health food nut

Melissa has been meaning to write about her recent food epiphanies for a while. Here are some of her thoughts, observations, etc. (not really with Alex's input, so this is straight first-person):

I have always been a little bit of a health nut. For instance, the only kind of macaroni and cheese that I can eat a whole box of without feeling sick is made by an organic provider (Annie's). And I can't have anything with Splenda or other artificial sweeteners in it, because the filler substances give me flu-like symptoms or blistering headaches. I just had a little eye-opener by traveling across the country and actually seeing the way animals are treated, and it made me a lot more interested in making sure I'm eating good food.

The big thing about just buying random meat is that you really don't know what the living conditions were of that animal you just ate. There are a lot of horror stories you can find online about stuffing animals into tiny crates and so on, but nothing compares to actually seeing it. Especially in California, we saw, in the space of a suburban block, at least a thousand cows standing more than ankle-deep in mud (and probably their own waste) and shoving each other away from tiny troughs which were literally the only thing they had to eat. What are the odds they were eating nice, healthy grain feed?

Because of the cows' living conditions, goat's milk is really probably a better idea than cow's milk. Goat milk has a bad name. People think it smells bad, or is dirty, or something is just WRONG with it because it doesn't come from a cow. HOWEVER, because goat's milk is usually drunk by crazy health nuts, providers are more inclined to treat the animals well and not use a ton of hormones, antibiotics, and so on. Especially if you get organic goat milk. I have grown up with an inability to digest cow milk properly, so I've tried various kinds of soy, rice and goat milk. The goat milk has the closest taste to cow milk and makes me feel really healthy. After drinking goat milk, cow milk tastes like milk that's a bit too old. My final word for goat milk is that it doesn't create mucus because the proteins are smaller than cow milk (email me or comment if you want more info on that). So don't hate goat milk just because it's different!

Next subject: organic and/or fresh eggs. At Delphi I wasn't able to eat eggs without feeling a bit nauseated, unless I ate them with a bunch of other carbs to trick my stomach into believing it wasn't eating eggs after all. However, Delphi's eggs were, out of necessity, packed up in giant crates, shipped from who knows where and stored at the school for up to several weeks. At my grandmother's house, I had organic fresh eggs from a nearby farm and I was able to scarf a bunch of them down with no ill effects. Hmm.... Then I had a little portion of fresh, regular (non-organic) eggs after that, and those went down the hatch pretty well too. Conclusion? Don't let eggs sit for too long, and it can't hurt (other than financially) to go organic. I am genuinely contemplating having my own little chicken flock to just make fresh eggs for me. All you have to feed them is cracked corn, and you get fresh eggs all the time!

Pigs are another classic example of bad living conditions. Earlier we posted a picture of adorable piglets driving by us in an 18-wheeler, but we also saw at least ten empty piglet-transporters, and the insides were splattered with all sorts of filth. Also, the trailer with the piglets was extremely crowded--there were no piggies laying down in there! To handle the fact that the pigs are surrounded in crowded filth, they have to be fed lots of medicines. Then when you eat the pig, you may get residual medicines too.

I'm not quite a total pessimist though. For instance, in Kansas there were about a hundred cows on, I don't know, a thousand acres or so. They got to just roam around and eat whatever they wanted, and they were literally knee-deep in delicious green grass. So I'm not saying don't eat beef, just try to be aware of where it's coming from. My friend's family farm makes DELICIOUS beef and it's not too expensive. Whenever I eat that meat, I can definitely taste the difference.

On the subject of tasting the difference: While we were at Grandpa Jack's house, a friend of his brought over some fresh cucumbers from his garden. They were literally the yummiest cucumbers I've ever eaten, because they actually TASTED like something. In comparison, store-bought ones after that tasted really bland and foamy. My mom used to also grow tomatoes next to our house, and they were the only tomatoes that I didn't think were gross. A tomato fresh off the vine is not going to be mealy or overly squooshy. And if you grow your own, you know you're going to get the kind you like!

The upshot of this is that organic and animal-friendly food is definitely something to look into, and about a year from now don't be surprised if I have my own vegetable garden and chicken coop. :)