The Protein Prerogative: Market Mondays

I first found solace by preparing food from scratch in the kitchen as a child - I even had a recipe published in a community cookbook back then.  So I guess I could say the preparation of good food has been a lifelong passion for me. In early adulthood I became interested in food mechanics and that led to me learning more and more about the different types of food and sources of nutrition.


In my evolution into a full blown hippie I had the mandatory vegetarian and then vegan phase.  And upon my first major episode of what was eventually diagnosed as MS I voraciously devoured all the current scientific literature (there is very little) and other respected material on food and disease.


Thus, suffice it to say that I'm an autodidactic food warrior.


And my knickers are really in a knot about protein these days.  Last weeks Toronto Council Committee meeting that squashed the possibility of urban chickens in Toronto added oil to a simmering ember.


Everybody worth their nutritional salt knows that protein gives us the most energy bang for your buck.  That's why the mega-food industry created a whole new market aimed at sports enthusiasts that centred on protein.  Protein shakes are something that many of us consume as a result.  It used to be that mom would go outside to the coop and pluck a few eggs to fry up for breakfast.  Now people reach for the whey powder and the blender.


Food sovereignty centres around protein, in my not-so-humble-autodidactic-view.  On one side of this issue are the people screaming for sustainability: ergo meatless mondays etc.  On the other is the organic food lobby:  Whole Foods meats Birkenstocks.  Or to boil it down to what these two sides tend to really represent:    vegan/vegetarian versus carnivore/pescatarian.


Having been an ethical vegetarian/vegan for a number of years I recognize the gleams of the fervent believer. Part of me is still very sorry that this option didn't work out for me....at about the five year mark of this 'lifestyle' I was craving fish so badly I 'caved'.  Remarkably I felt the energy difference almost immediately.  It wasn't until years later, when I was delving into all the nutrition literature, that I understood what had happened to me on that vegan/vegetarian diet.  My five year stint eventually led to a reduction in energy and a confusion of my body as to how to best replenish it.  My self published vegan cookbook had ample recipes with all the right protein combinations and I made them regularly yet I was still looking for more.  This is why I returned to dairy so quickly and then eventually 'succumbed' to the energy lure of fish and then 'happy' meats (ethically farmed or hunted meats).


So protein is a bit personal, to me.  Especially since I now follow a diet that prescribes a very strict regimen in order to prevent any more myelin sheath from being damaged and may even help to rebuild the stuff that is already damaged.  It is a strict but simple approach and the previous link gives all the science behind it.  It is simple in that it is very easily outlined:  no gluten, no dairy and no legumes.  But the execution of this diet is anything but simple.


Coprorations are out to make profit - they distribute shares to people (or other corporations) that believe that they can make a profit.  I think the Occupy movement has managed to illuminate this plain and simple Business 101 fact home to us.  We are also starting to recognize that our policy makers should be democratically elected but often are simply pawns for the powerful corporations that hire lobbyists that 'hire' politicians.  As my mother, the accountant, is fond of saying, we should always follow the money.


If I was a food corporation looking to make money for my shareholders then I would like to do it in the most efficient manner possible.  Not necessarily effectively, although my food product labelling may claim so.  So what if you were looking to provide a protein product efficiently?  You certainly wouldn't choose meat, poultry, fresh dairy, eggs or fish unless you could factory farm or unethically harvest fish.  You likely wouldn't choose nuts due to allergy concerns.  You'd look around the world and see what protein based substances grow quickly and easily and can be processed into protein products and you'd end up with two sure fire winners:  soybeans and dairy.  Michael Pollan told the food world a few years ago that Americans are basically walking corn stalks due to the pervasive nature of corn and it's derivatives throughout our food chain.  I posit that the sustainable food movement might transform people into dairy laced soybeans and they will be aided and abetted by the handful of global multinational food corporations that not only feed much of the world but also control the food for most of the world.


Like religion, food can be a force that divides or amalgamates communities.  In my solace laced kitchen during the last week I pondered the negative affect that my neurologist approved diet has had on my ability to go out and easily commune with food.  In a world controlled by huge food companies that seek efficiency I realized that this is not likely to change anytime soon, if ever in my lifetime.  And in a world filled with ignorant policy makers like those on that city council committee, I won't be farming my own protein source anytime soon here in Toronto.


But I can start screaming from my soapbox (blog) about it.  The sustainability of our food system is NOT about reducing your meat intake - although that helps.  What would help sustainability (and overall health!) even more would be a commitment by each household to create at least one meal a week, from scratch, with food that is ethically grown - and ideally from a local farmers market that has ethical vendors.  Market Mondays, anyone?

Food Porn

Lunch time in a suburban Catholic school in the 1970s went something like this.  The bell rang for lunch time dismissal.  If you were in Grade 2 or younger you waited for an older sibling or a designated substitute or a parent (mother) to pick you up to take you home.  Or you waited for an older sibling or designated sub to take you to the gymnasium to eat your bagged lunch with your fellow 'bus kids' - of which there were only a couple of dozen in a school of a few hundred.  If you were in Grade 3 or older you were allowed to take yourself home or go to the gym yourself.

I attended a school such as this and I was a bus kid.  I was one of the very few children that had a mother that had paid employment (and possibly the only one whose mother made more $ than the father).  I was also the only child I knew that had a family that had public marital troubles in it's history (although god forbid I ever talked about that).

In grade 5 and 6 it started to become 'cool' for kids to stay for lunch rather than go home so I recall that we started staying in our classrooms for lunch.  This allowed me, an irish immigrant child, to gain further insight into the food choices of the mostly italian, portuguese and filipino families.  I would come home to my parents begging for things like nutella (on fresh italian bakery bread, OH MY).  And wagon wheels.  And pop tarts.  Their deli-meat based lunches smelled a lot different than my peanut butter and carrot (yes) sandwiches on brown whole wheat (cheap) bread.  My lunch treat was an apple and very occasionally a couple of (cheap) cookies.  I started baking at a very early age just so I could improve the contents of my bagged lunch.

Even today, the smell of the deli counter brings my mind directly back to those childhood lunchrooms.  And one of the proudest accomplishments of my parenting career is the fact that my daughter came home regularly during much of her elementary school years so she was able to experience a period of time that included a hot midday meal.  But she, like during my time, started wanting to stay with her friends in grade 6 and by grade 7 she was taking the subway downtown to an alternative middle school which ended her childhood hot lunch era.

One of my own guilty pleasures has been the provision of nutella for my daughter.  This was one item that never came into the household I grew up in and was regularly provided for my elementary school peers.  I wish I could also say that she also brought fresh homemade cookies throughout her childhood.  Let's just say that she too started baking in a quest to improve the contents of her bagged lunch.  After all, the apple doesn't stray too far from the tree :)

Snap, you've been pwned.

There was recently some controversial press surrounding the choice of a Toronto couple to not reveal the gender of their baby (their third child) to anyone outside of their immediate family.  The flurry of public judgment surrounding their family's personal decision reveals much about the state of our society.

Each breeder makes many choices in the course of their parenting journey.  Some choose to release their children into other families.  Some choose to continue breeding well beyond societal and global norms - China's one child policy has been in place for almost 32 years and, according to their authorities, the policy has prevented almost 1 billion births.  Some breeding choices are more public than others.  The Toronto couple's controversy stemmed from the fact that many people felt that gender is something the public is entitled to know.  Gender is something our culture feels it owns and we are lambasted daily with media images defining gender norms.  So it is no wonder the controversy brewed worldwide about 'hiding' the gender of this infant. Our culture has given permission for that to be owned by others and kudos to these parents for highlighting this fact.

I remember touring a day care facility while pregnant and the tour guide proudly declaring their ability to look after babies as young as three weeks (this was in the days of six month parental leaves).  I recall being suitably impressed.  Nearly immediately after giving birth I started to question this.  My line of questioning revolved around the inane choice to breed and then hand off the responsibility of raising your infant/child to someone else...or most likely a series of other people that are paid very low wages.  The average baby in full time care spends 40 - 50 hours of their prime awake times with someone else.  This seemed logical before I gave birth but was extremely illogical, to me,  postpartum.  It was like a light switch went off the day I gave birth and it has never turned off.  The era in which I was raised made me believe that the natural course of events in one's life included the farming out of one's children to other people's care.  "Two earner families are a requirement in this day and age" is a line I've heard time and time again.

I feel strongly that the speed at which our culture changed in the 20th century did not allow time for our values and priorities to be thoughtfully re-adjusted.  For example, in the middle of last century my parents were both raised in homes where a mid-day hot meal was prepared and served by a homemaker.  Children came home from school for it.  I believe this contributes to their mostly good health (ps Dad's okay).  I look around at my peer group and I see many illnesses that were unheard of when my parents were in their forties.  Heart disease and diabetes being the headliners.  Cancer too.

The urgency of our world to reclaim feminine power in the 20th century usurped the basic human needs of healthy food (and nurture).  Communities have been decimated and reduced to enclosures that families shuffle into at night.  Neighbours are not regarded as allies but merely as temporary acquaintances until the next property flip or job change.  Fear permeates most opportunities for interpersonal engagement to the point that it is discouraged as soon as a child is allowed to walk alone on the streets (which is now at a much older age, if ever).  Families don't even eat together anymore!

But getting back to the gender free baby.   Our society is quick to pass judgment on this issue.  I myself was criticized many times for raising my child in a television free home ("but what about her friends at school? doesn't she feel left out?").  I was criticized for her father's and I choice to give her my last name ("you won't be a real family").  Etc., etc.

But that is not really the crux of it.  At the end of the day we all have to be able to look in our children's eyes and hear their opinion on the matter.  And last night daughter read me homework for her grade 12 english course.  It was a narrative essay that, in part, applauded me for my choice to raise her in a television free home. As a parent I can think of no better way to capture how I feel while hearing her read it aloud:  Snap, you've NOT been pwned. She'd shudder to hear me misuse modern vernacular this way but so be it :)

Diets, Fads and Religion

I recently interacted with a couple of people who I didn't realize were animal welfare activists.  Not PETA members but apparently just as fanatical.

When I told them I had been a vegetarian and even a vegan for a number of years in my late 20s-early 30s they seemed to get quite animated (i.e. there is hope...we can draw her back).  They seemed about to crush my argument of losing energy while on a vegetarian diet when I pulled out the big guns and told them that I was no longer a vegetarian because of medical reasons.

That confounded them and I could see the disbelief in their eyes.  I repeated the phrase "We all have our own beliefs when it comes to our diet" a number of times in a number of different ways.  One of them was dismissive, immediately.  I felt the need to explain even further and was flustered by not remembering all the fancy names for the chemicals and the reactions that take place in the stomach when certain foods are eaten by people with certain auto immune diseases.

It brought to mind a potluck dinner party I went to in the last year where there was discussion about what ingredients were in certain foods (undoubtedly instigated by myself since being gluten free always inspires this).  After about 10 minutes of lively discussions by pairings in the entire party (we were all in the kitchen gathering our plates of food) someone piped up:  "Remember when we went to dinner parties and nobody talked about dietary restrictions?".  All of us laughed because yes, I think the 21st century has brought an awareness of food and health issues and the scientific research has advanced enough so that even an individual who is not a food scientist/nutritionist/doctor can assess for themselves how they feel eating certain foods and eliminating others.

For example, have you ever given up gluten?  When I first gave up gluten I felt a definitely lifting of "brain fog" that I had no idea was even there.  I've talked to others about this and it is not uncommon.  Unfortunately that is not why I remain gluten free.  I follow a specialty diet since I have multiple sclerosis.  My logic in doing so is:  a) I can't afford the traditional treatments; and b) there is not a lot of evidence that the treatments do anything.  So since I really don't have anything to lose and can possibly prevent blindness or a wheelchair in my future (or worse) I might as well give this a go.  And from nearly 5 years of experience following the diet I can say that the diet affects my quality of life too.

As I attempted to explain this, the looks of disbelief in the eyes of the animal rights activists I was talking to broke my heart.  These are people that haven't faced these type of choices and they were regarding my own choice as evidence that I was some kind of wacko.

This is the way many  people regard religious fanatics too yet mega food corporations have embraced them. These companies are merely exemplifying the age old truism:  "Religion makes money".  I find it offensive that people automatically dismiss diet restrictions as a fad when many people are following them for real health reasons.  These same people might respect a muslim for their halal food choices or a jew for their kosher choices in the interest of embracing religious diversity.  I don't really expect that to change anytime soon but by writing this perhaps I will enlighten just one person.  As one activist I had contact with for many years used to say in the face of clear public adversity:  "We soldier onwards."