05 Aug 2007, ST
By Andi McDaniel
I CONFESS. I'm one of those 'thoughtful' eaters you've been hearing so much about - the ones interrogating the arugula in the produce section or scrutinising the ingredients on each box of Annie's mac and cheese.
When there's a traffic jam in Aisle 3, it's usually us, commandeering the tortilla chips, weighing the question of local vs organic against any number of other eco-socio-ethical concerns.
I shop like this because, according to what I've learnt from books such as The Omnivore's Dilemma and Fast Food Nation and from spending two summers working on organic farms, it's the most effective way to 'vote' for a healthier food system.
But for all my pondering in the produce aisle, there's a point where I draw the line.
The few times a year when I visit my folks at my childhood home in suburban Chicago, you won't hear me talking about food miles or the sheer horror of a transcontinental February tomato.
When mum's cooking, I check my dogma at the door.
It wasn't always this way. It used to be that when I went home to visit, mum would have to get up to speed on my latest food philosophy.
'Are you eating meat these days, honey? Or are you still worried about those poor cows being all cooped up?' 'I couldn't find organic yogurt, sweetie, so I just got you low-fat.' 'I can't remember. What is it you're boycotting this week?'
Looking back, I'm amazed at her diplomacy. But at the time, I thought I was the one with the admirable values.
It all started about six years ago, when I was 20. Leaving behind my Kraft cheese childhood, I'd gone off to get a first-class liberal arts education (financed by mum and dad).
It was at college that I began questioning authority and reading books with titles such as Milk: The Deadly Poison. Before long, I'd learnt so many dark secrets about the all-American diet that I lost my appetite.
'Natural flavours' are manufactured in New Jersey? Milk really doesn't do a body good? Easy Cheese isn't cheese at all? I was fascinated to learn how things really work, but on a deeper level, I was confused.
How could my mum - with her loving hands and her legendary sloppy Joes - have been enabling such a compassionless industrial food system? How could her careful nutritional nurturing have been based, at least in part, on lies and misinformation? She meant well, right? So what went wrong?
I tried to realign the incongruent parts. If I could just explain to her what I'd learnt, I figured she'd come to the same conclusions I had.
The crusade began. I demonstrated how to make pumpkin pie with real pumpkins. I built her a compost bin and told her it would reduce her weekly garbage by half. And I accompanied her to the supermarket, providing running commentary free of charge. Trouper that she is, mum tried to listen. 'Interesting, interesting,' she'd say. 'Hormones in milk?!' she would gasp, while scanning the shelf for whichever brand happened to be on sale.
The fact was, mum wasn't interested in rebuilding her lifestyle from scratch.
But it was a long time before that dawned on me. For several years, I'd visit and she'd try to accommodate my vegetarian diet, then my preference for organic products, then my conviction that local trumps organic. Not that we actually discussed much of this at all. Usually when I brought up my 'food politics', her eyes would glaze over and she'd say something like: 'Well, you know more about this stuff than I do.' And I did.
But did I know enough about where she was coming from? Back when she was a young mother, nutrition was certainly a concern - but the guidelines of the day offered little beyond the food pyramid and a recommendation to eat three servings of fruit a day. What's more, processed foods such as TV dinners and Hamburger Helper represented progress. No more time wasted canning vegetables - or making pumpkin pies from scratch.
But the most important thing I've come to realise is that, to my mum, food is a language.
When I go home to visit, I constantly have food before me. The message has always been clear: As long as there's food on our plates, everything's okay. Feeling down? Have a snack.
When my mum slides a little plate with a few
orange wedges, a cup of Yoplait and some Ritz crackers in front of me, what she's really saying is: 'We love you, honey.'
So one Thanksgiving, towards the end of my vegetarian phase, when I sat down with my family and plunged a fork into mum's buttery mashed potatoes to find three small pieces of roasted meat underneath, I knew what she was saying: 'Is it really going to kill you to eat one bite of turkey on Thanksgiving? Do you know how long it took to cook this thing?'
And for some reason - maybe I'd reached a certain maturity, or maybe I was tickled by the sentiment, or it could be that I was just tired of scrutinising my food - I ate that turkey. And I asked for seconds. And things haven't been the same since.
Now I tell her to serve it up. What I've realised is that sometimes the food itself isn't all that important. Because even when what she serves is somehow corrupt, my mum's message is pure. And how can I refuse a helping of that?
Washington Post
By Andi McDaniel
I CONFESS. I'm one of those 'thoughtful' eaters you've been hearing so much about - the ones interrogating the arugula in the produce section or scrutinising the ingredients on each box of Annie's mac and cheese.
When there's a traffic jam in Aisle 3, it's usually us, commandeering the tortilla chips, weighing the question of local vs organic against any number of other eco-socio-ethical concerns.
I shop like this because, according to what I've learnt from books such as The Omnivore's Dilemma and Fast Food Nation and from spending two summers working on organic farms, it's the most effective way to 'vote' for a healthier food system.
But for all my pondering in the produce aisle, there's a point where I draw the line.
The few times a year when I visit my folks at my childhood home in suburban Chicago, you won't hear me talking about food miles or the sheer horror of a transcontinental February tomato.
When mum's cooking, I check my dogma at the door.
It wasn't always this way. It used to be that when I went home to visit, mum would have to get up to speed on my latest food philosophy.
'Are you eating meat these days, honey? Or are you still worried about those poor cows being all cooped up?' 'I couldn't find organic yogurt, sweetie, so I just got you low-fat.' 'I can't remember. What is it you're boycotting this week?'
Looking back, I'm amazed at her diplomacy. But at the time, I thought I was the one with the admirable values.
It all started about six years ago, when I was 20. Leaving behind my Kraft cheese childhood, I'd gone off to get a first-class liberal arts education (financed by mum and dad).
It was at college that I began questioning authority and reading books with titles such as Milk: The Deadly Poison. Before long, I'd learnt so many dark secrets about the all-American diet that I lost my appetite.
'Natural flavours' are manufactured in New Jersey? Milk really doesn't do a body good? Easy Cheese isn't cheese at all? I was fascinated to learn how things really work, but on a deeper level, I was confused.
How could my mum - with her loving hands and her legendary sloppy Joes - have been enabling such a compassionless industrial food system? How could her careful nutritional nurturing have been based, at least in part, on lies and misinformation? She meant well, right? So what went wrong?
I tried to realign the incongruent parts. If I could just explain to her what I'd learnt, I figured she'd come to the same conclusions I had.
The crusade began. I demonstrated how to make pumpkin pie with real pumpkins. I built her a compost bin and told her it would reduce her weekly garbage by half. And I accompanied her to the supermarket, providing running commentary free of charge. Trouper that she is, mum tried to listen. 'Interesting, interesting,' she'd say. 'Hormones in milk?!' she would gasp, while scanning the shelf for whichever brand happened to be on sale.
The fact was, mum wasn't interested in rebuilding her lifestyle from scratch.
But it was a long time before that dawned on me. For several years, I'd visit and she'd try to accommodate my vegetarian diet, then my preference for organic products, then my conviction that local trumps organic. Not that we actually discussed much of this at all. Usually when I brought up my 'food politics', her eyes would glaze over and she'd say something like: 'Well, you know more about this stuff than I do.' And I did.
But did I know enough about where she was coming from? Back when she was a young mother, nutrition was certainly a concern - but the guidelines of the day offered little beyond the food pyramid and a recommendation to eat three servings of fruit a day. What's more, processed foods such as TV dinners and Hamburger Helper represented progress. No more time wasted canning vegetables - or making pumpkin pies from scratch.
But the most important thing I've come to realise is that, to my mum, food is a language.
When I go home to visit, I constantly have food before me. The message has always been clear: As long as there's food on our plates, everything's okay. Feeling down? Have a snack.
When my mum slides a little plate with a few
orange wedges, a cup of Yoplait and some Ritz crackers in front of me, what she's really saying is: 'We love you, honey.'
So one Thanksgiving, towards the end of my vegetarian phase, when I sat down with my family and plunged a fork into mum's buttery mashed potatoes to find three small pieces of roasted meat underneath, I knew what she was saying: 'Is it really going to kill you to eat one bite of turkey on Thanksgiving? Do you know how long it took to cook this thing?'
And for some reason - maybe I'd reached a certain maturity, or maybe I was tickled by the sentiment, or it could be that I was just tired of scrutinising my food - I ate that turkey. And I asked for seconds. And things haven't been the same since.
Now I tell her to serve it up. What I've realised is that sometimes the food itself isn't all that important. Because even when what she serves is somehow corrupt, my mum's message is pure. And how can I refuse a helping of that?
Washington Post
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