Casual Kitchen: April 2010

CK Friday Links--Friday April 30, 2010

Greetings from Mendoza, Argentina! I'm here on a brief vacation from Spanish language classes, and am sad to say that after nearly three months in Chile, Laura and I are winding down our stay here (actually, Laura is already home and back working at her job). It's been an absolutely amazing experience--and yes, that includes experiencing one of history's strongest earthquakes.

I'm really looking forward to sharing with readers what I've learned about Chilean food and drink while we've been here. Look for (hopefully several) upcoming posts in the coming weeks and months.

And of course, here's yet another selection of interesting links from around the internet. As always, I welcome your thoughts and your feedback.

PS: Follow me on Twitter!
*************************
Michael Ruhlman, author of the book Ratio, on why it's basically pathetic to complain that you don't have time to cook. (Huffington Post)

On setting a good example for people struggling with body-image issues. (What I Weigh Today)

Seven steps to eating less meat now. (No Meat Athlete)

Some great tips to make it out of the grocery store with your budget intact. (Almost Frugal)

Recipe Links:
A laughably easy recipe for Best Buttermilk Biscuits. (A Mingling of Tastes)

Really interesting! Green Chile Chowder. (Homesick Texan)

Easy to make and easy on the wallet: Slow Cooker Paprika Chicken. (Andrea Meyers' Food Blog)

Off-Topic Links:
Why it's both unhealthy and egocentric to blame yourself for other people’s problems. (The Change Blog)

Why you should start a blog--even if you don't have anything to promote. (There Are No Rules, via @elizabethscraig)

An exceptional interview with a photographer balancing a full-time job, four kids, and a quest to publish one million photos during his lifetime. (The Art of Non-Conformity)

Do you have an interesting article or recipe that you'd like to see featured in Casual Kitchen's Food Links? Send me an email!

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Retro Sundays

I created the Retro Sundays series to help newer readers easily navigate the very best of this blog's enormous back catalog of content. Each Retro Sundays column serves up a selection of the best articles from this week in history here at Casual Kitchen.

As always, please feel free to explore CK's Recipe Index, the Best Of Casual Kitchen page and my full Index of Posts. You can also receive my updates at Twitter.
******************************
This Week in History at Casual Kitchen:

The French Press (April 2007)
Tips and advice on how to best use a French press coffeemaker. Save on filters, save on electricity, and make far better coffee. (Also, apologies for the tasteless jokes about English dentistry.)

Applying the 80/20 Rule to Diet, Food and Cooking (April 2008)
The 80/20 Rule is possibly the single most powerful tool you can use to make cooking easier, cheaper, and infinitely less time-consuming. One of my most influential posts from 2008.

Your Heart is Good For Only So Many Beats (April 2008)
Proof that exercise will only kill you. (Kidding!)

How to Fight Back Against Overpriced Cereal (April 2009)
Here at Casual Kitchen we have banned expensive, branded cereals from our pantry. This post explains why. (See also this bonus post on the ways food companies sneak extra sugar into your food: How Food Companies Hide Sugar in Plain Sight)

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

CK Friday Links--Friday April 23, 2010

Here's yet another selection of interesting links from around the internet. As always, I welcome your thoughts and your feedback.

PS: Follow me on Twitter!
*************************
Why we cook. (The Salty Spoon)

Reflecting on the balance between saving money on food and being an ethical eater. Are the two mutually exclusive? (Cheap Healthy Good)

Do we still need professional restaurant critics? (Food Woolf)

Thirteen essential baking books. (Dorrie Greenspan's Blog)

How to quit a job the right way in the peculiar world of restaurant chefs. (Eggbeater)

Recipe Links:
Cabbage and Chickpeas, or Repollo con Garbanzos. (A Little Bit of Spain in Iowa)

Exotic, yet surprisingly easy to make: Soutzoukakia Smyrneika, or Greek Style Meatballs in Sauce. (Kalofagas Blog)

10 surprisingly creative variations on the basic Grilled Cheese Sandwich. (Closet Cooking)

Off-Topic Links:
Why Tony Robbins is dead wrong. (Steve Pavlina's Blog)

Is America going the way of China? Or worse, Argentina? [Be sure to read with a critical eye.] (Humble Student of the Markets)

No one gets out of life alive. No one beats the clock. But we should at the very least make time work for his victory over us. (Nutrition and Physical Regeneration Blog)

Do you have an interesting article or recipe that you'd like to see featured in Casual Kitchen's Food Links? Send me an email!

Who Really Holds the Power in Our Food Industry?

Our last post discussed how demand for food is distributed surprisingly equally across our population. Even the most gluttonous Homer Simpsons of our society at worst might consume four or five times the average calorie intake, a demand level that's a tiny fraction of the skew of wealth across even the world's most egalitarian economies.

However, just because something is distributed evenly doesn't mean it's democratic and fair. In fact, rather than a democracy, I'd argue that food demand looks more like a mobocracy.

And while mobs of people occasionally do smart things, they are particularly good at doing really dumb things.

That's why it shouldn't be a surprise to see unguided mobs of consumers supporting dubious food trends. Millions of consumers eat a shockingly unhealthy diet of hyperpalatable and heavily-advertised second-order foods. And thanks to the high salt and sugar content of these foods, too many members of this "mob" are heading towards a life of obesity, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease and other health problems.

Well, that's where we come in. Yep, those of you out there reading, writing and commenting in the world of food blogs.

The thing is, it really doesn't take all that much to start genuinely useful and healthy food trends. It just takes a few bloggers who take the time to write about their experiences and invite others to join them. A smallish crowd of smart, forward-thinking consumers can establish a genuinely useful trend like the slow food movement. A few well-known food bloggers can help encourage huge crowds of consumers to adopt environmentally conscious eating habits like low-meat eating. And just about anybody can set a goal of, say, eating a healthy diet on less than $30 a week (or going a step further and doing it for $25!) and blog about it for the benefit of others.

Whether we like it or not, you, me, and all the readers of this and other food blogs are leaders of consumer culture. We can help guide the mob. We can spread ideas and recipes that help our readers eat extremely healthy food for next to nothing. We can help consumers increase the influence they have on food growers and manufacturers. We can avoid spreading doubt and Malthusianism, avoid whining and complaining, and instead offer real, helpful and creative solutions to food issues.

This is how food bloggers can have an enormously positive impact on our food supply, our health--and the health of millions of other consumers.

Casual Kitchen is grateful to these books for spurring many of the ideas in this post:
The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay

Related Posts:
Why Spices Are a Complete Rip-Off and What You Can Do About It
Malcolm Gladwell Was Completely Wrong About Cooking
A Rebuttal of Malthusian Thinking in "The Last Bite"
Survivor Bias: Why "Big Food" Isn't Quite As Evil As You Think It Is

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Let Them Eat Cake! Thoughts About Wealth, Power and the Food Industry

This post, in which I talk about one of the richest ironies of the modern-day food industry, is a bit more pointy-headed and academic than the typical Casual Kitchen article. I thought I'd better warn readers in advance. As always, please share your thoughts and feedback in the comments section.
*******************
In a typical economy, things like wealth and income are nearly always unevenly distributed. It's unavoidable in a free society to have a wide range of wealth levels, and even in relatively egalitarian cultures it's not uncommon to find a small number of Bill Gates- or Warren Buffet-type people who possess vast sums of wealth.

However, societies also have an important obligation to address the let them eat cake* problem: the risk that great wealth in just a few hands could skew the prices and supply of basic needs like food, shelter and clothing, pushing them out of the reach of ordinary people.

Keep in mind, this was a serious issue hundreds of years ago. Go back and re-read your history from the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries and you'll see how, even in the world's most "modern" societies, food was often scarce, and only the wealthiest people had the resources to secure a balanced and truly healthy diet. The rest of us were living in the mud.

Fortunately, things have changed. Radically. Today, the diversified economies of the modern era have food industries that are so flexible, so widely distributed, and so quick to respond to consumer demand, that the average citizen of the average developed economy now gets too much food. In fact, in many of the world's developed economies, the let them eat cake problem has morphed into a don't let them eat cake problem! One problem (and some might say one form of elitism) simply replaced another.

However, in a distributed and diversified modern economy, we can at least say that control over our food supply is no longer in the hands of a few inbred aristocrats. Even a preposterously wealthy guy like Bill Gates, whose personal net worth is nearly 500,000 times the USA's national median, can't even begin to skew things. If Bill Gates' food consumption were actually commensurate with his wealth, he would have to eat more than 1 million calories per day.

The image stuck in my mind is Mr. Burns crossed with Homer Simpson.

So, riddle me this: why was it so difficult--centuries ago--for the average person to get enough food, and yet today the average person gets too much food, and even the world's richest guy can't even begin to skew the food supply?

It puts a whole new perspective on wealth and power, doesn't it?

Readers, stay tuned: tomorrow I'll discuss who really holds the power over our food industry.

* For those of you interested in the origins of the expression "Let them eat cake!", the quote is widely (and probably wrongly) attributed to Marie Antoinette, wife of France's King Louis the 16th, in response to being told that her subjects had no bread. This was shortly before the French Revolution of 1789. The phrase essentially signifies how easy it can be for the elite of any society to be totally oblivious to the circumstances of the common person. Today, the phrase carries extra irony when applied to our media and (yes, at times) our political elites.

Related Posts:
The Worst Lie of the Food Blogosphere
How to Whine About "Big Food"
Obesity and the Obama Administration: A Blogger Roundtable Discussion
The Problem with Government Food Safety Regulation
Six Good Things About the Awful Economy

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Retro Sundays

I created the Retro Sundays series to help newer readers easily navigate the very best of this blog's enormous back catalog of content. Each Retro Sundays column serves up a selection of the best articles from this week in history here at Casual Kitchen.

As always, please feel free to explore CK's Recipe Index, the Best Of Casual Kitchen page and my full Index of Posts. You can also receive my updates at Twitter.
******************************
This Week in History at Casual Kitchen:

Bad Vision: The Four Worst Diet Habits for Eye Health (April 2008)
The foods you eat--and how well you take care of your body--have a meaningful impact on your vision.

Austrian Cuisine: Viennese Potato Soup (Wiener Kartoffelsuppe) (April 2008)
Here's a rich and filling potato soup with a distinctive and unusual flavor. Best of all, it's both easy to make and easy on your wallet. This recipe gets a surprisingly high amount of search traffic.

Almost Meatless: Cookbook Review (April 2009)
I can't recommend this cookbook enough to readers, both for the recipes and for the philosophy behind the book. One of the very best cookbooks of 2009. (Note: We receive a lot of free cookbooks here at CK--publishers send them to us seemingly by the crate in the hopes that we will review them. I only choose the very best of the best to bring to my readers.)

Just Say No to Overpriced Boxed Cereal (April 2009)
The implicit presumption behind most of the products in the cereal aisle is that the child, not the parent, makes the buying decision in the grocery store. Moreover, your kids also serve as an indirect reason why these cereals are saturated in sugar and sodium.

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

CK Friday Links--Friday April 16, 2010

Here's yet another selection of interesting links from around the internet. As always, I welcome your thoughts and your feedback.

PS: Follow me on Twitter!
*************************
An excellent essay on questionable persuasive techniques used in the film Food, Inc. (Eat Me Daily)

Do you need an intervention to stop you from compulsively photographing your food? Take this quiz to find out. (5 Second Rule)

28 things you do NOT need in a minimalist kitchen. (stonesoup)

A raw foodist shares her struggles and successes with quitting smoking on her two-year quitiversary. (Choosing Raw)

Recipe Links:
An elegant and easy Risotto alla Margherita. (Cream Puffs in Venice)

Healthy, nutritious and high in protein: Carrot and Coriander Soup. (Chow and Chatter)

Laughably cheap Swiss Chard and Navy Bean Stew. (30 Bucks a Week)

Off-Topic Links:
Why you should "settle" for the man you want. A brilliant meditation on narcissism. (The Last Psychiatrist).

How to work less. (The Renegade Writer, via There Are No Rules)

A guide to free online audiobooks. (The Change Blog) Bonus Post: Are you choosing the right challenges?

For readers interested in the unique brand of Spanish spoken here in Chile, here's an amusing glossary of Chilenismos. (Cachando Chile)

Do you have an interesting article or recipe that you'd like to see featured in Casual Kitchen's Food Links? Send me an email!

Mujadarah: Vegetarian Comfort Food From the Middle East

Mujadarrah is an easy to make Middle Eastern comfort food made from rice and lentils. As I'm sure my readers have come to expect with all the recipes here at Casual Kitchen, it's both laughably cheap and laughably easy, and it offers plenty of modification opportunities--particularly with the spices, which can easily be modified to match your personal preferences.

There's just nothing better than a meal of simple, inexpensive comfort food, especially when you can make it in under 30 minutes. Enjoy!
*************************************
Mujadarrah

Ingredients:
olive oil
2 onions, sliced into rings
1 cup red lentils
1 cup rice
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 cups hot vegetable broth or water, in all

Directions:
1) In a large non stick skillet, add ~1 Tablespoon olive oil and the sliced onion rings and saute on medium/medium-low heat until very well browned and soft, about 10-15 minutes.

2) Meanwhile, in another large non-stick skillet, heat ~2-3 Tablespoons olive oil on medium heat. Add rice, lentils and spices, and stir well for 1-2 minutes until coated with oil.

3) Then, add 3 cups of the hot broth or water (reserving 1 cup for later). Raise heat until water boils, then reduce heat back to medium/medium-low and gently simmer, covered, for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the remaining reserved cup of water at about the 10 minute mark. Note: if the rice/lentil mixture seems to be drying out or sticking too much toward the end of the full 20 minutes, add slightly more water.

4) Top the rice/lentil mixture with browned onions and serve immediately.

Serves 4.
**************************************

Recipe Notes:
1) Readers are likely to do a double-take when they read the instructions to brown the onions for 10-15 minutes. That's not a misprint! That extra cooking time helps give the onions a sweet and complex flavor, and it adds immeasurably to the taste and quality of this recipe. Note that this step doesn't actually take up any incremental time, because you can cook the onions at the same time the lentils are cooking.

2) There are lots of variations you can consider for spices, and I always like to encourage my readers to try their own ideas for modifications. Here are a few possibilities to consider:

Spicy seasoning version:
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper (or more, to taste)
1/2 teaspoon salt

Garden seasoning version (Inspired by The Kitchen Mouse):
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon thyme
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt

Garlic lover's special:
1 teaspoon black pepper
4-5 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
1/2 teaspoon salt

Readers: what additional variations or modifications would you suggest?

3) Note that most mujadarrah recipes call for regular lentils, which take an additional 20-25 minutes to cook. I use red lentils in this version for speed and convenience.

4) A few words about cost: today's recipe costs about $2.00 in total, or a preposterously cheap cost of about 50c per serving. Oddly enough, I still have readers who regularly try to convince me that eating healthy is too expensive. I just don't understand why anyone would hold such a limiting belief about food when there are so many recipes like this one out there to try!

Related Posts:
Fattoush! A Middle Eastern Salad Recipe
Shrimp in Tomato Sauce: Middle Eastern Cuisine
Quite Possibly the Easiest Lentil Soup Recipe You’ll Find Anywhere
How to Modify a Recipe: The Six Rules

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

The Art of Being Minimalist

Readers, here's a quick update on a new way you can help support Casual Kitchen:
*******************************
If you take a look at Casual Kitchen's right sidebar, you'll see a new e-book that I'm now recommending to readers: The Art of Being Minimalist by Everett Bogue.

I've decided to enter into an affiliate relationship with Everett's new book because I think it's worth my readers' time and attention to read it. Best of all, if you decide to buy this book, you'll help support my efforts to provide all of the free content that's available here at Casual Kitchen.

A few words--sort of a mini-book review if you will--on why this e-book is worth your attention.

The reason most of us aren't able to follow our dreams or our passions is because we've been sidetracked. And one of the truisms of life is that over time, we accumulate baggage--both physical baggage (in the form of stuff) and psychological baggage (in the form of poor habits, or in the form of rigid attitudes about our jobs and our lifestyles, etc.). It's disturbingly easy to spend a lifetime in a pointless cycle of work-and-spend without recognizing how much time and energy it costs us.

This book shares Everett's own story of how he freed up his own life by embracing minimalism. He'll walk you through the insightful concept of 100 Things, how to eliminate your biggest expenses, and how to manage your time and workflow with the mindset of a minimalist.

This book provides you with brilliant ideas on how to take back control of your time and your life so you can better accomplish your true purpose.

I'm an enormous fan of minimalism, and I've learned over the past several years that the less stuff I have, the less space I take up and the fewer things I do, the more effective I am in the truly important areas of my life.

I've carefully read this book twice through now and I can't recommend it enough. If you are interested in simplifying your life and your schedule so you can free up energy, time and bandwidth for the really important things--consider buying The Art of Being Minimalist. There is substantial value in this book, and it sells for a quite reasonable US$17. (PS: There is a generous money-back guarantee if you are not completely happy with your purchase!)

Once again, keep in mind that Casual Kitchen has an affiliate relationship with the author, so you can help support my efforts while you empower your own!

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Retro Sundays

CK Friday Links--Friday April 9, 2010

Here's yet another selection of interesting links from around the internet. As always, I welcome your thoughts and your feedback.

PS: Follow me on Twitter!
*************************
Nine easy tricks to save $1,000 a year on coffee. (Almost Frugal) My tip: don't buy Kona.

You can minimize indigestion and gastric distress by avoiding certain combinations of foods in a meal. Counterintuitive and interesting. (Choosing Raw)

The protein myth. (HLife, via @RawSungoddess)

A surprising tip for getting sticky dough off of bowls and utensils once you're done baking. (A Year in Bread)

Don't bother with the over-processed white flour on your supermarket shelf--try grinding your own grains instead! (Like a Bubbling Brook)

Recipe Links:
Have any leftover ham from Easter? Here's a laughably easy Ham and Chickpea Soup. (Closet Cooking)

A preposterously easy Chicken Balsamico. (Stacey Snacks)

A favorite immune system booster and sore throat remedy: Garlic Honey. (Healthy Green Kitchen, via Cook Almost Anything Once)

Off-Topic Links:
Repeatedly praising your children’s intelligence won't help them reach their full potential. (Random Thoughts of a Jersey Mom)

What should you do when your emails and voicemails go unanswered? (Harvard Business Review)

Why it can be dangerous to over-automate your finances. (Consumerism Commentary)

Do you have an interesting article or recipe that you'd like to see featured in Casual Kitchen's Food Links? Send me an email!

Peanut Pineapple Stew

Today's recipe is a delicious and easy-to-make stew. It's the kind of recipe we prize here at Casual Kitchen because it combines easy to find ingredients in an unusual and highly original way.

This recipe is easily scalable (meaning you can double it with minimal incremental effort), it takes only about a half an hour to make, and it's so inexpensive that laughably cheap just isn't a strong enough word. Enjoy!
*****************************
Pineapple Peanut Stew
(Loosely inspired by The Bean Diet Blog)

Ingredients:
3 Tablespoons olive oil
2 medium onions, sliced coarsely into slivers
5 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
1 Tablespoon Tabasco sauce

Roughly 3-4 cups packed collard greens, chopped, with stems removed
1 20 oz can crushed pineapple, including liquid
1 1/2 cups water
1/2 cup peanut butter

Directions:
1) In a large pot, add oil, onions, garlic and Tabasco. Saute on medium heat for 5 minutes, until softened.

2) Add chopped collards, increase heat to medium high, and saute for 2-3 minutes.

3) Then add crushed pineapple (with liquid) and water. Bring everything to a boil, reduce heat back to medium and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

4) Finally, add peanut butter and stir well. Add slightly more water if the stew is too thick. Simmer another 5-10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until collards are cooked to your liking. Serve over white or brown rice.

Serves 3-4.
********************************
Recipe Notes:
1) This is a flexible, easily modifiable soup. You can increase or reduce the Tabasco for more or less heat. You can substitute other healthy and inexpensive greens for collards if you prefer: kale, swiss chard, cabbage, or even spinach are all potential candidates.

2) Note, however, if you plan to substitute other greens, be sure to adjust the simmering times to match the relative toughness of the greens you choose. You'll want to cook a tender green like spinach a little as possible, so I'd consider adding it just 3-4 minutes before you serve the soup. With a tougher green like cabbage, you might want to add an extra five minutes to the cooking time to make sure it's fully cooked to your liking.

3) A few words to quantify the preposterous cheapness of this recipe:

1/2 bunch of collards: 75c
onions: 25c
garlic: 5c
canned pineapple: 90c
peanut butter: 15c
olive oil/spices: 15c
rice: 10c

Even assuming three extremely hungry people, this dish costs less than 80c per serving. Once again, further proof that healthy food does not have to be expensive.

4) Here's what Laura said when she tried this dish for the very first time: "Mmmmm. When I'm eating this stew, I can feel all the lutein from the collard greens soaking up into my maculas." Yep, we have some bizarre dinner conversation here at Casual Kitchen, but when you're married to an eye doctor, this is what passes for high praise.

Related Posts:
Thai-Style Tofu in Coconut and Lime Sauce
Savory Moroccan Chickpeas
Spicy Sauteed Beets
Eat Right to See Right: Foods for Better Eye Health
The 25 Best Laughably Cheap Recipes at Casual Kitchen
A Recession-Proof Guide to Saving Money on Food
Seven Ways to Get Faster at Cooking
Does Healthy Eating Really Cost Too Much? A Blogger Roundtable
How to Enjoy Wine on a Budget

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me from your own blog, or by subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Food Absolutism

One thing that truly frustrates me is when people think in mindless absolutes about food. A few examples:

1) If you enjoy vegetarian cuisine you must be some kind of a crunchy weirdo. How can you have a real meal without any meat? And where are your tie-dye clothes?

2) Or the converse: If you love meat, you must be some kind of a gun-toting nut who hates both animals and the environment (PS: I know at least one vegan who proudly totes a gun).

Still more examples:

3) If you don't buy organic produce, you are poisoning yourself and the people you love.

4) Healthy food is too expensive, and to attempt to show otherwise demonstrates a lack of empathy towards the poor.

5) If you note that the food industry actually gets things right once in a while, you're a sellout and you must have some greed-based interest at stake.

6) If you shop at Whole Foods, you're a bad person. Wait: if you don't shop at Whole Foods, you're a bad person. (Can anyone tell me which it is now?)

7) If you enjoy raw food, you must be against fire. And electricity.

All of the statements above are demonstrably untrue. They signal intolerance and ignorance, if not obliviousness. And worst of all, statements like these immediately murder open-minded conversations.

Thankfully, nothing in the world of food has to be absolute. A choice to explore a cuisine or a style of eating doesn't have to require a permanent commitment. And, fortunately, nearly everything can be enjoyed in moderation, including most foods that are "bad" for you. There are no one-way streets in food!

Readers, what examples have I missed? And what do you find frustrating about food absolutism?

Related Posts:
How to Give Away Your Power By Being a Biased Consumer
If It's So Cheap to Cook at Home, Then Why is My Grocery Bill So Huge?
Guess What? We Spend Less Than Ever on Food

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Retro Sundays

I created the Retro Sundays series to help newer readers easily navigate the very best of this blog's enormous back catalog of content. Each Retro Sundays column serves up a selection of the best articles from this week in history here at Casual Kitchen.

As always, please feel free to explore CK's Recipe Index, the Best Of Casual Kitchen page and my full Index of Posts. You can also receive my updates at Twitter.
******************************
This Week in History at Casual Kitchen:

Eat Right to See Right! Foods For Better Eye Health (April 2008)
One of the advantages of living with an eye doctor is I get to learn all about the best foods for long-term eye health. Here's all you need to know.

Green Bean Salad: Another Ridiculously Easy Side Dish (April 2008)
Here's a subtle and fancy-looking side dish that will dress up any meal. Laughably easy and laughably cheap.

Make Your Diet Into a Flexible Tool (April 2009)
In which I confess to switching my breakfasts over to high-fat, high-protein foods in order to speed my recovery from a serious illness. Don't think of your diet as a rigid set of rules that can never be broken.

How to Prepare and Eat a Rambutan Fruit (April 2009)
The rambutan fruit is one of the weirdest-looking fruits in the world, but it's also one of the most delicious. Here's how to eat one.

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

CK Friday Links--Friday April 2, 2010

Here's yet another selection of particularly interesting links from around the internet. As always, I welcome your thoughts and your feedback.

PS: Follow me on Twitter!
*************************
If only the poor understood nutrition. (The Fat Nutritionist, via Bitch PhD, via Alosha's Kitchen)

Why you'll never lose weight if you forbid yourself your favorite foods. (344 Pounds) Bonus post: 50 weight loss tips.

How to maintain a Zen-like harmony in the kitchen with your roomate. (Cheap Healthy Good)

Does a recipe have to be complicated to be good? (A Life of Spice)

If you live in one of the many states that prohibits the direct shipping of wine, here's how to, uh, bitch-slap your legislator. (1 Wine Dude)

Recipe Links:
Possibly the easiest way on earth to cook fish: Steamed Salmon. (Chef Jeena's Food Recipes)

Delicious and easy: Eggplant and Tofu in Spicy Garlic Sauce Over Pasta. (Eats Well With Others)

Good old Homemade Brownies. (Buns in My Oven via Almost Frugal)

Laughably easy Easter Sugar Cookies. (The Claytons Blog)

Off-Topic Links:
What to do when your friends join Amway and start selling to you. (Consumerism Commentary)

How to stop yourself from "overwriting." (Fiction Groupie via There Are No Rules)

What do huge US federal deficits mean for the individual investor? (A Dash of Insight)

The singing mechanic. (Erin Pavlina's Blog) Bonus Post: How to know if you're an energy vampire.

Do you have an interesting article or recipe that you'd like to see featured in Casual Kitchen's Food Links? Send me an email!

Casual Kitchen

Search Casual Kitchen

CK Friday Links--Friday April 30, 2010

Retro Sundays

CK Friday Links--Friday April 23, 2010

Who Really Holds the Power in Our Food Industry?

Let Them Eat Cake! Thoughts About Wealth, Power and the Food Industry

Retro Sundays

CK Friday Links--Friday April 16, 2010

Mujadarah: Vegetarian Comfort Food From the Middle East

The Art of Being Minimalist

Retro Sundays

CK Friday Links--Friday April 9, 2010

Peanut Pineapple Stew

Food Absolutism

Retro Sundays

CK Friday Links--Friday April 2, 2010

Subscribe to Casual Kitchen by Email!

Recommended

Support Me Via Amazon!

Blog Archive

About Me

TEXT TEST

Favorite Cookbooks