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Food is something that’s almost always on our minds (ok, mine at least) and for a good reason. It keeps us alive. But our generation has also seen a lot of heated debates and battles over food and the way it’s produced: organic versus industrial versus local versus sustainable and the list goes on and on. It all ends in the grocery store (or Co-op, of course) and your hand reaching for the $10 jar of organic peanut butter or… the $3 jar of Jiffy. I don’t even pretend to be anything of an expert on this subject but I ran across a New York Times article by James McWilliams the other day that piqued my interest. It tackles the subject of health benefits of free-range pig farming versus industrially raised pigs and was prompted by a recent study done by the National Pork Board, published in Foodborne Pathogens journal. The study looked at 600 pigs and compared rates of disease-causing agents such as Salmonella, a bacteria, and two parasites, toxoplasma and trichinella, and it showed higher rates of all three in free-range pigs. Most disturbing is the presence of the trichinella, a nasty, often deadly parasite that is not found in any industrially raised pigs. In fact, the pork industry was so sure that this parasite was history that it suggested that eating your pork a little pink would not be harmful. But with trichinella on the loose again doing that could be deadly. This new information is bound to make you wonder whether the free-range option is actually a healthier option. It brings us back to the realization that the tightly regulated diets and medicinal applications that the typical pig goes through before slaughter was all implemented for a reason in the first place, even if these practices have been taken to extremes. What we’re left with it this: industrially raised hogs are exposed to a barrage of antibiotics and live undeniably pretty miserable lives; free-range hogs may harbor deadly parasites and bacteria. But these killers can all be eliminated by thorough cooking of meat, and the potential health benefits of eating meat raised more naturally (not to mention the superior flavor of the meat) seem to outweigh the risk of food poisoning, a risk that exists with all meat. So why don’t we all move to the free-range option? Poking around a little more I found out some other surprising facts: pork is the most widely eaten meat in the world and is a $48.5 billion industry. This means that a large chunk of the world, including many developing countries, depends on the production of pork as a major source of protein. This brings us to the other issue with free-range pork production: cost. While the average cut of industrially raised pork clocks in at about $2.90 per pound, you will be shelling out $12 on average for the same amount of free-range pork. I cannot think of many people in America who would be willing to spend more that four times what they need to for a cut of meat, and this sort of cost is just not manageable in many other countries. So if the issue was simply health and meat flavor, I and probably most other Americans would lean towards the free-range option. But if you add in the cost aspect, and ask that pesky question that we all hate to have to ask: “how would this effect people other than me“…. then the answer to whether or not we should raise only free-range pork is not so easily answered. For now, I think the best option is to have both alternatives on the shelf and let the individual consumer decide for himself in peace. Me: “boy, I shoud really do my taxes.” This was a good two weeks before the day that you absolutely must have your taxes done though, and it was a Friday night, so of course they didn’t get done. Unless you consider going to H&R Block online, signing in, and putting my name and address in as doing taxes. It just wasn’t last minute enough. It didn’t feel right. Besides, I was missing a W-2 and some other piece of paper from last summer. Fast forward to Tuesday, April 14th at about midnight and you’ll find me sprawled on my living room floor with my laptop and a pile of papers that were totally unrelated to taxes but had been stuffed in a drawer and looked important. Me again: “I’m missing a W-2. And some paper from last summer. I think I should just do this tomorrow. I can do that right? That’d be ok and I wouldn’t get in trouble for doing it tomorrow, right?” My boyfriend just shook his head. “I think you really should do it tonight.” He had already finished his weeks ago. Ok, ok. Me to my roomate: “I think I can claim you as a dependent. We live together and sometimes I make dinner. Man, I’m tired and I’m missing that paper from last summer and a W-2 so I’ll finish this tomorrow. I promise. What do you have to do to get an extension, anyways?” April 15th at about 3PM I’m sitting in my car in front of our apartment with my laptop. We didn’t want to pay for wireless so we snoop it from neighbors and for some reason this is the best place to get it. I had found the W-2 and the mystery paper from last summer, which turned out to be a 1099-MISC, whatever that is, and was working away busily. I just couldn’t find a home for the numbers in the 1099. I called a friend, made some things up, hunted down my 2007 AGI (who actually keeps tax information from the previous year, anyways?), and E-filed my taxes right on time. I wasn’t really surprised when both my federal and state tax returns were rejected the next day. How long do I have before I have to fix that, anyways?  Pleasant little Moscow surprise yesterday morning! “I’m cold.” I can’t begin to count the number of times these words pass from my lips every single day. Not only does it seem like I was born with a broken internal thermometer, I also made the great decision to move to Moscow, ID, where it has snowed every month except for August and the temperature regularly dips below zero in the winter. I hate being cold so much that I do crazy things to avoid it. I do dishes, even though I hate doing dishes, just so that I can be elbow deep in hot water for a while. I find myself longingly eyeing the “snuggie” a hideous wearable, sleeved fleece blanket. The models on the box look so happy, smiling as they sport their hideous unisex, one-size-fits-all getup everywhere from the comfort of their own homes to sporting events, simply because they are warm. I bake just so that I can have the oven on for an hour or two. I eat dinner perched on top of our archaic heater in the living room. Actually, that heater is a source of a lot of bitterness for me. It sits in one corner of the room and blows warmish air out into the room so that it settles somewhere around the ceiling of the living room, leaving the rest of the house close to outdoor temperature. And it breaks. After it broke down for the 4th time in one week the maintenance guy came by yet again and found me huddled on the couch swathed in every blanket I own, glaring at the heater. ”You” I told him “are not leaving until you show me how to fix that dang thing myself.” So now every time it goes on the fritz I pull it apart and fix it myself and feel very accomplished and self-sufficient. Pretty early into winter last year I couldn’t take the frigidity of my bedroom any more and I broke down and went to Wal-mart where, for a mere $15 I bought a little space heater, named it Jack, and got an extension cord to go with it. Jack and I were inseparable, I would get up in the morning and drag him all over the house wherever I went, the extension cord trailing behind us. Sure, my room mates made fun of me, and it was a little inconvenient to have to drag Jack all over the place, but I was warm, and smiling. I felt like one of the models on the snuggie box. At the beginning of last year I was in the depths of depression touring apartment after depressing apartment, all victims of college kids and their famously bad taste. So I sighed with relief when I found this place and realized I wouldn’t have to live in a place reminiscent of a state penitentiary. My guess is that this converted house was built in the early 1900s and the windows at the front entrance are the lovely original diamond leaded glass. It’s right across from the city park and we get a great view of all four seasons from our picture window in the living room.
I benefit from living with a great artist! Those are some of her oil paintings over the sofa.
The kitchen in our apartment is the part of the house that seems to have retained some of the cool features of an older home – funky cabinets and shelves give the room some character.
Most of my meals are eaten standing in this room…
The apartment is small and has a lot of windows so we actually ran out of wall space to display all our pictures! I worked this up and was pretty pleased with it. There are quite a few strange spaces like this little nook in the kitchen. Thankfully we are all pretty creative and have found good uses for most of them.
I am not a morning person. No one who has ever interacted with me before about 8AM would even think about disputing this fact. Without fail, whenever my alarm goes off I am bleary eyed, disoriented and usually mumbling something including the words “why me” or “it cannot be that time already.” But there’s one thing that makes me fight the desire to hit the snooze button, roll over and cocoon myself in my down comforters for just a few more minutes. It makes me get up and face my cold bedroom with a dazed smile because I know that it is waiting faithfully for me in the kitchen. This wonder of humanity that makes a person like me do something like that is… toast. Yes, dry bread. I don’t know what it is about it but as I slide a slice of the wheaty-est whole grain variety down into it’s little warming chamber I can’t help but smile. And when it pops jauntily up, browned to perfection I eat it straight, nothing on it. The other week I decided it was time to branch out a little and maybe try bread with something else in it. Like raisins. So I searched and found and tweaked the recipe you find below. It’s really a great one, just the right sweetness and really quick and simple. I hope you enjoy it. I certainly do. Whole Wheat Cinnamon Raisin Bread
I walked into the gym the other day and my eyes ran back and forth scoping the room for people who might notice that I was doing what all good nerds do. Studying while running. This is something that you just don’t do if you have any self respect at all. It is the apex of nerdiness. It screams to the world that even when you are doing something that most people consider productive enough – getting a good workout – you are an overachiever and need to have a book in front of your nose as well. Or, even worse, it’s because you actually enjoy studying and you want to do it. I was neither of these, but I was also the only one who knew that. So I nonchalantly strolled in, placed my binder on the book holder in front of me and cranked up the speed. So far so good. No one was noticing. As I ran I started to relax a little. Ha! I was studying while running! And no one was noticing and, oh my goodness, I was getting so much done! Right about then is when it hit, and unfortunately “it” was not a life-changing realization or something like that. No, “it” was a package of about 100 loose papers that I had been too dang lazy to three-hole punch and anchor into my binder and what they hit was the treadmill belt going 7 miles per hour. The sky of the gym snowed note sheets from advanced biochemistry and the secret was out. I’m a nerd. |
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