You are what you... a note on CA Prop 37

Ever wonder exactly what's in Miracle-Gro? Or what kind of "filter" the water goes through, and what kind of "water" is used, to make your beverage? Or why it is that supermarket produce look so much bigger and brighter than those from your local farmers' market (you do have one, right?!)? Or how in the world your food is made? If not - you should. I mean, you're worried about carbs, calories, and quantity - ever wonder about content, composition, and quality?

Of most recent interest is the developments regarding Proposition 37 in California. Now, this is not some extreme-left-wing swing at the mainstream, though it may appear that way. It's a proposition on how we should regard GMO's (genetically-modified organism) and bring them to consumers' awareness on store shelves in this country.

I may have been swayed by my reading of some works by Michael Pollan. I may have been swayed by years of teachers and media shoving it down our throats that we need to recycle, because putting that plastic bottle in the trash will yield centuries of undecomposed plastic bottles piled up next to undecomposing diapers and undecomposing metal waste next to seagulls and penguins with their beaks tied up by Coca-Cola can holders. I may even have been swayed by my neighborhood's (read: metro DC) and most urban areas' tout of local is better, and the more local the better (as in, if you got the yard, you better use it for more than just tossin' the ball around with the young whippersnapper).

All these factors may have held me in their hypnotic clasp, which make me all the more concerned about what I'm eating. But as I look back, I find that I was swayed not by any of these factors, though they did help bolster my original beliefs that our ecosystem is a closed system, and stuff doesn't just disappear - no matter if it's tangible or not. I also find that these factors may help reinforce my beliefs that we are indeed what we eat - so we should have some serious awareness of what we eat, because our bodies are indeed closed systems that at some point really can not heal themselves. What I found most remarkable was that my concern about the significance of Proposition 37 stemmed from a deep-rooted background developed by a couple of FOB parents who (a)insisted on a Buddhist mentality in approach on life; (b) practiced a brief stint in macrobiotic eating at a time when health-food stores were little more than dark, tiny vitamin-marts with small selections of homemade granola, Amy's was just a starting company whose only product on the shelves were their soy-cheese pizzas, and running chicken was the terminology for the whole chickens they sold; and (c)did not buy their produce from supermarkets but from the local farmer's market whose products came from Lancaster County, a mere 2 hours away. Oh, we still hit the supermarkets all right - for mass-produced goods like plastic bags, dried goods, bread, canned goods - and meat. I know, I eschew the canned-food approach and search out organic meats now, but for a couple of parents whose childhoods of (basically) poverty were shaped in part by their parents who survived occupation and stowed food whenever they could, their blind cost-effective approach made sense.

(what was funny, and what IS funny, is that I still love going to that farmers' market. that farmers' market was around when i was little kid, long before farmers' markets were part of the mainstream.)

Soda was a treat at our family potluck parties, but dimsum was akin to back-to-roots mom's ole coking for them. We rarely cooked pasta Italian style, but they did cook quite a few other rice pastas throughout my childhood (still miss Mom's stir-fried rice vermicelli with chicken, dried shrimps, and julienne vegetables). We used oil in cooking, but just enough to do what it's supposed to (lightly coat by a mere tablespoonful for stir-fry items, or enough for deep fry) - we did not use oil as a means of saucing any dish. Most of our day-in/day-out stir-fry dishes were, for the most part, very simple: salt, pepper, garlic. That's it.

So here's the quick nickel tour of Prop 37: it is a requirement, primarily, for food producers to label their foods if they used GMO raw materials as ingredients. The only exceptions: if the GMO materials do not account for more than .5% of the total product weight or if the product does not include more than 10 such ingredients; alcoholic beverages; restaurant-prepared foods; food produced that have not been knowingly comingled with GMO foods; foods that have been produced using genetically-engineered enzymes or processing aids; foods derived entirely from any animal that has not been genetically engineered (but may have been injected with genetically engineered medicines).

For people who shop along the perimeter for food, this may not be so much of an issue - unless the fruits and vegetables were grown from genetically-modified seeds. What troubles me so much in this development is not that there is opposition - for any idea, there should always be some opposition so as to keep the spirit of debate and discussion alive in this country. It is the shear mass of opposition. And all just for this issue to have been raised not at the federal level, but at the state level in one state: California.

Could it be that in the realm of progressive, anti-mainstream thinking, this is the state where things start - and the opposition is worried about the progression of the same line of thought through other states as well? I'd like to think that they were that actively concerned that this move would put a microscope and a magnifying glass on their production process - but I'm more worried that it's simply because they have such a stronghold on the industrialization of the country and the blinding of the American consumer that they'd like for us to think that the status quo - their status quo - is perfectly acceptable and would like for us to continue thinking that way, all in the name of money-saving.

Socialist agenda or not - remember reading The Jungle, in our grade-school days? Did you ever have that sinking feeling of seeing what Jurgis and his family was going through, and realizing that every step he took was one in the wrong direction, but that every step was one that was orchestrated by some bigger hand he couldn't escape - and even if he took the right step, he still wouldn't be able to get away from the hand? It was akin to watching a horror movie and knowing exactly which dumbass was going to die next. Paste to our country's food-processing industry. It's enough to want me to grow my own rice, fish my own fish, raise my own animals, farm all my own vegetables.

So here's a rundown on the two sides of the battle and what they've contributed to their sides to-date, as released by the California Secretary of State. And what's most concerning is that some of the big producers have ownership of organic brands who have made headway in the mainstream markets

(see the full list here: http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_21386000/prop-37-donations?source=pkg&appSession=53810318406463&RecordID=&PageID=2&PrevPageID=2&cpipage=2&CPIsortType=desc&CPIorderby=Position&cbCurrentPageSize=)

For Prop 37:
MERCOLA.COM HEALTH RESOURCES LLC - $800,000.00
ORGANIC CONSUMERS FUND - $634,639.25
DR. BRONNER'S MAGIC SOAPS ALL-ONE-GOD-FAITH INC. - $290,000.00
NATURE'S PATH FOODS U.S.A. INC. FINE NATURAL FOOD PRODUCTS - $250,709.21
WEHAH FARM, INC., DBA LUNDBERG FAMILY FARMS - $200,000.00
CROPP COOPERATIVE INC. ORGANIC VALLEY - $50,000.00
ORGANIC CONSUMERS ASSOCIATION - $40,000.00
AMY'S KITCHEN - $25,000.00
PRESENCE MARKETING, INC. - $20,000.00
ACE HOLDINGS LLC - $10,000.00
SKY VALLEY FOODS - $7,500.00
TRACEY MCGRATHTRACEY MCGRATHARTIST AND INVESTOR - $6,125.00
STRAUS FAMILY CREAMERY - $5,000.00
TRADITIONAL MEDICINALS - $5,000.00
EDWARD & SONS TRADING COMPANY, INC. - $4,000.00

Against Prop 37:
MONSANTO COMPANY - $4,208,000.00
E.I. DUPONT DE NEMOURS & CO. - $4,025,200.00
PEPSICO, INC. - $1,716,300.00
BASF PLANT SCIENCE - $1,642,300.00
BAYER CROPSCIENCE - $1,618,400.00
DOW AGROSCIENCES LLC - $1,184,800.00
NESTLE USA, INC. - $1,169,400.00
COCA-COLA NORTH AMERICA - $1,164,400.00
CONAGRA FOODS (owns ALEXIA) - $1,076,700.00
SYNGENTA CORPORATION - $821,300.00
KELLOGG COMPANY - $632,500.00
GENERAL MILLS, INC. (owns LARABAR, MUIR GLEN, NATURE VALLEY, MOUNTAIN HIGH, CASCADIAN FARM, GOOD EARTH) - $519,401.17
HERSHEY COMPANY (owns SCHARFFEN BERGER) - $498,006.72
THE J.M. SMUCKER COMPANY - $388,000.00
COUNCIL FOR BIOTECHNOLOGY INFORMATION - $375,000.00
GROCERY MANUFACTURERS ASSOCIATION - $375,000.00
HORMEL FOODS CORPORATION - $374,300.00
BIMBO BAKERIES USA - $338,300.00
PIONEER HI-BRED INTERNATIONAL, A DUPONT BUSINESS - $310,100.00
OCEAN SPRAY CRANBERRIES, INC. - $301,553.21
PINNACLE FOODS GROUP LLC - $266,100.00
DEAN FOODS COMPANY (dairy production company which owns Horizon, Silk, Lehigh Valley, Shenandoah, PET, Swiss Farms, Dean's Purity, Brown's, Foremost, Oak Farms, Hygeia, McArthur, Meadow Gold, Morning Glory, Jilbert, Meadow Brook, Friendship, Tuscan, Mayfield Dairy Farms, Berkeley Farms, Model Dairy, Alta Dena, Swiss, Robinson Dairy, Creamland, Alpro, International Delight, Land-o-Lakes, and TruMoo) - $253,950.00
BIOTECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY ORGANIZATION - $252,000.00
MCCORMICK & COMPANY, INC. - $248,200.00
WM. WRIGLEY JR. COMPANY - $237,664.90
RICH PRODUCTS CORPORATION - $225,537.15
CARGILL, INC. (OWNS TRUVIA) - $202,229.36
DEL MONTE FOODS COMPANY - $189,974.61
KNOUSE FOODS COOPERATIVE, INC. - $135,831.53
MARS FOOD NORTH AMERICA - $100,242.69
BUMBLE BEE FOODS, LLC - $98,073.62
SUNNY DELIGHT BEVERAGES COMPANY - $96,952.57
SARA LEE CORPORATION - $96,833.22
CAMPBELL SOUP COMPANY - $70,454.91
SOLAE, LLC - $61,207.43
MCCAIN FOODS USA, INC. - $52,295.63
DOLE PACKAGED FOODS COMPANY - $45,580.05
C. H. GUENTHER & SON, INC. - $24,189.18
LAND O'LAKES, INC. - $21,513.78
HERO NORTH AMERICA - $21,044.96
MORTON SALT - $20,957.42
INVENTURE FOODS, INC. - $11,343.80
GODIVA CHOCOLATIER, INC. - $11,121.53
HOUSE-AUTRY MILLS, INC. - $1,077.27
RICHELIEU FOODS, INC. - $165.80

Some of these companies were complete givens (damn, where's Walmart when you need it!) - but who knew how deep some of these companies reached into our definitely of wholesome eating? And granted, while I don't encourage eating of the foods from the middle of the supermarket or from the drive-thru, we don't completely eschew some of these little once-in-a-long-while (i.e., if you can't remember the last time you were in the place + 6 months) snacks. But while we eat this food, just as while we recognize how out-of-norm eating out should be, we do recognize the negative effect the foods have on us. And outside of our kids' continuous pandering for all things colorful, overly sugared, and processed, we typically do not even entertain purchasing these items except in dire emergencies. Like, hurricane's a-comin and we might not get out of it until the next season rolls around kind of emergency.

Take a read, understand what's at stake if we let things just go along their merry way as they have been. There's a lot more than just dollars here. And it could be a huge wake-up call for anyone who has never read a food label on the stuff they're putting into their bodies.

Polpo. Sweet Polpo.

Ahh. It was a day not unlike today. Sun was shining. Not a cloud in the sky. Light breeze through the leaves in the trees. People walking.

However, it was also a day completely unlike today. There was walking - a LOT of walking. With some crazed/passionate Belgian-cum-Roman archeologist guy named Jan Gadeyne whose legs, I swear, were as long as I was tall (or, at least, he walked that way). The sun was shining all right - and baking us to a crisp. Not a cloud in the sky, and oh how I wished there were a cloud to hide that crisping sun which roasted not just us humans, but the Roman air to about a bajillion degrees. Centigrade. The light breeze was coming through the leaves in the trees all right, but the trees were up on top of a tall mound at Nero's palace, where on Googlemaps they color it green to give you a little bit of hope. And we had just started our walk with Jan at Trajan's market, about a mile and a bit away, downhill of the Domus.

Baby1 was about one and a bit, and every bit as fussy as I felt about the heat. She was riding in her stroller, which gave her something equivalent in cover to a clamshell's cover of its innards, but was difficult to navigate through the bumps and lumps of the Roman sidewalks and stairs through the ancient areas. And we were trying to keep up with Jan and his mile-long legs while he rattled off just a smidgen of trivia from his deep mental database of all the ancient history of the landscape we traversed, some little tidbit to try to drill into our heat-baked heads the depth of every step through some passage of time in the city's extensive history.

Did I forget to mention, how hot as heck it was that day? I think mentally I kept trying to squash Gadeyne's legs to be as short as mine. For, you know, an ounce of empathetic pity.

So at the end of our walk that morning, with all the heat and deer-in-headlights blind headstrong following of Jan and our traveling professors with the UMD abroad crew, Professor Michael Ambrose suggested that perhaps today would be a lovely day for octopus salad. I didn't really care as to what it was - anything that sounded remotely cooling would be great. And if it had some lemon to really help with the cooling down process, hey, all the better. I was totally game.

Hubby and the teaching crew headed to Pizza Re, just off Sant Andrea della Valle. I needed to go change to be somewhat decent for lunch, as I think I was a drenching pile of sweat at that point leaving puddles like a trail of breadcrumbs on the Roman sidewalk as I walked. Post-change, Baby1 and I headed back down Corso Vittoro Emmanuele towards the restaurant, which, thankfully, was in the shade. Oh cover, how I loved you that particular day.

The guys had already ordered one insalata di polpo to start while they were waiting for us, and I followed suit. What I had was simply amazing, and illustrated this balance of cold for the hot in the city. As my body caught up with the joy of the moment, I promised myself I would enjoy this salad as much as I could here in Italy, as I knew somewhat that I would not be able to find something like this back home. And as Hubby and my endless pursuit of finding this salad stateside ever since, prepared just the way we remembered, has attested: my assumption was correct.

As with most items I find I can not find stateside, flavors that can somehow just not be duplicated, I've taken the matter into my own hands. A couple of items that have been on my target list: the hot/sweet sauce served on oyster pancakes in the night markets of Taipei that I can practically taste on my tongue, but I've yet to find a duplicate for it in endless jars of single-spoon-tried and discarded self-described "Taiwanese" sweet/spicy sauces this side of the Pacific; and the Roman Insalata di Polpo. The latter has actually proven to be a little easier than the former.

First was my pursuit of being able to cook octopus to just the texture I had in Italy (or at numerous restaurants stateside, which, despite their inability to duplicate my beloved insalata, still cooked octopus to just the right texture. most of the time, restaurants grilled the octopus, which did a quick-cook to be able to keep the texture right.). A couple of my first attempts were visibly protested by live octopus, who poo-pooed my kitchen attempts as laughable (I believe they may even have made some video-gone-viral on CephaTube of how tough my first octopi were). But I think I've gotten the process down now, and the octopus are now draining of color when they see me at the market. And guess what: it's so EASY.

Screw all those techniques I've tried online about dunking the octopus this way or that, whacking the benoggins out of the cephalopod, cooking with some crazy-ass bobbing cork, or what magic some dinky bay leaf will do to tenderize this creature. Keep in mind - its suckers and meat will soak up water around it, just as they are made also of water. It's, I guess, the way octopi live in the ocean, and like many true-to-roots dishes involving meat, if prepared in complement with the way it lived, the result will taste just right (think ducks with fruits and nuts, wild game with nuts and wild greens, beef with whole grains and field greens, simply salted fish, sashimi).

Polpo(ctopus) Preparation

Ingredients
Octopus, whole
Pot, with nary a shade of water at the bottom
Salt, generous helping (think, equate to the ocean's proportions)
Lemon, sliced or wedged (just for flavor)

Directions
1. Lightly rinse off the whole octopus (quick spray of water will do, just to wash any grime from the market off).
2. Mix salt with the water in the pot. Keep in mind - this should be just enough to STEAM the octopus. Usually I have no more than about 1/2" of water in the pot.
3. Add lemon to the saltwater mixture.
4. Place rinsed octopus in the pot. Turn to drench a bit with the salted water.
5. Bring water to a boil, and keep at boil until most, if not all, of the octopus is no-longer slimy looking and non-translucent.
6. Reduce water to lowest heat, and let steam covered for 45 minutes+ (last night, whole octopus, I fell asleep and didn't turn off the octopus at this lowest steam setting for 2 hours). You'd be amazed how much water the octopus gives up.
7. Turn off the steaming water, and let the pot cool COVERED to room temperature. It's now ready to cut/serve/eat.

At this point, some people keep the fat on the outside of the octopus on. I prefer not to eat this layer, so I take the octopus to the sink, give it another quick rinse, and clean off the layer with my hands. Granted, you'll lose the suckers off the legs, but it also makes eating a little smoother without the gelatinous mass on the meat. Word of caution: if you're queasy about touching something slimy like gelatin, this may not be the best process for your bare hands and your psyche (not to mention your stomach). For the sake of your esophagus, use some disposable gloves.

Of last night's cooking expedition, I've sliced mine into 1" slices, mixed with lemon/olive oil/salt/pepper, and the mixture is marinating a bit in the fridge. The octopus, sans dressing, could taste a bit bland. Like chicken. To try to mimic what I had in Rome, I plan to mix the octopus with sliced cherry tomatoes, mozzarella, celery, and fresh parsley. At this point, I at least have the texture of the octopus down - the flavor of the salad will no doubt take some tweeking - but I will eventually get it right.

Rome, you're on my dinner plate tonight.

It's a WHAT?! world after all

I feel like I'm writing an entry to my teenage diary. Except, that the problems I will describe are a lot more complex, the characters that line the stage are a lot stranger, and the scene for all the action is one that we would never expect to find problems at any level. And I mean any.
So just about a month ago, the family traveled to DisneyWorld. Hubby and I were looking forward to this trip immensely, with built-up memories of trips taken during our childhood lining our expectations like snack crumbs to the back seat of my car. We amped up the anticipation for the kids by introducing 6 pink flamingos that, one by one, "visited" our front yard 12 days before departure, and departed one by one until the day we departed. We got t-shirts with Mickey and Minnie on them, and gave ourselves fun names on these shirts. We got Mickey water bottles, sunscreen, clothes packed enough to allow at least 2 changes of clothing a day, anticipating the heat we'd hit when we got to Florida.

We got there, and the excitement was not unequal to the scenery of the whole World before our eyes. Going through the gates of Disney World, seeing the Mickey and Minnie topiary that first day, our kids' eyes were the wide with anticipation. The heat, yes, was there - but we could navigate it. We had meals all lined up, so that we wouldn't be stuck with the problems of having the same hot dogs night after night in exhausted frustration. We expected the Disney utopia to envelope us, from the moment we set foot off the plane until the moment we came back onto the plane to go home. It was to be a full-on, all-out, Disney-to-the-nines experience.

The parks were great. The staff was great. The characters (bless their heat-laden costumed hearts) were great. The heat - well, what'dya expect in July, in Florida, in a world of asphalt? The food...

Now, I knew going there that the kids' food would be geared towards a status quo, and I did not expect to see a chef-whipped 2-pager everywhere we went. I didn't expect to see foie (ha!) as one of the optional sides, alongside seared whatever and lightly-dressed baby field greens (double, triple ha!). I didn't expect to see more options outside of the usual dogs/nuggets/grilled cheese/cheeseburgers/mac and cheese. The sides were a great balance though - apple slices, carrots, and they kept the fries optional. And Epcot Center was definitely the place to go for such a great range of options for little ones to try foods outside of the usual line-up (udon, tacos, salmon, fish and chips, even sneak in a little shawarma).

But - what I really did not expect to see, was that a regular-sized beverage at any counter would be, basically, a liter-sized container. Most of the places were all-you-can-eat. The first thing offered when you sit down to eat at most of the places was their special (sugar-laiden) pomegranate lemonade, not water. Couple these factors with the number of overweight children I saw walking slowly through the parks (granted, yes, it's damn hot), with liter-sized fountain drink in hand (my assumptions take over here that these were fountain drinks of soda, not water), overweight parents not far behind in scooters (you wanted a kid, but would then sacrifice your level of energy to keep up with them AND their health in turn?) - left me, quite frankly, sick to my stomach.

Searching through my memory database, I didn't remember so many children being overweight. Not at Disney World. This was supposed to be the utopian world formed by one man's vision, enjoyed by the world over, right? Maybe my version of utopia is screwed up, but somehow it was filled with people who were active, kids who looked like kids and had energy like kids - and not sized the width of *overweight* 20/30somethings with a geriatric energy level sipping some level of liquid energy to help them take that next step. Sick to my stomach and sad, alas - I realized, at least, where I did NOT want my kids to end up in their health. Here's to hoping.