Interesting about your "greens" experience. I am working toward growing more and more of my own food, mostly because it really does taste better. But when I had my garden going full bore, I had way more than I needed, and I found that most of the stuff I wanted to eat was greens. I'd go out with my bowl, clip enough for one meal, come back and make a stir fry with a couple of freshly-laid eggs and a bit of fish, some great dipping sauce (always with fresh garlic and ginger!), and rice, and it was a totally satisfying meal.
Alas, I wasn't able to keep the greens going through the winter, enough to eat daily anyway (the collards survived the 18 degree weather, but they didn't grow much). So I'm gearing up to start a new season.
It's really interesting seeing what happens to the Asians on an American diet. You can see the older generation ... usually not speaking much English, and shorter, but very active and alert and healthy. And the generation brought up in America ... usually much taller, but also less healthy (acne, overweight, crooked teeth). It's a question I'm really interested in finding the answer to. My own grandmother came from the "old country" (in this case, Germany), was very short, active, and lived to be 96 ... she never did have any kind of high blood pressure, heart disease, or blood sugar problems. Her son, my Dad, was raised here and had myriad health problems. And his kids (me and my sibs) have even more health problems. So what, exactly, changed?
For that matter, what, exactly, is it that makes McDonald's food bad? I mean, we have this intuitive sense that it is bad for us, and I can say that experientially, it doesn't work for me either. But why? It's not the carbs ... white rice does fine in the Asian diet. It's not the tiny bit of meat ... people talk about McDonald's like there is a ton of beef in it, but there is in fact very little actual meat. It does have too many of the wrong kinds of fats (the kind that go rancid), and the food goes through some odd processes that might increase things like acrylamides. But in Thailand, they have "fast food" down to an art and that doesn't seem to be impacting the health of the population at all ... they do deep-fried shrimp and tarantulas or whatever.
I think if we could answer that one question it would go a long way to solving this mystery!
As far as coconut oil: I get mine in 5-gallon tubs from Wilderness Family Naturals. OK, it's a chunk of change, but when you get it that way, the price comes close to coconut oil and the product is very nice, and 5 gallons lasts a long time.
On Thu, Mar 10, 2011 at 10:22 AM, Kim Swearingen <kim@desertmeadows.com> wrote:
I know what you mean. I saw a really depressing thing about McDonalds in China the other day. It was something horrible like a McDonald's opens every 18 minutes in China.I, too, have found the Asian market to be a wonderful resource. The greens are great and I also am a big time gardener (and permaculture designer) and over the years I've changed what I grow dramatically. The vast majority of my garden is now simply greens, with tomatoes, eggplant, green beans, herbs. The different number of greens is probably around 20 now! One of my faves from the Asian market is goat meat. Love the stuff. I still end up going to Whole Foods for coconut products as most of the ones in my asian market have lots of additives.Kim
__._,_.___
0 comments:
Post a Comment