Just Keep Eating

There is something about New Years that makes me want to hide away. Staying up all night, making resolutions and pressuring yourself about them.

I'm not a fan.

Especially when it comes to dieting. I don't hold with dieting at the best of time. I don't think it works for most people and I find the rhetoric of the diet world troubling and... dangerous in some respects.

And that is why I want to hide at this time of year. Normally sane people who I love and admire are talking with these hateful words. They are talking about how much they hate themselves (and I know, not about me, but that shit is contagious) and their bodies and I don't want to listen anymore.

Dignified silence isn't my specially so forgive the rant. I just want to beg people to stop with this madness. Sure eat food that makes you feel good. Eat vegetables, juice like crazy. But not to loose weight. Please. It's an uphill battle that you probably aren't going to win. And that's fine because just the way you are is right by me.

I say you but I'm addressing myself here because I need the reminder too. I need the reminder a lot at the moment actually.

What gets to me even more is the demonisation of food. In the last couple of days I've read (and I'm not naming names because these are people I love and respect) that food is addictive. That we must fight against our craving for it. That hunger is a good sign. That feeling faint is a good sign, means you are detoxing.

In my book it means you need to eat something and ignoring those feelings of nausea or feeling faint is the opposite of a healthy start to the new year. Please don't do that to yourself.

Food Issues: Tomatoes and Slavery

When I started out writing about this topic I knew I was in over my head. Like way over my head. I wondered if I could do justice to the subject. I'm still not sure. But I don't just want to sit on the idea of perhaps one day writing this post. So I'm going to recommend you read this.

It's the old story happening again and again around the world. Gangmasters supply workers, who are often indebted to them and/or sigh up under false pretences, to farmers. And every one up the supply chain has no idea (honestly) what the people bellow them are doing. From the conditions the workers are forced to work in

"he expects to spend between ten and twelve hours a day in the exposed tomato fields, picking by hand; bending, plucking and carrying the filled crates. The work is arduous, repetitive and hot. The temperature can reach 40C degrees."

How the Soil Association pissed me off

Do you ever wonder why the most throw away comment can get under your skin and stick with you for days. I mean weren't their more egregious things that you moved on from quickly? For me it's a sense that maybe I shouldn't be offended after all there are worse problems out there and we didn't really mean that...

But here is the thing. You did mean that. Or perhaps, if I'm to be charitable, you didn't mean that. You said it though. Forgetting perhaps that everything you say exists along side every other piece of down right offensive discourse on the subject. That you are using the same words the same phrases. So how could I, without mind reading powers, think that you didn't mean offence.

I'm talking to you Soil Association. And I actually think you did mean offence, you just didn't mean to be overheard by anyone who would find it offensive.

How did the Soil Association piss me off? Well they sent me a survey. I say survey it's a bit of a mockery. Leading questions (which we'll get to later) and asking me if I want to give them money. I don't. But let's here from the introduction shall we...

"In the UK 20% of adults and 10% of children are now obese and hospital admissions for obesity-related diseases have more than tripled in the last five years."

Let's ignore that obesity-related diseases isn't a very precise thing to say. Let's just look at how that is stuck there in the introductory paragraph with no explanation of why obesity is bad, the implication is we don't need one. But I think the worst of it is the complete and utter othering of the obese. It's look at the poor fatty who needs to be fixed.

Think of it as a zoo. On one side of the bars are us. Good organic food eaters who know what is right. The Soil Association, our zoo keeper, points to the other side - the obese. Completely and utterly separate. The spectacle. The other. And oddly enough this isn't really the type of stuff that encourages compassion. It's also a complete lie. You'll notice fat people eat organic food too. They don't just prowl around creating hospital admissions.

But still, cries the implication, obesity is bad right after all...

"At the same time, one billion of the world's poorest people go hungry."

At the same time... well if only those fat people gave some of their food to the poor... what you mean it doesn't work like that? No. It doesn't. And I'm puzzled, seriously puzzled that someone would write those two sentences right next to each other linked my that little 'at'. Starvation and being fat arn't two sides of the same coin. Starvation and being fed are. Fat is how your body looks. Starvation is, in this context, an absolutely horrific injustice. Sure the two are literally 'at the same time' but, again, there is much more meaning in the words than the literal.

So that is the story of how two sentences can mean much more than two sentences when put in the context of the constant barrage of abuse we throw at fat people. And why I'm pissed at the Soil Association.

I'll say

We generally make a pilgrimage to Lush every time we are in a city that has one. We enjoy sniffing things, looking at the pretty colours and chatting with the very lovely, very perky staff. We like that they value the handmade, and that they don't value too much packaging. We indulge in a bath bomb and go on our way.

It's a little tradition we take part in whenever we go to civilisation. So hearing about staff being threatened and stores being vandalised made us go a bit... 'you what?!' I mean I know of people who don't like the smell but...

Turns out they are selling a bubble bar until Boxing Day that supports the HSA. Which has made fox hunters more than a little bit angry. A lot of people on the other side of the fence are angry too though. We're angry that even though fox hunting isn't legal it's still happening, that foxes are still being killed. And that the people's champion, David Cameron, would quite like it to be legal again.

Which has lead to all sorts of fun. Like the aforementioned threats and vandalism of Lush shops. And also, I assume, this lovely review on the website:


Now I don't agree with everything done by (and in the name of) the HSA. Much as I don't like everything done by Greenpeace or vegetarians or feminists. However they are doing an important job in regards to fox hunting. Personally I wish the police would do it but it turns out we can't have everything we want.

However my rambling will never amount to more than tip of the iceberg on what is a strange part of British life and politics and I don't intend to pull it apart any more here. But I did buy the bubble bar. And it smells yum.


I used it today, it turned the bath slightly pink and the smell of aniseed and peppermint was rich and luxurious. If you got to buy one make sure to sign the petition urging police to investigate hunts and uphold the law properly.

A little rant and a side of dofu

I'm very into walking to get to places. As much as I loved having the convenience of a car to drive us to farm shops when my Dad was here (not as much, of course as I loved having him here and his little dog too) it's actually kind of crap to suggest that I'm doing good for the plant buying local organic food when I have to drive to get it.

Of course the idea of choice in these situations (as indeed it seems with anything to do with food issues) is either non existence or between a rock and a hard place. However, if you can it's better to have things delivered, especially from places that don't have a shop front, as a van making multiple stops will generally be more efficient than a car.

Failing that, but again only if you can, there is the option of walking to where the food is. Which is why I started doing the Gourmet Torbay reviews. So that other people in Torbay want to find an ingredient they can do it on foot, without going to the ends of the earth.


Which is a very round about way to say I found edamame in a local freezer section which gave me the excuse to try the wonderful Spicy Dofu and Edamame Beans again. Unburnt it tasted fantastic and is a perfect quick meal. The glutenous rice side took the longest to cook and all I needed to chop was the tofu. With the rice washed and the tofu pressed in the morning I could have been eating within fifteen minutes of coming in the door. I just had to wait for Stephens food to come out of the oven.

Grass

Last night we where told that Chelsea has no lawns this year. All football jokes aside (because I don't know any) it's an interesting idea.

A friend of mine, visiting from the Netherlands, remarked that the British and a tendency to find an empty bit of land, plonk a lawn in it and sit there. It's what we do. But really is that the best way?

My favourite lawn in a good example of their darker side. The grand sweeping lawn of Cockington is a pure English village postcard. Against all odds a cricket pitch lies in the centre, the lawn slopes down on all sides. Trees, both natives and relics of a botanically minded ancestor, surround it.

Our image of this lawn is something pure and natural. Anglophiles and bankers wishing to escape to the country may even be swooning. But before a cricket pitch sat on that lawn, before the lawn itself that little patch of land was in use. It was home.

On that site stood the Almshouses. Almshouses are provided for the needy so it was quite a useful plot of land. Certainly if you live there you would think that a lawn was a wast. Not so for the people living inside the Manor. There quest for rural, sweeping 'what England should look like' views lead them to demolish the houses and put in grass. The almshouses where moved elsewhere. Must have sucked.

Still, more than a few years after the fact, I enjoy the lawn for lounging and reading. Others play cricket, some erect gazebos and have picnics. Not all lawns are like that though. I can't imagine reading on the ornamental patch of grass outside the flat. It's just there as punctuation in an expanse of parked cars.

Even if the grass is given up to the people it isn't always accessible. For the last couple of years the grass in Piccadilly Gardens (my favourite green space in the centre of Manchester) has been covered in 6' fencing. Each patch of grass takes it in turns to be replaced after the scorching sun has killed it off. While neighbors are left untouched for you to lie on the effect isn't the same.

So Chelsea doing away with lawns. Is is a victory for the little people who had their housed destroyed? Not really. In the most part what was once grass is currently hard landscaping (ie not plants). They make interesting viewing but is this really the type of garden design we should be looking at?

I have no idea. Lawns certainly have their uses. Aside form sitting they do give water somewhere to go other than sitting on tarmac. At the same time they are labour intensive for what they are. And the path to have a green, daisy free lawn is one of environmental irresponsibility. But when you have nothing but a few beams of wood suspended in the sky grass is a dream. And a welcome sight.

Bowl + noodle + tofu

I suppose my pictures have been similar lately. My home cooking involves sticking tofu on top of a dish of something.

But then I think about the man I love, the man who has potatoes with every meal. He eats fish, religiously every Friday as does his freakishly leek loving brother.

At least the fishes can be happy with my habits. Today it was Curried Udon Noodle Stir-fry from Veganomicon replacing the seitan with tofu and popping in purple sprouting broccoli instead of the tree looking thing. It was really yummy and disconcertingly creamy.

To change my habits a bit and open the door for all sorts of new recipes I'm trying to train myself to eat soup. Oddly enough it's not that I hate the taste of soup I just don't like liquid food. Or mashed food. The texture sends shivers down my spine.

But as I'm slowly getting over my problems with hot drinks (I know, it's odd) I think I can try soup. I made the Cashew Cream Tomato Soup from Get It Ripe, a book I simultaneously love (the recipes!) and hate (microwaves destroy qi?! detox?!) I dunked the lightly toasted home made bread in but I still can't get my head around drinking it or putting the spoon in.

One day. In fact one day I may even like leeks.

Or not.

(also boyfriend just rushed into the room to tell me Obama said he wanted "a world without nuclear weapons". Suddenly I remembered why we were so excited about this man)

News just in from the PPK. A picture posted of an eagle, trussed up and unable to move. A chicken pecks at it. The farmers are putting the live eagles in with the chickens and then releasing them. The eagle flies home too scared of chickens to return. Supposedly. The picture is chilling and disturbing. I was hoping that someone would have some response. The RSPB perhaps with an address to write to. But instead I found something just as chilling.

The Daily Mail article on the subject as written by Caroline Graham which has some rather odd ways of describing things. 'The chickens can wreak their revenge'. Yes, this is all the work of the chicken. The innocent chicken who can finally get its own back on the horrible evil eagle who is picking on it.

Not really. The eagle is following instinct, the chicken is following instinct. It’s the farmer who is knowingly torturing a living being.

Then, stunningly the Mail goes on to present this as a victory for the little man over government red tape. They tell us ‘farmers have complained for years’, say that the eagles are ‘stealing their chickens but [the farmers] face fines or even jail if they kill the birds.’ The sentence structure sets us up to believe that the action of the farmers is justified. Something horrible is happening but if the farmers take action bureaucracy will come down on them. Too bad it couldn’t be blamed on the EU.

‘So instead,’ Graham continues, ‘they have come up with the idea of catching but not killing them to avoid incurring any penalties.’ To me this has the tone of someone about to say how ingenious. Salivating over a legal loop hole.

They fact that no alternative viewpoint is given to that of the farmer means that his views are not questioned. ‘They say after the trussed-up birds [sic] is freed it never returns - while the chickens also learn self defence against the birds of prey.’ This seems absurd to me but it is presented here without a counter. And by finishing on Mr Wu’s quote he is given the final word, the last say. The all-important point that sticks in the mind of the reader. And this time it’s the justification that we are expected to remember, not the pain or the suffering. ‘Otherwise my chickens will all disappear’

Allow me to speculate for a second as to why this article is as it is. The editorial policy of the Mail is well known and strongly enforced. Even without Dacre over your shoulder the presence creeps through. Everyone knows the party line and is expected to push it. Add to that tabloid writing, by its nature, is more embellished. There are more direct links between points, more adjectives and more colour. This leads to dubious connections being made and expanded upon. Even if it is absurd to the observer.

Then there is the question of what is this story. Is it a serious piece? Something about science, nature or agriculture? Or is it a weird news bit with a ‘those wacky Chinese’ tone. To me it should have been the former but is more likely the latter. That is why there is no other viewpoint.

To me this seems like an ‘isn’t this odd’ piece that has been stretched to fit political points. Points about bureaucracy gone mad and the little man triumphing against the evil predator. This is a bad taste article about a horrific practise.

Let's have a chat about PETA

I’m going to talk about the PETA McLean thing. I’m not the first. I’m not going to add anything new to the discussion or the debate. My criticism won’t be astounding. I probably won’t win any converts.

I’m just going to be me for a second. One voice. If people hear my one voice and they hear others maybe they will realise that this isn’t okay, or that there is compassion left in the world.

I have occasionally been happy with PETA. There list of companies that doesn’t test on animals has led to many a happy shopping trip, there ‘I am not a nugget’ t-shirt is beyond cute. I have, on even more occasions, hated them.

On a local level I have seen small shops graffiti with PETA stencils (which I find abhorrent both from the standpoint of protest and street art) okay, that shop sell meat, it’s a small working class deli, but the also tagged streetlights.

On a larger level I’m still wondering what gratuitous shots of scantily clad celebrities have to do with animal rights. Basically hot people do this so should you advertising is illogical and slightly pathetic.

Yeah, factory farming is bad. I know this. It is my belief that factory farming is bad that lead me to become a vegetarian in the first place. I didn’t want to cause that harm. At the same time I don’t want to cause harm to people either.

When my aunt died of a smoking related cancer it was far less sudden and less shocking. Yet if someone had used her without our permission as a political message, saying that you shouldn’t smoke perhaps, I would have been devastated. Personal grief is hard enough to cope with. Making it public, debatable like this is terrible. Not to mention the complete lack of taste involved in recounting a death scene like this.

‘PETA is running the ad to make people rethink the proposition that it is, rightly so, a criminal act to kill and eat our own kind but that it's "OK" to kill every other species but our own and eat them.’

That point is going to be lost. For many the equation doesn’t balance. People who don’t see it like that - vegan, vegetarian and omnivorous alike – are going to be turned off. Turned off PETA, we can only pray not turned off the idea of causing less suffering to all living things.

Fun at the farm

Courtesy of my friend Louise, two lovely stories about how our government is embracing GM crops. Joy. We're both wondering if this is a result of the Bush visit.

First up Brown pushes the EU to allow GM animal feed. Because the UK has such good a record when it comes to animal feed.

"Gordon Brown is calling on the European Union to relax its rules on importing genetically modified animal feed in a further sign of the Government's willingness to embrace the controversial technology. Mr Brown believes GM crops are vital to the attempt to cut spiralling food prices." From The Independent

And people should be eating the stuff too.

"Ministers have told The Independent that rocketing food prices and food shortages in the world's poorest countries mean the time is right to relax Britain's policy on use of GM crops." Also courtesy of The Independent

Now I have no fear of GM crops on the basis that they will turn me green and my grandchildren will have seven eyes. I admit that there is no scientific basis for thinking that. But that doesn't mean GM crops are a good idea.

They contaminate the environment. GM crops are made to grow and grow and grow. Through cross pollination and invasive growing habits they squeeze out local wild life. Plants are not able to grow and crops are covered with pesticides leaving the numerous wild flowers, insects, birds and mammals with... nothing. The increased pesticide use on GM crops leads to more pesticide resistant crops which don't stop growing on the farm. They take over the surrounding countryside altering the local ecosystem.

All this would created the interesting situation where wildlife would only be seen in cities and ornamental wildflower gardens. Both of which I heartily encourage but I'd like to have some countryside left too.

But will they save the world? Will we be able to feed more people with GM crops? Not according to Friends of The Earth (PDF)

"Despite more than a decade of hype and failed promises, the biotechnology industry has not introduced a single GM crop with increased yield, enhanced nutrition, drought-tolerance or salt-tolerance. Disease-tolerant GM crops are practically nonexistent. In fact, biotech companies have made a commercial success of GM crops with just two traits – herbicide tolerance and insect resistance –which offer no advantages to consumers or the environment."

In fact conventionally grown crops have better chances of increasing yield.

So what about farmers? Well I wouldn't like to say as I'm not one but from the outside it doesn't look good. With uniform seeds coming from a large agricultural firm prices are going up (that Friends of The Earth PDF again) These being the GM crops that will bring prices down. And with those wonderful patents of seeds companies can now go after farmers who save seeds. Making sure they get their wallets out every year. Home growers too. Monsanto is rather aggressive about it.

But what does it matter to me? I'm a vegetarian, does it matter what animals are fed? Yes, yes it bloody well does. From a vegetable lovers standpoint an acceptance of GM animal feed marks a growing acceptance of GM crops. Once GM crops are grown here well then we are in a pickle. The ecosystem will be altered and our food... well considering the contamination from GM crops in non-GM food that already goes on consumer choice will be rather dead.