Daria Can Cook – and so can you!

Firstly, hello again. Sorry for that unannounced hiatus; I just fell out of love with blogging for a while. You know how it goes.

Now that the weather is warming up, I’ve been eating many more green smoothies. I especially love a good smoothie after a sweaty run. In the past few weeks, I made an exciting green smoothie discovery. Many of you may have already figured this out, but I was pretty psyched.

My standard green smoothie recipe is the following:

1) Stuff food processor full of as many dark greens (usually spinach) as possible. Blend with a bit of almond milk.

2) Add a tablespoon of almond butter and blend some more.

3) Add a frozen banana, some frozen blueberries, and frozen strawberries and blend once again.

4) Eat too fast and get an ice cream smoothie headache.

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A few weeks ago I had a bag of spinach that was on its last legs. It was getting slimy at the bottom, but I figured that the fruit would mask any off tastes, so I tossed it into the food processor.

Lo and behold, my smoothie was creamier, fluffier, and more frozen-yogurt like than usual. “What gives, smoothie?” I thought. And then I remembered reading somewhere that xanthan gum, that crazy-expensive but much-beloved smoothie additive, is a byproduct of the same bacteria that makes spinach slimy. In other words, I stumbled upon a cheap-as-free way to get the effects of xanthan gum without shelling out $15 for 8 ounces of the stuff.

I don’t know if it is actually possible to get the effects of xanthan gum from slimy spinach – this may be wishful thinking. But for now I’m going to claim that I came across an unexpected, money-saving discovery. Woohoo frugality!

I’m sorry I disappeared for a few weeks – sometimes life just demands your undivided attention.

Today I’m bringing you a fascinating posting from Jezebel. Recently the National Eating Disorders Alliance, the Obesity Society, and STOP Obesity Alliance joined forces to host a panel about women and body image/health. Yes, you read that right; experts on anorexia and obesity were searching for common ground. The hypothesis? We tend to focus on weight as a matter of beauty rather than of health, and consequently our relationships with food get totally messed up.

This resonated with me. Even now, though I think that I’m in a fairly good mental place, I find myself skipping the occasional meal or eating something with few calories and even less nutritional value rather than eating nutrient dense foods because I’m worrying about my weight rather than about my health.

What do you think? Does this hypothesis resonate with you? And how do you keep your focus on health rather than on beauty?

I’ve been meaning to write a post about how gender roles affect what we eat for quite some time now. In honor of International Women’s Day, I’m finally getting around to it.

As I discussed here and here, there is a lot of talk these days about why people don’t cook as much as they used to. Michael Ruhlman proposed that corporations have convinced us that we are too stupid to cook, and I think that he is partially correct. However, changing gender roles have played an important part in the decline of cooking as well.

The story of women’s lib in the 20th century is pretty well known. World wars helped to push more women into the workforce, and it turned out many of them liked it there. Feminist movements in the 1960s helped to cement the idea that women deserve the opportunity to have careers outside the home, and economic necessity has forced most women since then to work outside as well as inside the home.

Here’s the rub: while women took on new responsibilities, men generally did not pick up the slack at home. This obviously isn’t universally true; many men happily pitch in with housework, and some are even stay-at-home dads. Yet by and large, women are still expected to be in charge of cleaning, cooking, and child rearing.

Personally, I don’t know if I would be so invested in cooking and in eating well if my male partner didn’t help in the kitchen. I would resent it a great deal if I were cooking for both of us – I need to feel like this is a joint venture, since we both work long hours outside the home.

What about you? How do you divide kitchen work? Do you think that gender roles still affect how we eat in the 21st century?

(apropos of Women’s Day, there’s a very thought-provoking post about the connections between feminism and veganism over at Choosing Raw. I’m a meat eater for a variety of reasons, but this connection is worth thinking about.)

If we learned anything from the great salmonella outbreak of 2009, which was caused by tainted peanut butter products, it’s that there are many holes in our food supply system. It’s easy to think that “healthy” foods are safe, but as many of us realized, even Cliff bars were being made with mass-produced, under-tested peanut butter that made many people ill.

Another one of the weak links in our food supply chain was revealed this week when it came to light that moldy, subpar tomatoes were being sold by SK Foods, which bribed distributors to take their tainted products. In other words, SK Foods was knowingly selling spoiled food to Kraft, Safeway, Frito-Lay, and others, and in turn these companies were knowingly selling the spoiled food to us. (Read all about it here: “Bribes Let Tomato Vendor Sell Tainted Food”)

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the way that we produce food in this country is unhealthy and unsustainable. Ultimately it’s contributing to serious health problems, which in turn contribute to skyrocketing healthcare costs. When we let giant corporations have almost total control of our food supply, we lose.

So what can you do? Seek out small farmers! Check Local Harvest to see if there are any small farms near you that offer CSA shares. Frequent farmer’s markets when they’re in season. Search for non-factory-farmed food through Eat Humane. Most importantly, take some time to think about where your food is coming from.

Yesterday was the start of National Eating Disorders Awareness Week, which I learned from Sarah’s beautiful and inspiring blog. The idea is that everyone can do just one thing to raise awareness about eating disorders. The “one thing” I’d like to do this week is to bring attention to this cause via my blog, and to give props to a few bloggers who I think do wonderful work in terms of fostering healthy body images in their readers.

I always thought that I had a fairly healthy relationship with my body, but then I went off to college and slowly grew into some self-destructive eating habits. It’s taken a long time for me to feel comfortable with my body again, but I’m truly starting to love the way it looks. One of the things that helped me change my outlook was getting over the obsession with what size I wore and with how much I weighed. My weight fluctuates, and that’s great. That’s what a healthy body that’s living life does!

Angela at Oh She Glows recently undertook what she called a “size healthy” project that encouraged women to get over the obsession with being the right size. She’s posted a bunch of great comments from readers who participated by crossing out the sizes on the labels of their clothing and writing “size healthy” instead. It’s a very inspiring idea, and there are some wonderful comments from readers who participated.

Lastly, if you aren’t already reading The Actor’s Diet, you should jump on the bandwagon. Lynn and Christy do a great job encouraging healthy body images, and they’re entertaining to boot.

I hope that this week you take the time to love your body, whatever it looks like. And stop by and say hi to Sarah, Angela, and Lynn and Christy.

As I mentioned in my last post, I’m trying to cut out white sugars and other high glycemic foods that can contribute to acne. My adult acne and I have been together for too long, so I’m trying some new things to make it uncomfortable on my face.

I’m not quite ready to go cold turkey, however. I still crave the occasional dessert, and so I’m exploring low-glycemic alternatives to white sugar. This week I bought some brown rice syrup in the hopes that it would make me a low-glycemic batch of cookies. However, brown rice syrup apparently makes cookies crispy, and I don’t like crispy cookies. I like seriously gooey, soft, chocolaty messes. So I changed my plan and made brownies instead.

I used this recipe but omitted the walnuts, since I didn’t have any on hand. I also used unsweetened chocolate and a little extra brown rice syrup rather than bittersweet chocolate.

I wound up with this:

These are what dreams are made of. The texture is super chewy and fudgy, and they are incredibly chocolaty. They aren’t very sweet, but I actually prefer a more bitter chocolate taste when it comes to brownies.

And my face? It’s relatively clear right now. I’m cautiously optimistic that my dietary changes are helping, but I won’t know for sure until I’m at a different point in my hormonal cycle (like many women, I find that I break out more at certain times of the month).

Have you ever tried baking with brown rice syrup? So far I’m in love. I can’t wait to make a cake with it! Gingerbread would be pretty great too…

Hi, my name is Daria. I’m an adult, and I still have acne.

I have struggled with acne on and off since 5th grade (!). I’ve used anything and everything, including Accutane, to get rid of it. I don’t break out as often or as severely as I used to, but lately I’ve had some pretty annoying flare-ups that have sent me searching for non-medicinal cures.

At first I thought that I should just cut back on sugar, but a little research revealed that avoiding high glycemic foods (aka foods that make your blood sugar spike and then crash) and eating adequate amounts of vitamins E and A can help reduce breakouts.

Here’s the thing about high glycemic foods: I.love.them. A lot. I run a decent amount, so I’ve never worried too much about eating simple carbs on a regular basis. But the acne has got to stop, so I’m challenging myself to cut out simple sugars, pita chips, packaged cookies, and so on.

Although I try to primarily eat the whole foods we get in our farm shares, I rely on Trader Joe’s pre-packaged snacks a little too much. So far I’ve traded in the pita chips for nuts (TJ’s Thai Lime & Chili cashews are AMAZING and are helping me transition away from simple carb-y snacks), and I’ve upped my consumption of almond butter because it’s full of vitamin E. Oh the sacrifices I make for beauty!

Of course, I still crave the occasional cookie, so I decided to try my hand at making a low glycemic version of my beloved chocolate chip cookies. I used this recipe for peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, but subbed Nu Naturals baking blend, which they very kindly sent me a while back to try and review. I should have used a whole grain flour if I really wanted to make these low glycemic, but we didn’t have any. I also subbed coconut milk for cow’s milk because lactose and I don’t get along.

They look innocent enough, don’t they? They tasted ok too, for the first few chews. And then the aftertaste kicked in. Trent’s reaction a minute after eating one was “Oh god it’s horrible! Get it out of my mouth!” Have other people been bothered by the aftertaste of the baking blend? I know that most people (myself included) find that Nu Natural’s plain stevia doesn’t have an aftertaste, but this was a doozy. It basically tasted like diet food, which is not the taste that I was going for.

I will not be deterred in my quest for a homemade, low-glycemic, non-dairy cookie, however. This weekend I bought myself some brown rice syrup (which is low on the glycemic index), some whole wheat pastry flour, some unsweetened dark chocolate, and some vegan carob chips. Victory will be mine, one of these days!

Yet again, real life has interfered with my intentions to blog more regularly. I will be back soon, however, with some new recipes, some further thoughts on the place of cooking in contemporary American life, and a sugar-related experiment.

For now, I leave you with those promises and with a link to Snackface’s superamazing blog birthday giveaway. Check it out!

***I have some more thoughts on food culture and gender, but I’ll save those for tomorrow. Tonight I’d like to share a fellow blogger’s recipe with you instead.***

Last week Trent (my live-in boyfriend) and I found ourselves at an Indian grocery store, face to face with a giant bag of dates that was selling for a few dollars. Considering that dates are usually dearer than gold, we snapped up our bargain fruits and booked it out of the store before the sellers changed their minds.

I made my first date-based treat tonight, and it was superb. Chocolate-Covered Katie, you are a culinary genius. Your fudge babies are one of the most simple, satisfying desserts I’ve made in a while. Thank you for sharing your recipe with the world!

My version used cashews, dates, vanilla, cinnamon, and cocoa powder. Trent wanted a few non-chocolate treats, so I left the cocoa powder out for the first round.

Sorry, these pictures aren’t the best, but the fudge babies are delicious! They’re essentially a fresh Larabar, without the hefty price tag (assuming you can find bargain dates, of course).

As if Katie weren’t awesome enough, she’s giving away a Vitamix. In general I don’t think that you need fancy implements to have fun in the kitchen, but as someone who regularly pushes her food processor’s tiny motor to the limit, a Vitamix looks mighty appealing.

And now to end my post in the lame way that so many of my students end their papers:

In conclusion, Katie is awesome, as are date-based treats, and if you want a Vitamix, you should check out Katie’s giveway. 

Thank you for your excellent responses to my last post! You guys got me thinking about the parts that I left out of my little rant. Of course, the story of food in America is much more complicated than simply “big companies pushed crap food on us and we acquiesced.” Along with the corporate push for faster food in the 1950s, women started working outside the home more often and the pace of modern life did in fact increase. For many of us today, cooking really doesn’t feel like an option after a full day of work, time at the gym, laundry, family bonding, and a million and one other obligations. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten home at 8 or 9 pm only to stuff my face full of whatever is easiest to open (*ahem chocolate covered almonds ahem*).

(yeah…I don’t even own a kitchen table, let alone an apron…women’s lib FTW!)

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But the point I’d like to raise is that cooking is not an all or nothing proposition. Sure, cooking seven days a week is improbable for most of us, but it’s not necessary to cook that often in order to eat better. Trent and I cook meals two to three times a week, but we make copious amounts of leftovers each time (this week we made about 5 pounds worth of veggie-stuffed meatloaf – we froze some and we’re eating the rest now). I also usually make a giant batch of hummus at the beginning of the week for lunches and quick snacks, and I prep all of our vegetables as soon as we pick up our farm share. This means that we have washed greens ready for salads and peeled carrots ready for snacking so that when hunger strikes after a long day we have options that consist of real food rather than takeout or prepackaged stuff. Does this take time? Yes. Do I get tired of it? Absolutely! There are definitely weeks when I just don’t want to wash any more greens or pan-fry any more chops – I’m not superhuman, and I’m definitely not a paragon of virtuous eating. But that’s ok – as long as in general I’m supporting small farms and eating mostly whole foods, I’m pretty happy. Again, it’s not that we have a choice between super convenience or total housewifery when it comes to what we eat. There’s no sense in totally shunning modern conveniences, but there are many reasons to think about the consequences of those shortcuts. I don’t want to make anyone feel guilty or inadequate; I just hope that this blog can get a few more people to think about the large-scale, global consequences of what they choose to eat.

Yet another piece of this complicated modern food puzzle is the gender question, but that’s a huge can of worms that I’ll save for another post.

How do you deal with balancing life and food? Or am I daft for worrying so much about the ethical implications of eating?