Eat Your Greens

Please check out this very interesting article in Time magazine about the benefits of a plant-based diet.

One great fact from Time’s Bryan Walsh:

“A meal at McDonald’s produces more carbon than your trip to the drive-through.” 

An interesting point: “The most efficient way to shrink the carbon footprint of your menu is to eat less meat, especially beef. Raising cattle takes a lot more energy than growing the equivalent amount of grains, fruits or vegetables: most produce requires about 2 calories of fossil-fuel energy to cultivate per 1 calorie of food energy; with beef, the ratio can be as high as 80 to 1. What’s more, the majority of cattle in the U.S. are reared on grain and loads of it–670 million tons in 2002–and the fertilizer used to grow that feed creates separate environmental problems.”

After reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma, my eyes were opened to the sorry diet that most cattle are receiving. But I wonder if a vegetarian world is the answer?  After all, if none of our land animals were eating, would this not produce problems?  What would happen to our wonderful Canadian beef farmers?  Our dairy farmers?  I think that people should eat less meat–it should be a side dish, perhaps, rather than a main–but I’m not convinced that meat should be removed from our diets altogether.

Smarter, Stronger, Faster

If you read last week’s comments, you might have noticed this one from Steph:

“I’d be interested to know what changes you noticed physically from your detox? You mention your psychological relationship with food and your will power, but enquiring minds (well, mine) want to know: did you lose a significant amount of weight? Did your skin improve? Were you, er, “regular”? Are you smarter? Stronger? Faster?”

I guess it’s time for the dirty truth.

Body:  Did I lose a significant amount of weight? The answer is, unfortunately, no. I would have been thrilled if I dropped pounds, but since I did not go to Meghan to lose weight–I went to her for health–my diet rehab plan did not involve any sort of calorie counting; it was all about making sure I had a vegetable-based protein at every meal. I think I may have lost a pound or two, but I would say that has more to do with preparing my own food and less eating out. The diet was strict and so that prevented me from eating some of my favorite foods (some of which are quite fattening, i.e. cheese).  

Skin:  I was so nervous about my skin.  I have fairly sensitive skin as it is and since I went through some brutal acne during my teenage years, I was petrified that it would come back.  Meghan had warned me that I  may experience a break-out during the diet change, but believed it would go away. She was right. I did experience a break out initially, but it came and went within a week.  Plus, the breakout wasn’t all that bad–I had a bunch of small pimples, but they didn’t turn into big sores and never got infected–no scars!  

After my skin cleared up, things were good for about 6 weeks, but then I started to get really dry skin. Meghan suggested that the dryness might be from artificial heating, etc., and while I think that the weather contributed, I do think my diet influenced it as well. The reason I think it was more than artificial heating because of the lines that appeared on my toenails and how brittle my fingernails became.  I’ve never experienced anything like that and this lasted until I started getting some dairy back into my diet.  

Bowels: Oh the bowels! I have always had issues with regularity and while it certainly improved with the cleanse, I was ultimately disappointed. I’m not sure if my expectations were unrealistic, but I thought that all of my “issues” would be solved and they were not.  Granted, I found it really hard to adjust to drinking eight to ten glasses of water per day and while the water helps, it doesn’t always work the way I wish it did. In spite of this set back, I did find that while on the cleanse, I never experienced a feeling of being uncomfortably full, I did not experience any cramping or bloating which was a huge bonus! 

As for being smarter, stronger, faster–I do believe I am smarter about food and about health. I am a more mindful eater and a conscious shopper.  At one point during the cleanse I joked that the more I knew about food the less I ate–some of the reading I did really opened my eyes to the food  industry and there are some things that I cannot get past i.e. margarine–I will NEVER eat it again. 

I thought that I was stronger about food, but alas, I do not think I resolved my issues with food.  Since I was eating great food everyday during rehab, I did not worry about over eating, calories or fat because I knew that everything I consumed was heart and body healthy.  As soon as the cleanse was over and I had more freedom, the same feelings about food–fear and anxiety–came back; I still have a lot to work on in this area and I will be talking to Meghan about this issue.

Overall, the cleanse was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but I feel good about having done it and–for the most part–I felt good doing it. But I still have so much work to do. I need to learn how to negotiate aspects of the cleanse with my ‘regular’ diet.  

This week, I’ll be writing about aspects of the cleanse that I hope to maintain and what I will reject.

p.s. The photo above is a picture of the fruit bowl at my sister’s place–I’m trying to eat locally.

After Edible Action

While I was excited to meet Sally Miller and hear all about her new book, I was also a bit wary about going into Toronto’s Centre for Social Innovation, fondly known as CSI. My past experiences with eco-movement fans have not always been fun: I have found most activists (of any kind,  not just food) to be an angry people who enjoyed sarcasm, shouting and judging others on their pitfalls.

When I was with them, I felt like I didn’t belong and that I couldn’t have fun because they were somehow ideologically opposed to everything I did and I enjoyed.  Naturally, by Friday afternoon I was worried that in the CSI I would be the only girl wearing make-up, carrying a purse and wearing shoes made of leather.  Thankfully, I was wrong!  Not only were people–for the most part–well-dressed, but they were friendly, smiling, they ate food, drank beer and generally enjoyed themselves.  They even made self-deprecating jokes!

Sally was a bit more serious and while she said that we should enjoy our food, we can also view it as a medium for change.  She pointed out that in North America, 10% of our population suffer from hunger. She asked us to reflect on what we have done and are currently doing to change this and to brainstorm about what we can do next.

The overall message was that we often take our food for granted; we don’t always think about where it comes from. However, she also argued that food is good–a precious natural resource that needs to be protected so that we can continue to enjoy it with our families and friends.  Afterwards, we were encouraged to eat and drink at the centre and it was at this point that I met some really interesting people from Canadian news source Rabble. I also met the fantastic Toronto-based activists who founded The Movement that night.  Overall, it was a positive experience capped off with a mango-banana-strawberry smoothie from Fresh with my new food-pal, Meghan.  Now I just have to read Sally’s book…