Food and Vegetable Politics, oh my!

Following my experiment in consumption earlier in the week and the proceeding discussion of food politics on Facebook, I decided to continue my exploration of taste and desire by comparing and contrasting the high-fat, highly-industrial burger meal by spending three days eating well-balanced, nutritious vegetarian meals. The difference is tremendous.

In my average, daily diet here at college I do not consume a great deal of meat to begin with. My only meat comes from either the pepperoni pizza I eat occasionally or turkey or fish in a sandwich. To go three days without this food was not too much of a challenge. Instead of getting the chicken and chicken gravy in the shepherds pie, for instance, I opted out of both of those and replaced it with a delicious potato and leek soup.

The following two days, I satisfied my cravings for something heavy and dense in my stomach — such as a burger or some other sort of flesh, per se — with a lot of complex carbohydrates from grains or whole grain bread. Beyond this, milk was an adequate source of protein and nourishment. One evening, I had egg salad. Some vegetarians would dispute that eating an egg is non-vegetarian and carnivorous; my response is that I am an experimenter and in no way a purist.

To summarize my diet of the past several days, I enjoyed big bowls of fresh spinach leaves and other greens and colored vegetables that I ate raw and, generally, with my hands. No dressing is required to bring out the full, bold and earthy flavor of spinach. On my brown rice I used olive oil and added a few veggies. This was completely satisfying, easy on the stomach, and incredibly healthy. I did not miss meat in the least.

Last night I broke my three day journey into the vegetable life when I encountered ham salad at our deli bar here on campus. This is a rarity. When I was little my mom would made ham salad quite often for my lunches to be spread on sandwiches. I really enjoy the combination of mayo, ham, and relish. Unable to resist, I had it on my sandwich. My enjoyment of the meat came only in the value of nostalgia; I could remember the times in the past and the fond feelings towards my mother, her cooking, and being a kid. The ham by itself was sub par.

Another one of my favorite foods as a kid was bacon. One morning while coming back from a few days lodging in Bar Harbor, my family stopped at a breakfast buffet. I was so overwhelmed with the options that I loaded more than a pound of bacon into my bowl and went back to our table, intent on eating it all. Not only did I feel dehydrated a little ways into the meal, I was sick to my stomach and not even the combined appetite of the four of us could finish it off. I felt terribly wasteful. I’ve cleaned my plate and taken only what I can knowingly eat ever since.

Remembering this, I tried some bacon this morning and ate it slowly, thoughtfully, and inquisitively. Nothing. As my friend commented: “translucent” flesh and fat. Salt. There was almost nothing worthwhile in it. While bacon is not as pervasive as McDonald’s, for instance, there is a similar hype about it. That savory feeling in the mouth comes when images of bacon are on television or in print. Even just discussing the smell of bacon is sure to make one hungry.

To finish off my survey of food qualities, before writing this I ate a bag of Lay’s kettle cooked chips, the Jalapeno variety. Kettle chips are one of my weaknesses. I prefer brands other than Lay’s, but I figured that these would do. On the back of the bag, I noted the presence of MSG (Monosodium Glutamate) in the flavor powder coating the chips. MSG embodies the fifth flavor picked up by the human tongue, called Umami or “Savory”. It took me about fifteen minutes of intermittent snacking to finish off the bag. As I neared the end, my mouth felt otherworldly; my salivary glands were in high gear. All of my mouth was tingling and my gums felt inflamed. The savory flavor so embodied by MSG had overtaken my taste receptors and the flavor of every other ingredient to create a wild explosion of saliva and confusion.

The Findings: I am going to permanently reconsider my choices as I am dining. While I have been interested in nutrition for the past year or two, learned myself in some basics of organics, health foods, food additives, and other key components relevant to our modern diet, it just isn’t enough.

I will not align myself with any restrictive food ideology beyond my own, be it vegetarian, vegan, or any of the multitude of diet plans being sold on the market. I can feel clearly that burgers and a bowl of spinach affect me in distinctly different ways, and will use this instinct to eat as much as I can, rather than buying into the consumer market.

My hard earned money and yours ought not to support corporate giants who use food as a means of control and domination. A dangerous loss of culture, health, and liberty all result from buying into the lifestyle of soda, fast-food, and Western convenience. While I cannot escape the system, by being knowledgeable and open-minded in my choices, I can combat it, do my little part and be healthy within it until the day when we can all farm our own food.

Desert Wakes Up

The expanse of lights fills up my vision;

I am awakened flying higher than Phoenix and

in the darkness of midnight I recognize no one

in the deserted city. We descend and drive through

the dark blurry streets that criss-cross the city’s wings

and soar on towards death in the Sonoran Desert.

The landforms that took a hundred thousand years

or more to form are recreated in sterile plastic for

a passing travellers palms to pass over, the palms’

leaves void and disperse the city lights in shapes

of sharp feathers out across the through-fares.

Beneath, the dark asphalt approaches the Colorado Plateau,

and begins the ascent out from

this endless circus of fiery lights.

The mimicry of a heart quakes beneath this city,

frightened, sustaining a thousand new refugees

each month — yet in a hundred years this place, fated

to become a wispy dune, will be a stronghold only

populated by dusty metal bones and mummified memories

of life, cracked and dried like those in Pompeii, trapped

in eternal gridlock for a drop of water, a drop of life.

There is oblivion outside my window as we drive the

steep mountain passes away from the immortal city.

Only phantoms of people and cars roam the street;

hope is  rumored to be forlorn, the grace of the modern city

is about to spontaneously combust –

and as the old desert sun rises and gives hot breath to a new day

I can see the ravens playing in the burning crimson light.

Epitaph for Bill

There was a little boy that lived under the stairs of the Old Church east of the river of St. Peter. He enjoyed dancing and running to the shores to play with the debris that would wash up from the coal-fired mills up the river a ways. We thought his name was Bill, but when we talked to his mother – the homeless woman that walked around town digging through dumpsters – she told us all along he’d been fooling us and that his real name was Bill. We knew she was under the influence and underwater in her mind so we smiled and kept walking with Bill, listening to his stories of imaginary friends and fantastic places that he visited in the park day after day: a dragon named Carly, a friendly ox named Joseph, and even a little girl named Rita. He told us of adventures we wished we could participate in again, of places we’d visited before but couldn’t anymore. We were adults and adults couldn’t play games, only politics.

My husband and I found Bill one day laying down in the grass near the swings at Arden Park, in his usual spot. A little girl with a dirty face and a dirtier, faded dress stood over him smiling and laughing while he told story after story. A great writer he’d grow up to be, we knew. Bill was the son we’d never have, in his simple innocence. He didn’t go to school and the state really didn’t care, he was just some homeless boy with autism. Nobody cared but us.

Last winter when we were walking home from our underpaid teaching jobs at Morrill High School we saw Bill standing by the riverside holding scraps of cloth around his body, shivering. The icy waters had nearly frozen but kept flowing, resisting the change of winter, the death of motion. Bill passed a final smile to us and jumped into the waters, yelling of adventures Sir Galahad and Lancelot were leading him on, into the great depths below where imagination roamed free and death never bothered. Bill floated still and silent in waiting, into his greatest adventure.

Untitled #50

A slim young woman with wet hair is
sprinting down the street weaving left
and right like a deer in fright, brushing
her hair and holding tight a flailing purse
on the way to somewhere.

Now I am going somewhere, ambulating
away down the highways of Farmington to
where the sidewalk ends and the dual-lanes begin.
I imagine opening day at the Rite Aid across the street -
that plywood box with a brick facade and neon lights,
the pharmacy where “IT’S PERSONAL” -
and recall that old Rexall
was driven out of town after two hundred years
and at least two buildings.
They said they were bought out, but I know that
we all take comfort in this corporate consolidation of our world.

I keep going, on the stiff grass of median strips,
or across front lawns;
walking is far too romantic for the bike lanes.
Cars swoosh by and pretend that pedestrians
don’t exist, they say goodbye with the
cruel aftertaste of gasoline in the air.

The memory of farming persists in a sidewalk cider shop,
juxtaposed between gas stations and clanging, rattling,
roaring logging trucks HAULING ASS to be back in time for dinner.
One hundred million tons of steel on wheels.

The freedom of my walking legs is being
snatched away with each inch of auto-mobile pavement.
I hold my hands tightly to my sides and walk on,
headstrong, brace myself against the endless rapid
whooshing of air that threatens to take me with it.

Rob Shetterly

I walk down and around towards artist
and pretend I am not spellbound
by his lecture of commanding confidence
and of grief that filled the room and
followed his words. It’s grief that wonders
where we are going and is so afraid
that we have forgotten where we came from.
I appear self-absorbed in the blending
brush strokes that collectively compose
the faces of the most honest Americans,
in his modest modernist opinion,
their names and faces so different,
but united by that same smile that knows.
Overwhelmed I step in line to get my
post card signed and get on my way.
The girl in front of me says her name to him
and then she is quiet, I am quiet, so quiet; he scribbles
away and affirms to himself that he is humble and sixty.
I quibble away in my head and affirm that
it’s not the right time to talk to her, to jumble and bumble;
it’s six o’clock and getting dark in here.
The two of us stare intently at his moving hands and moving sapience,
so as not to look inwards into ourselves,
to feel ourselves and the slightly fiery feelings
growing in our chests, to realize that
even though we’ve been side by side the entire time,
we’re unable to say much of anything,
and want Americans who tell the truth to sympathize
with our shyness and say it all.

A quick note: Although I won’t elaborate any more on this poem, Rob Shetterly is a real person. He is an incredible painter and speaker. If he’s in your general area sometime soon, I highly advocate attending a speech, a showing of his portraits, or getting his book. Check out his website: http://www.americanswhotellthetruth.org/

Axiomatic

They go around with baskets and carts,
or in power wheelchairs that scoot over
the dusty linoleum.

They’re in the yogurt aisles, the coffee aisles,

in the delicatessen, or grabbing from a line
of frozen foods for the hungriest men who
lost their hearts in front of television sets.
They have grocery lists and growling stomachs;
when there’s plummeting prices,
there they are
with appetites,
hands swollen with corpulence and
sagging necks that blend in with the
pork chops and second-rate hams.

They’ve washed their hair with bacon grease,
those folks who have children with cartoons
in their eyes and corn syrup on their minds.
Sweets have seeped into the precious marrow
of their growing bones and displaced the calcium;
Now they moan like baby chicks and
reach their little squirming hands for the Trix.

The fountainhead of fluorescent light
is the only place for food;
food that appears for the taking,
restocks itself every night;
food that takes their capital,
straddles their love handles,
returns nothing nutritous.

No one knows where any of it it came from;
the packages no longer lists ingredients.
An old man tells his grandson that milk
comes from the mystifying milk machines,
that hamburgers are from a factory
in the far east of Germany;

but there is woman who knows,
who holds a child in a wool sweater,
nourishes him with her proud breasts,
lets him play in the wavering wheat back home.
Like all good things with expiration dates,
there she goes.