Raw Milk in Jeopardy in California!

URGENT: Some serious deception has just taken place in the California Assembly, and Californians who value raw milk (and all its health benefits) need to take swift action to stop it!

Read all about it from Mark McAfee's point of view here, and also check out David Gumpert's excellent analysis here. Then write letters! Send them! And post a comment here letting me know that you did! I'm doing a mailing in the morning, and I'll post once I'm done, too.

Thanks, y'all.

100-Mile Diet

I'm inspired again. Aaaaaahhhhhhh! It feels good. As you can see, I haven't written here in a while; I've been somewhat wrapped up in figuring out what foods don't agree with my body so I could stop eating them. Well, that turned out to be harder than at first it seemed, and took some of the fun out of food for me. As a bit of an obsessive personality when it comes to health and food, I recognized the pattern and decided to cool it a bit. Basically, my body feels happier when I cut down on grains and sugar...big surprise there! It's only what I've been reading for the last, oh, ten years or so. So white sugar is out of my life, except for the 1 cup a month that I need to keep my kombucha thriving. And grains are a few-times-a-week proposition now.

But that's not what has inspired me - I just figured I'd quickly account for my absence. What does inspire me at the moment, is the 100-Mile Diet. I've been very intrigued with the "eat local" concept, but failed miserably at the September challenge set forth by Locavores. I just didn't keep track at all. But I think I'm ready to go there, and commit myself to a 100-mile foodshed as much as I possibly can. Since I live smack in the middle of northern California, I have a fabulously diverse foodshed - I can hit the coast, and I can hit Nevada - so I really can't complain!

So with Samhain around the corner, I set forth my New Year's Resolution: For the next year, I will source as much of my food as I possibly can from within my 100-mile foodshed.

What does this mean? Well, I'm finding out (to the relief of my internal perfectionist) that there is no one right way to do this. Everyone is creating their own version of the 100-mile diet - some making exceptions, some going whole hog, others going a week or a day at a time. So I'm laying out my own personal plan for the next year, and I intend to use this blog to hold myself accountable to it. I'm excited and nervous at the same time! What will this be like? How will I feel if I fail? What will my biggest challenges be? Am I too close to winter to do any canning or freezing prep? Okay okay, enough worries, on to the plan.

HerbanGirl's Year of 100-Mile Food

1. Weekly produce from my new/old CSA. Distance from home: 51.5 miles (pick-up on Wednesdays, 1/2 mile from my office)

2. Supplemental produce from the downtown farmers market on Sundays. Distance from home: 1 mile

3. Milk, eggs, and possibly cheese and beef from a family farm near San Andreas. Distance from home: 71.1 miles

4. Fish and seafood from our local fisherman, Brand Little, available at the farmer's market or co-op. Distance from home: 1-2 miles (Brand fishes off the SF coast: 80-100 miles)

That takes care of the basics - fruit, veggies, dairy, eggs, meat. Then there's the question of prepared foods, ingredients, etc. I really feel so lucky to have so much close to me. Lundberg has been growing rice in my town for decades, and Full Belly Farm grows and sells wheat. Organic cultured butter from Clover is only 80 miles from home. The abundance of crops at Apple Hill is only 50 miles away. We are absolutely surrounded by wine country - Napa Valley and Sonoma to the west, Amador and Shenendoah to the east. We have spices and herbs a'plenty at home, but when they're used up I will have do make do without (sniff) cinnamon, nutmeg, or cardamom...my very favorites.

As much as I admire the original 100-Mile Dieters, I don't know that I can succeed at eating 100% within my foodshed for the year. By now I am quite familiar with my limitations and weaknesses, and I would hate to mentally throw away a good idea just because I can't do it All. The. Way. So I'm giving myself five "wildcards" (this is the lingo, apparently) to keep myself sane.

Wildcard #1. Coconut products. These have become an important part of my diet, and they're doing much for my health so I'm keeping them.

Wildcard #2. Salt. There is no natural source of edible salt in my foodshed, but good sea salt is incredibly nutritive and important. So I'm keepin' it!

Wildcard #3. Cocoa. This seems a bit silly considering how little I eat it, and I may regret the choice, but I'm keeping it as a wildcard so I can have my occasional hot cocoa or square of deep, dark chocolate. And I bet when I get to making my own ice cream I'll be glad I kept it!

Wildcard #4. Vanilla. I bake. 'Nuff said.

Wildcard #5. Baking soda. See above.

In addition to my wildcards, which I consider near-necessities, I'll also give myself some permission to not become local-uppity or rigid. I will not turn down any food that is offered to me in hospitality (that comes from Jessica Prentice and I think it's beautifully put). When he makes it, I will drink Descartes' homemade beer without asking where the barley came from. Anything that's already in the house today doesn't count, but I can't replace it when it's gone unless it's local. And when I go out to eat or when I'm traveling, I will do my best but not drive myself crazy.

There. It's set in cyberstone. Hold me to it, y'all!

Now, anyone know a good local substitute for cranberry sauce?

Food Is Fun Again!

Well, my food allergy blood test showed "about as clean as I've ever seen," as my naturopath put it when he called with the results. Tiny reactions to dairy, and no reactions to anything else - even wheat. This is a little bit frustrating on one hand, because it doesn't help me solve my questions about why my body reacts the way it seems to. Can it be...as Descartes insists...all in my head!?!??!!? Criminy, I hope not!

But there's nearly always good along with bad...the good being that I can start adding back some of my beloved foods. I'll keep doing challenges first - eating a food all by itself on an empty stomach and then watching for reactions over the next 24 hours, before adding it back into the diet. I had a glass of raw milk this afternoon as a bit of a celebration challenge, and so far so good. I think as long as I don't have dairy every day, I'll be okay. And what about my GI issues with wheat? Well, a conversation on MDC revealed that the blood tests don't test for intolerances, so I may have to look there next. I also celebrated by making my own mayonnaise today...with real live eggs! Food is fun again! Tonight I think I'll make salmon fajitas to use up the beautiful onions, peppers, and tomatoes we've been getting from our CSA the last few weeks.

When Food Isn't Fun

I'm on yet another leg of my long journey with food. A couple weeks ago I read this book on the recommendation of a new chiropractor, who told me that I've been eating too many fermented foods (could it be my favorite summer lunch of salami, cheese, olives and pickles?) and that I have some food allergies that are interfering with my digestion and organ functions. Rad! So I'm on Day 12 of an elimination diet to figure out what foods cause reactions. I've also taken a blood test to determine the same thing, and I should have results back in the next few days.

What does all this mean? Well, for the last 12 days (since an absolutely gluttonous weekend including two birthday parties and a wedding) it has meant no dairy, eggs, gluten, soy, peanuts, corn, or sugar. It has meant lots of yummy vegetables, some fruits, and some meat and rice. It has meant that meals out with colleagues or friends have generally veered toward sausage and potatoes with fruit for breakfast, or sushi with salad for dinner. I know, if it has the word "sushi" in it, it can't be all bad! Well, it's been all right. Lemon juice is a surprisingly tasty substitute for soy sauce on my Rock'n'Roll.

But I miss some of the foods that I've been eating a lot of this year, in order to build up a good supply of Vitamins A, D, & K2 and healthy fats before we start trying to conceive a babe of our own: namely, my beloved raw milk, butter and cheese, and the dozen organic pastured eggs we still get weekly from our CSA. These foods have helped me feel healthy this year, although I have carried a layer of fat on my body that appears to be melting away, and which according to the book I read is not fat, but water that the body retains to protect from molecules of foods it isn't digesting well. Which makes me sad that maybe these foods that I love are doing harm as well as good and may need to be minimized or even eliminated. Sure, I'm still taking my cod liver oil a few times a week, and I put coconut oil in where I can, but I've slacked off on the bone broths and I need to pick up some liverwurst to make up for all the vitamins I'm not getting from the surprisingly Standard American Diet this book has me following.

(If you haven't been following this blog so far, and are wondering what the hell kind of food I'm eating and why, visit this website to find out more.)

So, why this post then? Well, I guess I'm having a bit of a rant as I anticipate once again having a limiting relationship with food. One of the most healing aspects of this year of traditional foods, has been that I've let go of a lot of my rigidity and isolation around food. I've felt more free to eat what is given to me with gratitude, to become more connected to the food I buy, and to be much more open and adventurous with what I eat. I feel a joyful relationship to food again, for the first time in such a long time...and I'm afraid that having real live food allergies finally diagnosed will throw all this into chaos again, at least for a while. I have long known that gluten makes my intestines swell and...well, other GI problems further down the tube. I have long known that dairy makes my body puffy and my nose stuffed. (This has been better since I've switched to raw, but it hasn't gone away completely.) I guess I just hoped that someday my body would get used to those foods and stop causing trouble, and that maybe if I supplemented my GI system with the wonderful microbes from lacto-fermented foods and such, that I would be okay. Well, I guess we'll see what ultimately has to happen, and I intend to work very hard to maintain my joy of food, because food is friggin' awesome and so much fun!

If you live with food allergies, I want to hear about it! How do you deal with it, get around it, not let it come between you and your connection to your food and food sources? Whether you do or not, I'd like to hear from you. I could use some advice and propping up. :)

The Spirituality of Food

I've been interested in learning about food since I was a junior in high school, when I decided to become a vegetarian. I don't remember it being an abrupt decision; somehow I had gotten a hold of Francis Moore Lappe's classic, "Diet For A Small Planet" and read quite a bit of it. I was disturbed by the environmental damage occurring as a result of animal farming (which I now realize is not animal farming in general, but specifically factory farming), and about the world starvation problems that could supposedly be solved by the worldwide adoption of a vegetarian diet (further reading has convinced me that vegetarianism would not stop world hunger). But mostly I got hooked by the recipe for an open-faced apple/cheddar sandwich, cleverly broiled to melty, slightly singed perfection. I stopped eating meat not so much out of a great conviction about it, but just because it felt good to not eat it.

This winter, after 17 years as a vegetarian of one sort or another (I never could keep all the labels straight), I declared myself an emerging omnivore. I read another book that had a deeply profound impact on me and the way I view food, farming and animal husbandry, and nutrition. I now read everything I can get my hands on about traditional, sustainable, humane omnivorism. Look for a bibliography at the end of this post.

Sure, I feel better. I eat a diet now that consists of about 30-50% of my daily calories from fat, and a lot of that from saturated fat. Unthinkable in our mainstream culture! I no longer fear real food - on the contrary, I am enjoying food more than I ever have in my entire life. I feel creative with it; I feel close to it; I feel deeply fulfilled in a way that I never could have imagined.

Almost every time I work with food in our kitchen now, I find myself tapping into a deep soul-satisfaction, a feeling that I'm exactly where I belong and doing exactly what I am meant to do on this earth - break open the secret nectars of nutrition in our food and provide my family with those nectars. Feeding myself and Descartes well and treating the planet, plants and animals with deep respect has become a kind of spirituality for me. The meditative quality of preparing food. The consciousness with which I contact each element in each meal and the gratitude I feel in knowing how this food has reached us and that it blesses us. The quiet joy I feel when we take the time to eat together at the dining table or in the backyard and really connect. (This heightened awareness and reverence for our food makes me want to celebrate it rather than gulp it down in front of the TV, which all by itself is a huge blessing.) I feel like I am training to learn how to provide our baby with excellent health when she or he arrives. Hestia visits me regularly now, in my kitchen chapel, and she whispers in my ear as I chop and sautee, bake and ferment. When I first started this blog, I wrote of my hope for something like this, but I am pleased as punch at how it has manifested. So I say to Hestia, "Journey on with me! Bring me in deeper!" I never dreamed home could be more fulfilling than career, but am I ever glad I was wrong.

***How to be an omni-sustaina-humane-loca-vore: A Reading List***

Essential reading:
Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon
Nutrition And Physical Degeneration by Weston A. Price

Recommended reading:
Full Moon Feast by Jessica Prentice
Real Food: What To Eat And Why by Nina Planck
The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
Wild Fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katz
Eat Fat Lose Fat by Mary Enig and Sally Fallon

Next on my list:
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver, Camille Kingsolver & Steven L. Hopp