Green With Red Spots

Here’s something I’ve thought about a lot lately. From Tara Parker-Pope, New York Times:

[...] Some people are trying to cut back on meat, but not give it up altogether. While it sounds simple, eating a little meat can sometimes be harder than eating none at all.

[...] Now there’s a new cookbook for the reluctant meat eater who doesn’t want to go vegetarian: “Almost Meatless: Recipes That Are Better for Your Health and the Planet,” by Joy Manning and Tara Mataraza Desmond (Ten Speed Press).

[...]Ms. Manning, who was a vegetarian from the age of 14 until 26, said the idea for the book began when she realized that she was eating a lot of processed “vegetarian junk food.”“I came to the conclusion that an almost-meatless diet was healthier, tastier, and more ethical,” said Ms. Manning, now 31. “I didn’t want to dive into the meat-centric meals that are typical of most non-vegetarians.” Notably, Ms. Manning said she lost weight after adding a little meat back into her diet.

It’s a good idea. This all should be elementary to anyone who’s at all interested in their health and the environment. Less meat than what an average person eats (a whopping 225 grams per day in the US) is definitely a good idea: around a 100 grams of meat and dairy a day is probably optimal for your health and your carbon footprint depending on the choice of meat. Cutting out meat and dairy altogether, however, doesn’t necessarily suit everyone or make the world a better place, so this sounds like a good solution and a concrete alternative.

Cookbooks generally don’t get taken out of the shelves to provide instructions for cooking everyday dinners, though, so this should be put into people’s heads in homes and schools as well. I banged my head against the wall for nearly ten years with varying forms of vegan, vegetarian, diets and could never stay within the normal weight range. I found it amazing how much fuller (not to mention healthier and more energetic) I felt without gaining weight when I gradually added eggs and dairy, fish, white meat and finally red meat back into my diet.

Had I never been a vegetarian I don’t think I’d know or understand much about food or cooking, though. Paradoxically, the variety in the dinner choices seemingly expands tenfold every time you have to leave an ingredient out, because then you really think about what you can prepare out of what’s left.

À la Cuisine!

Here’s a blog that I wish would come back. In his latest post the blog author Clement regrets that he has a tendency to get “momentarily distracted” with things other than food that come up in life. (Sounds vaguely familiar.) The post in question is dated 22 April, 2007 – almost two years ago.

A Blog? How Original!

Here’s something you haven’t seen: a blog by me!

This one’s about good food: where to get it, how to prepare it, and, above all, how to enjoy it.

I’ll write about interesting books and magazines, restaurants, recipes, foodstuffs, wine and spirits, cigars, kitchenware, cutlery, music, arts, even tablecloths or whatever interesting I find that has something to do with food.

Me, me, me

I’ve always enjoyed food, but only in the last few years have I really started to get into cooking. Now I cook at least once a day – sometimes three times a day – depending on how busy I am. And as time passed, I got bored with just getting the pasta perfectly al dente – I got experimental and dishes of far away places and especially recipes from long ago started to interest me more and more.

I started to look for great restaurants in my home town and the cities I was travelling to, and started gathering interesting books and magazines I could find that were even remotely food-related.

There’s always a “But”

It’s not going to be just a foodie blog, a gourmet blog, a recipe blog or a restaurant blog, though. It’ll probably turn out to be a mixture of all of those, but I’ll also keep an eye on the health side of the matters.

Some years ago I started going to the gym and, in between work-outs, reading Men’s Health magazine. (I guess it felt appropriate given the surroundings).

After a while I started to notice that while the article on page 26 would tell you to eat more oranges, page 57 might suggest replacing the oranges with whatever the tireless researchers had found that particular month to be more effective for weight-loss, keeping blood sugar levels balanced, or giving you more stamina in the bedroom. Next month there would be yet new discoveries on how oranges help you lose weight in some new ways.

(Weight loss. Sigh. Magazines, papers and internet sometimes make you wonder if the only purpose of eating is to optimize the shedding of grams off your waist while devouring as much as you can.)

So I’ll just occasionally throw in findings the modern science is making on the field of food and nutrition. When looking at the big picture, those findings (not unlike common sense suggests) seem to prove again and again, that you should enjoy modest amounts of as many different types of foods as possible to stay healthy.

…And that’s not all!

Of course it doesn’t end there. There’s always the question of ethics (killing for food, feeding the starving nations) and environment (the effects of farming on nature, recycling). These all affect what we eat, whether by a conscious choice or unknowingly.

The odd article about health, nutrition, ethics or environment doesn’t mean that this will be the blog for weight watchers, body builders or tree-huggers, though. The emphasis of Foodström will be on the pleasure the food brings – whether to the eye, the nose, the palate, or to the body.

Although ultimately it’s not possible to separate enjoyment, health and environment when talking about food.