories" per day for food and beverages with added sugar, added fat and alcohol.

How exactly is it that an average adult has 200 discretionary calories? Whose discretion? Ms. Squires continues.

In 1970, the Food and Drug Administration banned a widely used sugar substitute, clyclamate, because of cancer concerns. In 1977, a Canadian study found that in large doses saccharin -- the sweetener in Sweet'N Low -- caused bladder cancer in rats. The FDA considered banning saccharin, but Congress stepped in to give the sweetener a reprieve and has extended a moratorium on its ban several times since then.

In 2004, the American Dietetic Association reviewed the use of sweeteners and concluded that "consumers can safely enjoy a range of nutritive and non-nutritive sweeteners when consumed in a diet that is guided by current federal nutrition recommendations."

Since then, some concerns have arisen about two other substitutes, aspartame and acesulfame K.

Aspartame is marketed as NutraSweet and Equal, and found in a wide range of products from diet drinks to sugar-free ice cream. Aspartame contains amino acids -- the building blocks of protein -- and methanol, an alcohol. It isn't heat-stable, so it doesn't do well in baking. An Italian research team found lymphoma and leukemia among female rats in a long-term study of aspartame.

Acesulfame K, sold as Sunett, is not metabolized by the body and so contains zero calories. It's found in baked goods, diet soft drinks, sugar-free gum, Domino Pure D'Lite and Sweet One, a sugar substitute for baking. Some flawed studies in the 1970s linked this sugar substitute to cancer. In 1996 the Center for Science in the Public Interest urged the FDA to require better testing before permitting acesulfame K in soft drinks. Large doses of breakdown products from acesulfame K have been shown to affect the thyroid in rats, rabbits and dogs, the CSPI notes.

Manufacturers, the FDA and the Calorie Control Council say that these products are safe. But in the May issue of its Nutrition Action newsletter, the CSPI called these products and saccharin either unsafe or poorly tested. The only artificial sweetener to get a "safe" grade from the consumer advocacy group is sucralose, a.k.a. Splenda.

Yes, Sally, there is an obesity epidemic. And there is a food industry that feeds and fuels it with grocery stores jam packed with all matter of "food" --converted corn products; sugar, salt, artificial flavor and color added to almost everything; processed beyond recognition food products; snack foods with an added twist emerging on the market every day; fast food emporiums that add sugar not just to the sweets but the savory items. Savory. That was meant to be funny. The rest of this is not funny at all.

What's wrong with this picture?

Everything.

One Meandering Mini-Rant and a Hike

I went to a conference on aging last week. There were speakers and workshops and sponsors with tables of information and free gifts with names of companies on them - pens, rubber balls, pill holders, pencils, emery boards and all matter of items.

The talks got me thinking. The workshops got me thinking. Lots of good thoughts. Thoughtful thoughts. It was an odd experience. I heard words and phrases and concepts, many of which I hear all the time, sometimes coming from my own mouth. For some reason, perhaps because I was in strange territory, where I had no agenda and no need to engage in my customary ways, I could hear and think more freely.

One smart and eloquent speaker talked about four essentials for positive aging - Challenge the body; Challenge the Mind; Control Emotions and Embrace Spirituality, not necessarily religiosity. Another bright, entertaining man spoke of the need for residents in nursing homes to truly be able to feel at home. In our own homes we get up when we like, eat when and what we like, get dressed when and if we feel like it, and, get this one, have sex. Why are the benefits of, and the need for the freedom and the right to have sex in nursing homes and assisted living facilities rarely mentioned?

In one workshop we each made a list of ten things that we like to do, favorite things. We then switched lists with someone else. Ugh. No. I want my list back! Not hers! And I thought about freedom to live and be. And I thought about what I feel like when I’m sick or in some way unable to go about my regular business - after surgeries; sports injuries; c-section; childbirth; the flu; various and sundry viruses. Everything is so different, really different. I want and need help and sometimes resent it. I want and need companionship and love. And, more than ever, I want to be home.

Then came lunch. There wasn't a whole grain in sight. The lunch, not atypical for this type of event, was at best unhealthy. White boxes were marked Chicken Salad or Hoagies and packed with the following: Hoagies on white rolls - turkey, ham, roast beef and cheese; a bag of potato chips; a chocolate chip cookie; mayonnaise and mustard in tiny plastic packages; a lettuce leaf and a couple of slices of those tomatoes that we get in the winter - pale red, tough, tasteless. Chicken salad the same. A few of us held out for "vegetarian" selections that arrived later. They were identical to the others, just without the meat. Chris told me not to be sad. I said I wasn’t sad. I was disdainful. The fact is, I was sad and, as is my custom, mildly outraged at our society and the food industry.

I looked around the room, at numerous large tables of mostly women, many of them caretakers of the elderly, nurses, and nursing assistants. (The nursing assistants are commonly referred to as CNAs, a practice that sometimes feels dehumanizing to me, but that’s for another time.) How can we expect to nurture our bodies and spirits in old age if we don't nurture them when we're young? How is it possible for us to continue to feed on animals that are horribly abused and brutalized, to support industries that perpetuate the abuse, and truly nurture our own spirits? If we can’t change our ways for the sake of the animals, how about for our own sakes? Does lunch have to be unhealthy? Do jobs have to be stressful, lacking in reward, leaving little energy for much else in life? How can those caring for our loved ones best challenge their minds and bodies and find spirituality and learn to find comfort in their emotions? Grrrrr. I just don't know.

After the conference, we got some hippie food for later and drove to the Shenandoah Mountains to hike on the Appalachian Trail - five lovely miles of wintering trees, a waterfall, scores of deer, a woodpecker, one raccoon and a cat.

More Food

Jerzy and Kristara were sick today and wanted comfort food. They gave me a list and off I went to the grocery store and, among other things too disgusting to mention, I got a cantaloupe from Guatemala, black cherries from Chile, organic bananas from Ecuador and frozen organic blueberries from Canada.

I disapprove of my own purchases.

Food

I'm thinking about food. Nothing new for me. I've been thinking about food for most of my life. When I was a kid our household was always filled with food - dinner together, all seven (or eight, if Ruth was there) around the dinner table, each in our assigned seat. I sat in between Ruth and my mother, across from Josh. Josh liked to play "Look!", his mouth filled with partially chewed food, opened wide, Look!. He drove my mother crazy. JeriAnn sat at the other end next to my father. I suspect she was his favorite.

We ate meat and vegetables and rice or potatoes every night - capons roasted to perfection, moist on the inside with crispy skin; roast beef with "natural juices" (blood?); when in doubt, inch-thick sirloin steaks. And only real butter - lima beans swimming in pools of butter; broiled flounder in lemon butter; corn-on-the-cob not complete until our chins shone with butter. My father had meat delivered from the city periodically. He ordered smoked hams from a company in Vermont. They'd never mailed hams before. To this day they have a thriving mail-order business.

In summer, when the fruit market was open, I'd go with my father to buy flats of black cherries, blueberries, peaches and whole watermelons. We'd frequent the fishery, our purchases wrapped up in newspaper (We called the local paper the fish wrapper.) and go to the delicatessen where the owner made me tasty treats of herring and cucumber piled onto a cracker.

We ate food. Lots of it.

In the late 60s my brother Josh introduced me to Macrobiotics. I got the cookbook, bought brown rice, mung beans, aduki beans and tamari, and I was set. I drank carrot juice at the health store on Broadway. I suspect I was macrobiotic for about a week.

My brother Jeff, on the other hand, taught me the wonders of the cheese steak hoagie, a midnight summertime treat followed up by a A&W root beer float - thick, cold glass mug filled to overflowing and delivered by a carhop on a tray to hang on the driver's-side window.

In college I studied Biology, with special interest in Biochemistry and Nutrition. In those days we had Adelle Davis and Euell Gibbons to lead us to nutritional rightness. I kept chickens for eggs; grew vegetables in short Vermont summers; ground wheat berries into flour to make bread; made my own tofu, mayonnaise, humus; cooked on a wood stove. We ate wisely, naturally, deliciously.

Enter the 21st century. My kids counted the days until Taco Bell opened down the street. They eat there several days a week. They "eat fresh" at Subway routinely; Popeye's for fries and "chicken strips"; Chipotle; Domino's, Pizza Hut, Papa John's pizza; all matter of "soft" drinks (They call them beverages.) and chips; and boxed, bagged and frozen meals cooked in the microwave.

Forget the fact that their pizzas were homemade when they were little - organic whole wheat crust, organic tomato sauce; that I made their pancakes from scratch with 20-grain (that's right, 20-grain) flour I mail-ordered from Walnut Acres; their french toast with 9-grain bread.

Jerzy loves to make pancakes from a mix she buys packaged in a plastic container - all she does is add something, shakes and pours. When she and Julia are sick, they both crave frozen Pizza Rolls for comfort.

And now I'm primed and ready to rant about cloned animals that the FDA, in its infinite wisdom, says are safe for consumption (NY Times article here). And about the billions of dollars that drug companies spend for cholesterol lowering drugs, even though it's not clear that cholesterol is the ultimate culprit, in the midst of a culture that promotes heart disease and diabetes through over-consumption and under-activity (NY Times article here).

I'd like to go on and on about the Ingredients labels on packaged foods, that they've lost their usefulness, and simply feed the frenzy of food fads. Do you know what we see when we glance at the ingredients? We look at the carb count or the total fat and sat fats. We don't glance at the ingredients at all. If we did, and if we weren't inured to the fact that what poses as food is actually a mix of processed (What exactly is processed?) natural and artificial flavors, weird colors, scary chemicals, and is not actually food at all, we wouldn't take a bite or a sip.

I'd like to rant about these things, maybe make references to Michael's Pollan's new book again. But I won't.

A Meandering Rant or The Tips of My Icebergs

Those who know me have heard my mini rants, when I climb up on my soapbox and give speeches, tiny tirades. My kids know when to duck, turn up their I-Pods, roll their eyes, walk away. Chris calls me a zealot, a food Nazi, an ascetic. It’s easy to tune me out. You can stop reading. I’ll write on. When my children were little one didn’t dare mention the educational system to me. I’d go on about kids who were put in day care at age two in order to get in the right private school at age five so they could get into an exclusive high school so they could go to an elite college so they could . . . I don’t know what, be more accomplished, richer, happier than their parents? Interesting formula. Then I’d be asked about home schooling. What's magical about age five to hand my child over to the government, I'd say. What about socialization? they'd ask. Is institutionalization equated with socialization? I’d ask in return. Should an energetic six-year-old forced to sit still at a desk for hours on end be diagnosed as hyperactively disordered and put on medication? I‘d be off and running. Just the tip of the iceberg.

Have you read The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan? He’s a thoughtful and amazing writer. As a result of this read, my rant about the algae bloom in the Gulf of Mexico the size of New Jersey due to the ever-increasing growth of corn and use of chemicals and pesticides that devastates want once was farmland in this country, is always on the tip of my tongue.

Before reading Michael Pollan, how would I have known that cows are not designed to be fed corn. In “Grass-Fed or Grain?” Marion Burrows refers to other-than-grass-feeding of cows as “conventional”. Conventional? How exactly do we define convention? If barbaric behavior becomes normalized, how long must it teeter on the edge of conventional before becoming acceptable?

I remember standing in the grocery store with Julia staring at the beef display weeping. Someone at home wanted us to get steaks. I asked the butcher if there was any non-antibiotic-laden, grass-fed, organic beef. “Not here, Ma’am.” Julia dialed home, “Sorry, no can do about those steaks. Ma’s crying.”

Of course, Julia knows the scene well. She was the one weeping on Thanksgiving Eve a few years back when I got hit with a bout of nostalgia and loss and wanted to recreate my childhood with a “traditional” Thanksgiving dinner. I dumped a turkey in the cart. Julia pushed her finger into the thick plastic that encased the turkey, watching pinkish blood ooze about. She cried. So much for the return to my youth. Her childhood tradition would prevail. Off to the Indian restaurant again for us.

Jerzy hates it when I read the ingredients on stuff she eats -“Don’t say a word. No comments. I don’t want to hear it.” For a while she’d say, “High fructose corn syrup. Oh the horror!”, then defiantly gulp with gusto. I'm convinced that Kristara brings CoolWhip into the house just to gall me. While watching the movie Super Size Me, Jerzy craved McDonald’s snacks. Something tells me my technique of persuasion is somewhat lacking.

And now my problem is pigs. When Jerzy was little and wanted a hot dog I'd be sure to point out that it was made of dead pigs, adding the notion of snouts and tails. But my concern was nitrites, not the abuse that the pigs suffered when alive. I didn't give much thought to the plight of pigs until reading an Op-Ed piece in The New York Times, March 14, 2007 Pig Out, by Nicolette Hahn Niman, about the horrendous, extraordinarily barbaric ways in which pigs are raised in large “farms” in this country, packed in "like cattle", standing in their own excrement. The "other white meat" indeed.

Grrrrr. Mini tirades. The tips of my icebergs.

And speaking of icebergs, how much longer will they exist?