Baby Carrots

  This showed up in my Facebook news feed yesterday.  It's not the first time I've heard about chlorine used in baby carrots, though it's one of the better explanations I've heard.  I've said it before, I don't always agree with Food Babe, but there are times I do.  This is one of those times I agree.  The idea of a chlorine bath never sat well with me and I had previously looked in to this issue.  I believe my original source was an article in a magazine (yeah, I'll never find that again!).  Mercola almost waivers on both sides of this issue and 100 Days of Real Food (which is a source I under use greatly, the whole site is quite good) also called up the company itself. 
  As each of these sources state, while it is generally considered safe, these are an occasional if at all purchase in my house.  Most importantly for carrots is that they are organic.  Why?  Carrots seem to be middle ground according to EWG's list, they don't make it to the "Dirty Dozen."  Carrots are sometimes used to clean toxins in soil - generally when switching from chemical to organic gardening.  The idea is they absorb the toxins in the soil.  Let that sit for just a moment.  Should that work (I first read about this in Pollon's In Defense of Food, I believe) these carrots are laden with the harmful things initially in the soil.  Upon further investigation, I believe it is used more often with heavy metals and arsenic - or perhaps that's just where the research is leaning at this point.  My mother repeated this idea of carrots as cleaners of soil, she'd heard it from a cooking and gardening course she took at the community college (on a side note, some community colleges are starting to offer fun classes for older people at a reasonable price, check your local one out to see if there's something you're interested in!).  I haven't found conclusive evidence that carrots are going to soak up all kinds of evils from the ground and poison you.  Looked for it, and if it's available, they're making it hard to find. 
  Here's my common sense take on this, should carrots be successful in cleaning soil, then they are taking in those contaminates.  I don't trust food conglomerates to care about me and not simply sell carrots used for this among all the other carrots (yep, went a little conspiracy theory on you there; but my trust for anyone who is trying to make money off my consumption is low).  So, organic makes sense to me.  As for the chlorine aspect of baby carrots: we don't all have the luxury of going to a farmer's market to avoid chlorine assisted produce, so I try to take it out where I can.  Sure, it's not a lot - it's within guidelines.  Some (like Mercola) go on about how guidelines may not be accurate, etc; but my thing is that even if something is within guidelines, which ones accumulate in your body?  What amount is "close enough" that inspectors close their eyes, or the corporation/facility simply doesn't care?  My choice is to do as much self regulation as possible, which is why we rarely buy baby carrots (we had friends visit so I had four minions running around, baby carrots got snatched up to save time).  It's not that hard if you make some containers of cut vegetables yourself to keep them snackable and readily available.  So am I going to give you a hard time if I visit and you have baby carrots out?  Not at all, I'll be eating them right along with you.  Are they always available in my home?  No, they are brought in like most convenience foods: sparingly. 

Menu plan first two weeks of May

  I slacked, and I have no real reason except I didn't get anything done until today (except writing the menu, grocery shopping, and making meals).  Tired is not the word for it this week!

May 5 - Lunch: leftover pizza/ sub
             Dinner:  spaghetti marinara, salad, bread
        6 - Lunch: leftovers
             Dinner:  bread and salad with Honey Avocado Cilantro Vinaigrette (TLC)
        7 - Lunch: leftovers
             Dinner:  Spring Menu #2 (Dr. Ornish)
        8 - Lunch:  leftovers
             Dinner:  out
        9 - Lunch:  leftovers
             Dinner:  pizza
      10 - Lunch:  leftovers
             Dinner:  Baked Chimichangas
      11 - Lunch:  leftovers
             Dinner:  pot roast, veggies, bread, salad
      12 - Lunch:  pbjs
             Dinner:  curried chicken salad (TLC)
      13 - Lunch:  biryani (I fake the funk)
             Dinner:  Spring Menu #3 (Dr. Ornish)
      14 - Lunch:  ??
             Dinner:  leftovers
      15 - Lunch:  leftovers
             Dinner:  out
      16 - Lunch: leftovers
             Dinner:  pizza
      17 - Lunch:  leftovers
             Dinner:  vegetable stew
      18 - Lunch:  leftovers
             Dinner:  sloppy janes

  You'll notice baked chimichangas and sloppy janes made their way back on to the menu.  So a recipe as promised -

Spaghetti Marinara (older picture with Veganomicon's beanballs, I have since gotten rid of all non stick cookware), this is adapted slightly from my mother who copied Fillipe's basic marinara to the best of her ability (and I go vegetarian for the cookies on India street, they called up for me to make sure they were shortening and not lard because I'm super memorable [no, seriously, the son remembered me from something like 8 years prior when I hollered at my sister, even remembering her name]):
1/2 medium yellow onion, chopped (or minced if you like would be fine)
2-200 garlic cloves minced (totally up to how much garlic you like, we do 6-8 in my kitchen depending on the size of the cloves)
28 oz tomato sauce
1 medium bunch of basil
1 pinch sugar
 evoo

cook onion and garlic in evoo until onion is translucent (I cook the onion alone until it's getting close then add the garlic to prevent burning, different stove tops need different things!); add tomato sauce, sugar, and basil.  Simmer about 45 minutes.  I sometimes add oregano or red pepper flakes, the sugar cuts the acidity of the tomatoes - do not omit it, but don't over do it either!

Food Revolution Summit

  Neither Dr. Ornish nor Foer disappointed in their interviews.  Today is the last day to listen to either of them and I highly recommend both.  The interviews are about 45 minutes long and well worth it.  Probably my favorite part of the Foer interview is at right around 20:30 where he says:

“There are certain kinds of decency that matter to all of us.  You just don’t find the person in mainstream society... the sort of non deranged person who is completely indifferent to animal suffering.  That person doesn’t exist. Which is to say, everybody cares.  We can care in different ways and we can care in different amounts… we can get into the splitting hairs and that can be really productive and interesting but if we took as the beginning that we all care.  Lets help each other care and lets respect the differences between, the degrees to which we care and our abilities to care and our methods of caring if we could just do that.  I think nothing makes the meat industry happier than seeing all kinds of posters that say ‘Meat is Murder.’  You know, PETA has been enormously successful.  One of the most successful advocacy groups in American history and they’ve done so by winning over about 2 out of 10 people that they approach.  but if we’re serious about these problems we can’t lose the other 8 out of 10… as opposed to saying ‘you’re somebody like me who cares about animals, you’re somebody like me who cares about the environment, here’s what the meat industry is doing.  what are some different approaches we can have that would limit that harm?’”

Yes!!! Dr. Ornish was incredibly interesting, I'd never read anything that gave his personality. I think his best line was that being depressed is like "seeing the world through shit colored glasses." That is the only swear word he uses, but he uses it very effectively. He talks about telomeres a lot and it was very interesting. He also addresses the difference between changing your diet/lifestyle and taking statins - of particular interest to me was that his team saw 85-90% of people on the Ornish program stay with it while after 6 months only 30-40% were still taking statins. The reasoning? Statins are preventative, but don't actually make you feel better. The Ornish program improves your life as a whole.

So quick, before they're gone, go listen! http://foodrevolutionsummit.org/broadcasts/