3/9/2010 - Link
Béa's site: La Tartine Gourmande
Please check out this beautiful site by the name of La Tartine Gourmande
It is simply beautiful. The author is a photographer and writer and she loves to write about food as well as share amazing recipes with her audience. This is not your ordinary food blog, she utilizes the art of storytelling as she describes her food adventures. As you read, you feel like you are right there with her picking the tomatoes off the vine and bringing them back to the kitchen to dice and season. By the way, the photo above was taken by her. Beautiful, right?
3/9/2010 - Video
Song of the day - In this world by Reflection Eternal
3/9/2010 - Link
Let's Move
If you haven’t already, please check out the let’s move campaign. Michelle Obama is on a mission to get kids moving again and eating right!
Check out the facebook page and become a fan (you’ll get all the latest updates): http://www.facebook.com/letsmove
3/8/2010 - Photo
The Farm Bill, a massive piece of federal legislation making its way through Congress, governs what children are fed in schools and what food assistance programs can distribute to recipients. The bill provides billions of dollars in subsidies, much of which goes to huge agribusinesses producing feed crops, such as corn and soy, which are then fed to animals. By funding these crops, the government supports the production of meat and dairy products—the same products that contribute to our growing rates of obesity and chronic disease. Fruit and vegetable farmers, on the other hand, receive less than 1 percent of government subsidies. The government also purchases surplus foods like cheese, milk, pork, and beef for distribution to food assistance programs—including school lunches. The government is not required to purchase nutritious foods. (via PCRM)
What About Grass-fed Beef?
This article is available here at the Food Revolution site.
Cows, sheep, and other grazing animals are endowed with the ability to convert grasses, which those of us who possess only one stomach cannot digest, into food that we can digest. They can do this because they are ruminants, which is to say that they possess a rumen, a 45 or so gallon (in the case of cows) fermentation tank in which resident bacteria convert cellulose into protein and fats.
Traditionally, all beef was grass-fed beef, but in the United States today what is commercially available is almost all feedlot beef. The reason? It’s faster, and so more profitable. Seventy-five years ago, steers were 4 or 5 years old at slaughter. Today, they are 14 or 16 months. You can’t take a beef calf from a birth weight of 80 pounds to 1,200 pounds in a little more than a year on grass. It takes enormous quantities of corn, protein supplements, antibiotics and other drugs, including growth hormones.
Switching a cow from grass to grain is so disturbing to the animal’s digestive system that it can kill the animal if not done gradually and if the animal is not continually fed antibiotics. These animals are designed to forage, but we make them eat grain, primarily corn, in order to make them as fat as possible as fast as possible.
Author and small-scale cattleman Michael Pollan wrote recently in the New York Times about what happens to cows when they are taken off of pastures and put into feedlots and fed grain:
“Perhaps the most serious thing that can go wrong with a ruminant on corn is feedlot bloat. The rumen is always producing copious amounts of gas, which is normally expelled by belching during rumination. But when the diet contains too much starch and too little roughage, rumination all but stops, and a layer of foamy slime that can trap gas forms in the rumen. The rumen inflates like a balloon, pressing against the animal’s lungs. Unless action is promptly taken to relieve the pressure (usually by forcing a hose down the animal’s esophagus), the cow suffocates.
A corn diet can also give a cow acidosis. Unlike that in our own highly acidic stomachs, the normal pH of a rumen is neutral. Corn makes it unnaturally acidic, however, causing a kind of bovine heartburn, which in some cases can kill the animal but usually just makes it sick. Acidotic animals go off their feed, pant and salivate excessively, paw at their bellies and eat dirt. The condition can lead to diarrhea, ulcers, bloat, liver disease and a general weakening of the immune system that leaves the animal vulnerable to everything from pneumonia to feedlot polio.”
3/3/2010 - Video
5 Foods You Should Eat Every Day Swiped from Yahoo
#1 Leafy greens
Medical experts call them one of nature’s miracle foods. Leafy greens like Swiss chard and kale are high in nutrients like folate and vitamins A and C that can lower your risk of cancer. Just one cup of dark, leafy greens a day could also prevent diabetes and high blood pressure.
#2 Nuts
Many nutritionists recommend nuts like almonds, cashews and walnuts because they’re high in natural fiber. Fiber slows your digestive process, keeping hunger and unhealthy mid-afternoon snacks at bay. Goodbye vending machine runs!
#3 Onions
Studies show that consuming onions on a regular basis may reduce symptoms of asthma and the risk of developing stomach cancer. Add them to soups and stir-fry, and just remember — the stronger the onion, the greater the health benefit.
#4 Whole grains
Refined grains, like white rice and pasta, have lost 90% of their nutritional value through the refining process. As if that weren’t reason enough to choose whole grains like brown rice, quinoa and whole oats, a recent study showed that a diet rich in whole grains actually flattens your belly by reducing fat storage in your lower abdominal region.
#5 Yogurt
Making yogurt part of your daily eating routine can improve your digestion — if you’re buying the right stuff. Check that the label lists “active cultures” to make sure you’re getting healthy probiotics, and pick a yogurt rich in vitamin D to prevent osteoporosis.
3/3/2010 - Video
So Soulful Song of the Day - I wish it would rain by Mayer Hawthorne
3/2/2010 - Video
USDA Secretary Vilsack talks about the Administration’s vision for a healthy America and the goals we will achieve to get there. (c) Letsmove (www.facebook.com/letsmove)
