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Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Organic Living: Eating Humanely Part 1 Review - 1 Month Later
I have given up milk. My evening 2 cups of cow's milk are now replaced with rice or oat milk. I still eat cheese and yogurt very sparingly, usually when dining outside.
I have also greatly reduced my consumption of meat. I don't have a meat meal but have meat as a small part of that meal, e.g. in a sandwich or a pizza, rather than a whole grilled chicken leg. No meat has been cooked at home save for an occasional grilled slice of fish and a whole bunch of vegetables shared by the whole family. I am thrilled to see Jack pick up tomatoes, broccoli, and green peppers to munch on as much as that piece of salmon.
It has been easy to give up the "usual staples" of milk, beef, as well as pork and even chicken. I feel ill thinking of the poor mother cow crying for her calf. Every mother, I am sure, can empathise with that. That extends to eating the poor animal too. What I am having trouble with is cured meats like bacon. Okay, actually, only bacon. And prosciutto ham. So I eat those and avoid the rest.
Beans and other plant protein have found their way into our diets. So have wholegrains and a lot more fruit, vegetables, nuts, and seeds.
Vegetarian (because of the cheese and yogurt, for probiotics) burritos are a favourite at home, especially with half the meal organic. We do a lot of soups and broths (okay, from cans but hey, they taste good). But the fried rice turned risotto was a disaster. :p I conned my mom into eating some and she didn't flinch but the hubby and child were quite disturbed. Even the cats steered clear.
We have turned into a family of grazers (cf. Sears). We snack on dried fruit and fresh fruit (organic if possible), organic brown rice cakes, organic wholegrain bread with fruit, nuts, seeds, and organic wholegrain cereals. There is no junk food in the house, no sugary or salty snacks. No meat in the freezer.
We stock olives, beans, peppers, broccoli (I buy organic, cut and freeze them), tomatoes, cheese, pasta, soups, wholegrain bread, cereals, kampong eggs (still need to check on the validity of them), and lots of seasonal fruit. I avoid soy, in particular the unfermented ones.
There's a whole world of food out there aside from the usual meat and rice or potatoes combo and it's been thrilling discovering it. I am no fabulous chef but my family is largely, 99% (no risotto please) pleased with my cooking. Jack loves it and gobbles down anything I cook, as long as it is not risotto.
I feel lighter and fresher, surviving well on my 6-7 hours of sleep every night (interrupted). Now Jack and I take a nap in the afternoon together. It has been wonderful for bonding.
It is important for my health that I eat well; but it is important for my heart, my son, and this world we live in that I eat humanely.
A must-read article for everyone who wants to live long and prosperous. :) You should lower your blood sugar, eat a low-carb diet, control your caloric intake, and go check out your genes.
The longest living animals share the following traits:
* Low fasting insulin levels * Reduction in fasting glucose * Lower body temperature * Low percentage of body (visceral) fat * Reduced thyroid levels * Low triglycerides * Low fasting leptin levels
Virtually the same genes appear to regulate the factors that determine longevity in nearly all forms of life, including humans. Caloric-restricted animals may not have been born with the profile of longevity, but their diet enabled them to express the genes that recreate it. In other words, eating less has reprogrammed their genes to extend their lives.
You too can create a favorable genetic environment that is likely to not only extend your life, but help to keep you "disease"-free for as long as possible. You can actually make your body decades younger and turn back the clock to a time when you weren't weighed down with all that extra fat, or when you didn't have diabetes or heart disease... and you don't have to live in a cage on a caloric-restricted diet to do so.
Normally leptin is secreted acutely in response to a meal or chronically in response to increasing fat stores. In a leptin-sensitive individual, leptin will reduce hunger, increase fat burning, and reduce fat storage. However, when one is leptin-resistant, as indicated by an elevation in fasting serum leptin, the part of leptin's message that would normally reduce hunger and fat stores, and increase fat burning does not get through to the brain (mimicking low leptin), so one stays hungry and stores more fat rather than burning it. However the message to increase sympathetic nervous system activity gets through all too loudly and clearly, so one stays hungry, continues to get fat, and gets elevated sugar, insulin resistance, high blood pressure, heart disease, and accelerated aging.
A strategic diet that emphasizes good fats and avoids blood sugar spikes coupled with targeted supplements (as recommended in my Rosedale Diet), will enhance insulin and leptin sensitivity so that you can once again hear their music, allowing your life to be the symphony it was meant to be.
I am colder these days. Not quite back to my cardigan days but certainly not holding my own against the weather as well as I did 2 years ago when I got pregnant. Maybe my metabolism has slowed, but bringing out a cardigan has been a necessity of late.
Jack has started saying "thank you" with a bright smile and kissing us on our cheeks upon request, and sometimes spontaneously. Everyone is just crazy about him. He speaks in English half the time and Mandarin the other half. At home, we're sounding very much like the shiny crew of Serenity.
While dreaming sometimes, he calls out for his "Mini" or "Ferrari" but mostly "Mama" or "Mama's Nan". I cannot help but nuzzle my nose against his sweet cheek for a deep sniff. He smells so sweet that I wonder if it is his baby smell or simply his breath mixed with my breast milk. Nevertheless I wish I could bottle it because I could smell that scent forever.
Tonight my folks kindly offered to babysit so we could have a date night. It has been 3 months since our last one and I was itching to watch the movie Cloverfield which I spied on a poster some weeks ago.
Word of warning: If you couldn't bear The Blair Witch Project's shaky cam, don't be a hero and watch this one. The hub-unit and I were nauseous (albeit laughing about it) till some 4 hours later!
Still, the story was very cool and the monster awesome. The acting was good, although Beth really annoyed me. I seriously could have done without the shaky cam but it was rather critical to the point of the whole story, that it was from Hud's point of view.
Fab monster sequences (tunnel scene, getting to Beth's apartment, and closeup of monster), plus a blink and you'll miss it thang right at the end. I didn't realise it till I read the wiki. A great ending tying everything together. Bittersweet, if you must. Worth a watch only if you don't feel dizzy or ill from the camera shaking half the time.
Maybe I have a predilection for oats already but I bought Oat Milk today by Oatley and love it. It has replaced my nightly 2 glasses of milk - now that is a lot of cow trauma reduced. It is organic too no less.
I accidentally ate veal over NYE's Angie Olivier dinner. The sausage looked and tasted like a regular chicken or pork sausage so while feeding a starving Jack, ate some and damn it tasted good, ate some more. When Ange told me it was veal I looked at the half bitten piece I had and gave it to the hubby. That picture of the poor newborn calf taken from its mother while its poor mother was howling for it stayed with me. No veal. Veal bad.
I had to tell that story. Everyone had eaten and Ange wondered why I suddenly lost my taste for the sausage. Her hubby agreed it was cruel and decided then to not eat veal too. Among us close friends, few things are taboo. Even cruel culinary habits amid a scrumptious dinner where veal sausage and pork sausage were the only meat items.
Ange then confessed she was trying to go vegetarian, hence the multitude of remarkably delish dishes. She promised to cook another batch next week and so a new tradition was born. Jeff and Wendy were invited to join and immediately, we drew up the wine and dessert list. I fell in love with Muscato at V's Xmas dinner and now I simply must have it!
On another note, Jack was making curious noises while asleep. I went to lie beside him in case he woke. Then he settled again. When I sat back at the computer, he started laughing. I was so enthralled I got up, lay next to him as he laughed, eyes closed at some happy dream he was having. I felt every bit of bad ooze out of me and only soft and tender filled me right that moment. I carried my silly smile back to the computer where I am sitting now.
I kicked off the new year nursing my baby to bed and nursing a swollen gum which throbbed for 2 hours before painkillers finally soothed it. Touching it with my tongue just made it throb again so it is a no-interference zone again.
Recently I have had a chocolate craving. Unbeknownst to humankind, I have scoffed down 1 box of Royce chocolates (in less than 5 minutes), am almost through a box of After Eights, had 2 chocolate doughnuts every time I go to Toa Payoh, and have had a considerable amount of chocolate every day wherever I go (I did surrender my second tub of Haagen Daz Belgian Chocolate Ice Cream to Lee and Ange when they cooked up a Jamie Olivier dinner for us tonight).
Alarm bells must be dinging now. Preggers? Ah wait, there is only anecdotal evidence that chocolate cravings indicate pregnancy and even more anecdotal evidence that it is a girl. Still, it is an amusing thought to nurture for a while and something to ponder as the year turns. Until the ecstasy and horror of carrying another child becomes an unequivocal reality, I will continue to enjoy my chocolate fantasy.
*Note: this could also be a by-product of my feeble attempt to become vegan and/or strict non-stocking of milk which used to be a nightly staple.
Some fun things that happened:
Last night in the car although sleepy and grumpy, Jack put down his beloved car that he was clutching in his hand just to lay his hand over my chest to say he loves me (hand on other person's chest is our sign for saying "I love you"). I almost wept. :)
Today his Dad bathed him after he did a poo (he can tell us "poo poo" now when he does it) and let him run around naked for a while. I scarcely noticed but he suddenly ran off the rug and to the corner of the room and his Dad hollered, help!
He had cleverly anticipated the poo (round 2) and ran to the corner (like the cats do) and NOT on the rug to do his poo. He even held it in and splat it hit the ground in a second when he was well-positioned. It was like a small mountain. I was very impressed.
With spider reflexes, his Dad scooped him off for a wash. I dried him off while his Dad cleaned up the poo. I praised him for his own spider reflexes and brought him to have a look at his poo. He was quite amused. :D
Our Babies, Ourselves; How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Parent by anthropologist Meredith F. Small is one book I have been looking to buy but I haven't been able to find it at any of the bookstores. Anyhow, on LiveScience today, there's an article on babies' attention to social interaction and reminds us how critical it is for us to be there, attentive and loving to them right from day one.
Experiments years ago by Jeffery Cohn and Edward Tronick of Children's Hospital in Boston also showed that babies have a natural distrust of even their most trusted caretakers when the social rules are not followed. Mothers were instructed to not respond when the baby reached to get her attention for a little one-on-one interaction. Instead, mothers looked back at the baby with a blank face and didn’t move. Aghast, the babies kept trying for a while and then gave up, went limp and turned away.
More startlingly, when the mothers were told to engage again, the babies refused, at first, to pay attention. They just didn’t trust someone who ignored the rules of engagement, even for a minute.
Psychologist J. Kiley Hamlin and colleagues of Yale University recently showed 6- to 10-month old babies various social situations using triangles, squares and circles that play acted helping or hindering each other. The babies clearly disliked the objects that didn't help out. The psychologists concluded that babies are good judges of character, even when they're not directly involved in the action.
This research is a surprise because no one thought babies were paying that much attention to the acts of others. And no one realized baby judgments were so harsh.
Apparently, we were fooled into thinking babies were social dunces by their sneaky ways. Human babies, with their wobbly heads and unfocused stares, look like they aren't paying attention to much of anything.
So remember, the baby is watching. That spaced-out look on her face might not be the start of a nap but the very moment in which she is deciding if you, in particular, are trustworthy.
Organic Living: Eating Humanely - Why start with Milk?
How milk is produced in the milk industry strikes a very primal chord in me. A male calf is taken from his mother at birth and thrown away to die, cold and alone, never to know a mother's warm nor suckle at her nipples. The mother cries for her baby but he is never returned. Some mothers forget fast but others mourn for weeks and months. The cow is forcibly artificially inseminated again. She becomes pregnant and gives birth once more. Her calf is taken from her yet again as she is milked to cater to the booming milk industry.
This is not fiction. Pick up any book on the milk farming industry and you'll get a similar description on how cows are forced to stay pregnant to maintain lactation and their calves torn from them at birth. Cows are emotional creatures (another reason I am staying away from beef) and having their children taken from them is the most distressing thing a mother can experience. You can read more about it here: The Dairy Cow, Milk: A Cruel and Unhealthy Product, and Veal: A Byproduct of the Cruel Dairy Industry. Note that organic milk is produced the same way.
I am pleased to say Rice Milk has grown on me. :) The addition of B12 helps all on vegan diets. I haven't touched milk although I still eat cheese. While I still had some ham and shrimp (shrimp trawling bad I know) the past 2 days, awareness of what I eat and where it is from is a step towards a humane diet.
Having swigged down 2-3 glasses of soy (or soya) milk so far and eaten a plate of tofu sausages (which taste like paper), I remember alarm bells sounding in my head about something I read before about soy being bad for baby boys.
Now the hub-unit and I are open to the idea of another child. Human, that is. So a bit of Googling was necessary to stem the bells.
It was a horrific line-up.
Basically to keep a long story short: eat no or very little soy, and avoid completely when nursing or pregnant or even trying (cos who knows if the bun has been heating up in that oven). It could cause gender defects in children in-vitro and out, and other uglies.
I have always lived by one rule: to ensure that no unnecessary suffering is endured to sustain my own existence.
Now, this is rather idealistic. By simply walking down the street, I am causing suffering to trillions of microorganisms and even ants, if I am not careful, by stepping on them and extinguishing their lives. What I shall define this rule by is my consumption of food.
Till recently, I had neglected to include the animals that live and die painfully to feed me every day. It is easy to shut your eyes to what goes on behind the scenes to produce that slab of steak and yummy drumstick. But I have decided to remove those shutters once and for all.
I have been an animal welfare advocate for more than 10 years through my website No More Cruelty! which was run by my cat Boy and now on hiatus. Since, I have supported animal welfare groups like Cat Welfare Society, SPCA, The Animal Rescue Site, and Animals Asia.
Twice I have tried to go vegetarian. The latter, I succeeded for 6 months till I slowly gave up from being always too weak and tired to do anything due to malnutrition. The one organic vegan store I used to eat at every day had closed down.
Nevertheless, this time I have decided to try again. But this time in baby steps and with a full nutritional analysis.
1. My goal is one meal at a time
Even better when several people share a nice vegan or vegetarian meal together. Friends and family have so far enjoyed my vegetarian pastas, Mexican burritos, and vegan cous cous. I've also bought a couple of vegan cookbooks and will try one vegan meal a week.
2. I will give up one type of food at a time
I have already phased out beef, lamb, deer, pork, and veal, simply because I dislike the taste of them. Chicken I eat sporadically.
It is fish that I have a tough time giving up, but the image in my head of a fish asphyxiating, flopping around in distress for 15 minutes before it dies makes it easier to give it up. I love eggs and have been hunting around for a humane egg farmer. Angie tells me Chew's is actually pretty humane but I'll have to see it to believe it. Hubby has said we'll take a trip to the farm in the near future. The alternative is I'll keep my own chickens and that's a no! :D
So for part 1, I am giving up milk first (cheese a little later because I love cheese with a vengeance). I've tried soya milk, which is okay, and rice milk which tastes kinda like breast milk. The rice milk (Rice Dream) is fortified with B12, so that covers the one thing I'll probably lack as a vegan.
3. Enjoy your meals, whatever they may be
Today at Xmas lunch and dinner, I scoffed down heaps of honey ham, parma ham, roast chicken, and smoked salmon. Heck I have a weakness for all things smoked and salted. But I felt rather ill after all that processed meat.
Key is to allow myself to eat anything I want. Eating is a pleasure. We shouldn't change that. If it becomes a chore, veganism won't become a lifelong habit. The repulsion for meat must come naturally. I remind myself that. I also remind myself no one should suffer so that I live another day.
Still, it is still better to eat only bacon as a treat and never eat any other meat, than to throw in the towel and eat everything again. Hence I will not label myself either vegan or apprentice vegan (funny marketing term I made up), or even vegetarian. This puts undue pressure on everyone and helps no one.
4. Search for humane sources of food
Truly, if I can find a farmer who allows his cows to graze in a field of farm land and have their calves naturally and stay with their mothers for a normal period of time, I would drink milk. Similarly, if I can find a farmer who lets his chickens run freely, do not debeak them, nor stick needles in them, I will eat eggs again.
Angie was telling me that in Malaysia, kampong chickens do exactly that. They run free and they lay eggs the way normal chickens do. That's why they are skinny and muscular, and their eggs are small. While it makes sense, I will have to find out more before I can consider them a humane source.
5. Do whatever I can
Whatever I do, I do whatever I can. Small things add up, like spreading the vegan meme. It has been increasing in popularity over the years and look, now you can get organic vegetarian and vegan stuff in the growing number of organic stores all over the country. Soon it will tip.
I have also continued breastfeeding my baby. Aside from the obvious benefits for both of us, I also save a ton of money in milk powder and remove my share of need from the marketplace. Less cows will suffer if every mother breastfeeds their baby.
So far I have thrown three dinner parties with vegetarian meals that the guests truly enjoyed. Considering they would have probably eaten a meat-based meal elsewhere, those meals helped save a few animals by simply offering an alternative and also great company.
An argument to dispel:
We are top of the food chain, so eating meat (et all) is the survival of the fittest. Plus, look at all the animals on Animal Planet, they toy with their prey. Cruelty is in nature.
We were also evolved large brains for our size and with that, the capacity to think, analyse, and possess compassion. Therefore if we cannot see that our mass production methods of producing food is horrifyingly cruel, we are no better than gnats, intellectually.
We can find options, alternatives. We are smart enough to do that. We're just lazy since we don't have to hunt for our food anymore. The distance between the animals that are slaughtered for our food and the nice sterile packages we bring home has made us apathetic to the process that tortures and kills millions of animals every day.
So what if nature is cruel? It is. And it is also in our capacity to reverse some of that cruelty. We have the power to make this world a better place. Why not do that instead of saying that must be the way things are. Because it is natural?
"To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness." -- Bertrand Russell
"Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages."
-- Thomas Edison (Harper's Magazine, 1890)
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