Food 'tudes

I like food. A lot according to the numbers on my scale.

Being a culinary student, an avid eater and major reader means that in the last couple of years I have spent a lot of time thinking about, reading about, or discussing food. When you think about it, food is a completely fascinating subject. Where it comes from, what different cultures do with different ingredients, what is added too it, etc.

Because I spend a lot of time reading about food and the food supply (and possibly because of Carl's death) I am a little subject to THE FEAR. Because once you realize how little the food you know resembles the food your grandmother knew, and the amount of Monsanto brand antibiotics and hormones are out there, you start to wonder if that could really be good for anyone.

It started out pretty simply. Before Carl died, I made most of our meals at home. I would sometimes buy organic things but not with a huge frequency and always with a risk that my husband would roll his eyes at me and laugh at me for buying into the belief that it is better. When Carl was diagnosed with cancer, he halfheartedly joked that it was all the Diet Pepsi's that killed him. Or maybe McDonald's. I think he was only half joking as they were pretty big staples of his diet from childhood until the day he was diagnosed. (While I don't eat fast food much, Carl had it for lunch almost every day.) In fact several of his work colleagues all gave up diet sodas cold turkey when he died because they were convinced.

So I gave up sodas. And bought more organics. I was not sure that it was really necessary, but what does it hurt? If the only thing I waste is money, well you can always earn more of that. The more I started to research what was worth spending more money on for organic, the more I realized that buying organic produce is low(er) on the list of things that are important. The more that I read about dairy and meat raising practices the more I became convinced that those are what I needed to buy organic......especially if Audrey was going to be eating them. But Whole Paycheck has it's name for a reason.....organic meat can be in the $15-20 range which is COMPLETELY insane. So I looked around and found that I could buy organic beef and pork directly from the farmer at a steep discount. Though it is still more than conventional products.

So now I have a big chest freezer and if an earthquake comes and knocks out power for longer than a day I will be throwing the biggest damn block party you can imagine. But that is not enough.....I start looking at bread and crackers and condiments and think "What is that crap on the ingredient list?" And I start making the stuff myself. Who knew ranch dressing is hella easy to make? And bread is like heaven when it is direct from the oven. Except when you really need a piece of damn bread and you don't have the time to bake and you are walking around in the kitchen wondering why the F didn't you just buy the stupid chemical laden crap when you were at the grocery store. And you start to wonder if this has stopped being an exercise in doing good things for yourself and the kid and the CRAZY has started to take over.

I look around at other people who are close to me in their attitudes toward food and I think they are possibly a little crazy, a little fearful. Maybe I am too. But then I wonder, who does it hurt really? The only time I am put out by it is when I am attempting to short cut, because let me tell you when you don't want to cook and you are weighing the greenness and organic nature of take out food, there ain't a lot out there. And really, as long as I can stop myself from getting into a tither about the fact that the only place that serves organic takeout is Z-Pizza and their sauce is made from plastic-lined cans so BPA is totally leeching into every bite. I can dial it back and agree that Chinese food or Baja Fresh is just fine once in a while, I think that my trip down the rabbit hole is not so out of control. But in the spirit of full disclosure I should tell you, I am making my own Barbecue Sauce this week. And canning my own tomatoes.