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In our home, shopping at Whole Foods was once reserved for special dinners or used a stop-gap during an extremely busy week. Then slowly, over time, it became habit -- and a big one. For a long time now, we've had two regular shopping days each week, one at Loblaws and one at Whole Foods. Sometimes we end up at Whole Foods multiple times in one week. This has been expensive, of course, but I felt it was worth spending more for better quality, and even more so for convenience. Because of Whole Foods' prepared food, we've been able to spend less time on food preparation, but still eat healthfully. Where prepared food in most supermarkets consists of rotisserie chicken and mayonnaisey pasta salads, Whole Foods carries an array of fresh, healthy, delicious -- expensive -- choices. Over time we relied on this more... and more. I did determine that some prepared food was actually no more expensive than if I had made it myself: see my post about Roman tuna salad . Now I suspect th...

Do you watch Aziz Ansari's show " Master of None "? I like it. It's not zany or wacky; it doesn't try so hard to be funny, which I find annoying in so many TV comedies. Parts of the show are funny, but parts are earnest, and interesting. It's not sappy, but it's not afraid to be a bit serious. In the episode we just watched, we see Dev, the main character played by Ansari, as a child, encountering bacon for the first time. He's at the home of a friend, and when his mom calls, he innocently tells her that he's eating bacon. Mom reminds the young Dev that Muslims don't eat pork -- and informs him that bacon is pork. Young Dev looks at the bacon, confused and a bit perturbed, deciding what to do. Then he opens wide and takes another bite. Back in the present, the episode involves Dev and his friend Navid eating pork and drinking alcohol -- but leading their parents to believe they are devout. * * * * If you grew up in Canada or the US, and you...

I read this on Facebook and absolutely love it. The author, Arun Gupta, understands and acknowledges cultural appropriation as a fact and a legitimate concern (as do I). But he also believes the "reactionary left" spreading lists of ethnic restaurants run by white people ...essentializes the notion of culture as rooted in the very soil of a place and not something that can travel or transcend boundaries. This hints at fascistic notions of blood and soil as what constitutes the nation. It is reactionary because the creators of this are implying there are timeless practices, rooted in a people, land and culture, that constitute only appropriate form of food. They want to fix all cultures as fossils in a museum, not allowing for adaptation, changing tastes, social roles, or fashion. It reminds me of how the National Front fetishizes a notion of the pure French nation. He's unpacked the food-as-cultural-appropriation concept perfectly. Please go read the whole post. I would ...

I'm increasingly dismayed by accusations of cultural appropriation that are used as weapons, rather than as a tool for raising awareness and educating. Accusations of appropriation have become a form of bullying, a weapon wielded to police and enforce a superficial obeisance to a behavioural code -- while doing nothing to address the underlying issues. Cultural appropriation is real. It's a valid issue. I'm not saying that cultural appropriation is not real. It is. I'm not saying claims of appropriation don't have merit. They do. When I was a child in the 1960s, parents might dress their children as "Indians" for Halloween, without a second thought. Kids played "Cowboys and Indians," dressing up in hats or feathers, with toy guns or tomahawks. Can you imagine if someone had played "Nazis and Jews"? It's completely inappropriate to turn a history of genocide and oppression into costumes and games. That in the 21st century, people are...

I've noticed that ideas that I used to blog about, I am now posting on Facebook instead -- a combination of laziness and time pressure. I'm going to try to get the ideas here, first. Conventional wisdom has it that preparing food at home is less expensive than buying prepared food. I'm not talking about frozen or processed food, but freshly prepared food from a store like Whole Foods, or increasingly, regular supermarkets trying to compete with specialty stores. Allan and I buy quite a bit of prepared food. With limited time and energy, it's often the tool we reach for to keep healthy eating on track. It's less expensive than eating in a restaurant, and it's more convenient if you're tired and want to stay at home. I always think we spend far too much on prepared food, especially something I could make myself -- and once did, in the dark ages before Whole Foods came to Mississauga. Of course, you're not comparing the price of prepared food to not eating....

Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us by Michael Moss is an excellent addition to a bookshelf that includes works by Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser, Marian Nestle and others who write about the health of our food and the un-health of the industrial food system. Moss lifts the curtain on the giant corporations that engineer and market convenience foods and processed foods. What he reveals is largely invisible to us on a daily basis, yet affects our society significantly - and catastrophically. Moss is a seasoned investigative reporter - he was the first to expose trans fats , and more recently " pink slime " - and this book is a tour de force of research. Moss takes you to the laboratory and the board room, where chemical engineers and marketing executives contrive to get North Americans eating more and more of everything unhealthy. (The book is written in a US context, but it is equally relevant to Canada.) Salt Sugar Fat is full of wonderful mini-histories of corpo...

Revolutionary thought of the day: Hunger isn't about the amount of food around. It's about being able to afford and control that food. After all, the U.S. has more food than it knows what to do with, and still 50 million people are food insecure. Raj Patel , author of Stuffed and Starved and The Value of Nothing , quoted by Naomi Klein in This Changes Everything

I grew this! It's eight inches long, and three more are on the way. What's ordinary to you veteran gardeners is still miraculous to me. Gardening on a small scale is easy, fun, and very rewarding. Next stop, eggplant recipes.

I found a bunch of recipes similar to this, and adapted them to my tastes. This one is easy (especially if you use a food processor to shred the zucchini and cheese), healthy, and tasty. I feel like the ability to tweak and change recipes marks a turning point in my cooking evolution, in both confidence and knowledge. I like it! Also, I don't have measurements for this one. It's down to what proportions you like and what ingredients you have on hand. Zucchini-Corn-Tomato Bake 1 medium-to-large zucchini, grated or shredded 2 large ripe tomatoes, coarsely cubed Kernels of corn, either fresh (one cob) or frozen (one box or half of one bag) Fresh basil, shredded Seasoned bread crumbs Parmesan cheese, shredded (omit this for a dairy-free dish) S&P to taste In a baking dish, combine zucchini, tomatoes, corn kernels, basil, salt, and pepper. Stir until all are thoroughly mixed. Mix Parmesan cheese and bread crumbs, then sprinkle the mixture on top. Bake in 400F/200C oven for 45 mi...

This is probably the easiest way to use zucchini from your garden, and if you're growing herbs, it's an excuse to use those, too. It's also one of those dishes that takes just about anything you like in pasta. I'm keeping it very simple, so as not to drown out the zucchini. I use brown rice pasta. I originally tried it when we thought one of us was celiac, then it became habit. It's delicious and very healthy, but it does need the extra step of rinsing the cooked pasta. If you don't do that, the pasta will all stick together in a one big gluey mess... something I discovered painfully on my own.  Also, if you use brown rice pasta, it's easier to use a "cut" pasta, like penne, rotini, or ditalini. Long pasta like spaghetti or linguini is more difficult to rinse properly.  Pasta with Zucchini and Fresh Herbs 1/2 package of penne pasta  1 large zucchini a variety of fresh herbs, washed and shredded (I used basil, thyme, and cilantro) 2 cloves of garlic...

Apparently if you grow zucchini, you have too much of it. Being new gardeners, we didn't know how prolific our one zucchini plant would be, or the insane quantities - and size! - of the vegetables it would produce. And those leaves! They're gigantic and there's so many of them! It's been a source of wonder and amusement. We've cut back the leaves several times, as they're crowding out the herbs and the eggplant. And of course cutting back just makes the plant produce even more. I remember that much from my indoor planting days. There's no shortage of recipes online offering ideas and advice on how to use your surplus zucchini, including several suggestions of leaving some on a neighbour's porch. So although there's no need, I'm going to add mine to the pile. My recipes are all adapted from what I've found online, usually a combination of ideas I find in two or three places, tweaked to our own tastes and cooking style. Zucchini Fritters 1 huge...

I've mentioned Beretta Farms in many different posts over the years, but I've never specifically blogged about them. With grilling season underway, it's time to give Beretta a shout-out. When I learned about the horrors of factory farming, first from reading Michael Pollan , and later through other sources, I knew I needed to change my eating habits. I needed to translate my knowledge into action, but I was at a loss for what to do. In the 1990s, I had eaten a vegetarian (almost vegan) diet for more than two years, but it didn't work for me, and I gave it up. I certainly don't eat meat with every meal, but I learned that I do need animal protein for optimal function. But once the curtain had been lifted on the horrors of factory farming, I could no longer stand the thought of contributing to the industrial food chain, especially as it relates to animal abuse. The first step was releasing myself from all-or-nothing thinking about food. We're not going to buy onl...

Three years ago, we planted our first-ever garden , really a tiny garden-ette, growing two tomato plants and some daisies. (I had forgotten about the flowers til I saw that older post.) I really enjoyed growing the vegetables, and was surprised and pleased to learn that it wasn't very time-consuming, at least not on this level. The following year we again planted tomatoes, but substituted herbs for the flowers. Much more fun! I was so taken with snipping fresh herbs from my garden that I cooked more often. Last year's garden was a bust, thanks to the flood and our subsequent move. This year, in our new place, we cleared a little patch and took a baby-step forward: four tomato plants, one eggplant plant (your highness, your highness), one zucchini plant, basil, and thyme. I'm hoping for grilled veggies this summer. The very helpful person at Sheridan Nurseries recommended a natural plant-food made from chicken manure. Apparently chicken poo is rich is calcium and fruit-bear...

Today I saw a bag of high-end cheese puffs, made with organic corn and real cheese. WHEAT FREE and GLUTEN FREE, the package boasted, which made me chuckle. Yup, just like all cheese puffs for all time. Like most snack food, cheese puffs are made of corn, and corn does not contain gluten. Marketing old products with a new twist to take advantage of a nutrition craze is nothing new, of course. I remember when  fat-free  and  low-fat  labels were slapped on everything. (This craze happened to coincide with some of my worst dieting addiction.) In those days, supermarket shelves were laden with fat-free cookies and other snack food, all of which were loaded with white sugar and other empty calories. Candy that is little more than sugar cubes with artificial colouring and flavouring would be advertised as fat-free. About a decade later, globules of saturated fat, salt, and nitrates were hawked as zero grams of carbs per serving . I've wondered what the next craze of nutrit...

In an excellent interview in Truthout , Michael Pollan responds to critics who accuse the food movement of being elitist. He very rightly credits Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation with explicitly drawing the connection between labour issues, animal issues, and our own food issues. And Pollan calls out the industrialized food industry that has been able to artificially depress food prices by paying workers sub-living wages. When you buy cheap food, the real costs have been externalized. Those externalized costs have always included labor. It is only the decline over time of the minimum wage in real dollars that's made the fast food industry possible, along with feedlot agriculture, pharmaceuticals on the farm, pesticides and regulatory forbearance. All these things are part of the answer to the question: Why is that crap so cheap? Our food is dishonestly priced. One of the ways in which it's dishonestly priced is the fact that people are not paid a living wage to process i...

Last summer, I asked for help in turning my drab lentil soup into something more yummy and enticing. Thanks to wmtc readers, I've done it. Yesterday for the first time, I made lentil soup that I will actually look forward to eating (as opposed to tolerating because I made it and don't want to throw it out). Here's what I did. I switched from chicken stock to beef stock. I took out the celery and added mushrooms. I added something acidic, in the form of the tiniest drop of Tabasco sauce. This made an appreciable difference, and now I understand why soup recipes often call for a splash of vinegar or the juice of a lemon. When readers suggested Tabasco, I was skeptical, because I don't want the soup to be spicy, but you were right: a tiny bit added flavour without heat. I also balanced out the other seasonings, which I had overloaded in an unsuccessful attempt to give the soup more flavour. At this point the soup was much improved, much tastier. If I wanted to keep the so...

Yes!  A few years back, I blogged about discovering that many of the plastics I had been putting in my recycling bin were not, in fact, recyclable. A few months after that, I unpacked a typical environmental dilemma: organic lettuce . Organic lettuce is the perfect example of a green paradox. It's unquestionably better for the local water supply, and for the health of the people who pick it and who eat it. On the other hand, it requires a huge amount of energy to stay fresh, and is often packed in non-recyclable plastic. We can ask, "Which is better?" but the answer is another question: "Better for what?" Now, after considerable consumer pressure, Peel Region will accept clear plastics for recycling . Of course, it's always better to avoid buying produce that is packed in plastic, but if you shop at a supermarket, that is difficult or impossible to do. I hope this change marks the beginning of more recycling province-wide and nationally.

The healthy slow-cooker recipe of the week - now running about every-other week - has hit a snag: lentil soup. I love lentil soup, but my own is turning out just OK, not really delicious. After the first try was too bland, Stephanie suggested using allspice and more bay leaves. Excellent idea! I upped the bay leaves from three to six, and added allspice. Result: big improvement, but still not great. If you make delicious lentil soup, can you share your secrets? (And if the secret is homemade stock, then I'm out of luck.) More below. * * * * I'm still using the hell out of my slow-cooker. I usually cook with it twice a week - once for food for the weekend, and once for my meals at work, one batch for the week. I'm still collecting meal ideas , if you have any favourites to share. I notice that recipes I find online tend to be exceedingly bland. With the exception of foods that are supposed to be hot-spicy (which I avoid), the recipes I see are shy of seasoning. Lentil soup, ...

When it comes to soups and stews, there is a seemingly endless number of variables that can be changed to create new variations of any given dish. If you like chicken stew, for example, you could experiment with different combinations of vegetables, different seasonings, better (or quicker) stocks, fresh herbs - and then with various combinations of all of those. Since buying my slow-cooker some months ago, I've made lots of different chicken stews, all of them easy, tasty, and healthy. This one is my current favourite combo. A note about these stews. To make a proper stew, most people use some sort of thickener. You can dredge the meat in flour, or add corn starch, flour, tapioca, bread crumbs, or even oatmeal to the liquid. I don't do this. For me, thick means gloppy; I don't like it. Plus, I prefer not to add gluten or additional calories to any dish. If you prefer a thick stew, you'll want to thicken any of my recipes. Or you could try one of the three ways I serve ...

Whether this recipe qualifies as healthy depends on whether you think sausage can be part of a healthy diet. I buy sausage that is made from local, organically raised turkey and free of preservatives. The sausage is slightly higher in saturated fat than skinless chicken breast, but way lower in fat than pork sausage. Plus at about a half-sausage per serving, you're not eating a huge amount of meat. The sausage adds terrific flavour to the stew, and the combination of beans and meat make it very thick and hearty. If you can, get loose sausage meat, not in casings. If you can't, slit open the top of the casing and squeeze the sausage out of the tube. 4 turkey sausages (or 1-1.5 lbs of loose sausage meat) with Italian seasoning, sweet or spicy according to your preference 1 19-ounce can of white beans 1 19-ounce can of chick peas 1 13-ounce can of black beans 3-4 tomatoes, diced, or use 1 19-ounce can of tomatoes 2 medium or 1 large carrot, chopped 1 large onion, run through food ...