Parental Role Injustice For Next Generation

As a mother of three achieving teenagers, I have put into place a strategy that may give them a leg up in the coming years. This plan of mine isn't done just because I am a chef, but I have seen that there is a informational gap forming on many levels and types of education that our children are not receiving. I have seen this more readily now that I am a culinary educator of other's parents children.

It is no longer a pervasive standard of parental expectation that children are expected to participate in completing chores, household repairs, and cooking duties. This has established bad habits that won't be easily broken. I seldom here of the Saturday mornings filled with cleaning the house, Spring cleaning, yard work, or any other type of productive duties that a family should be doing together. It is our duty to send out into the world at large young adults who have the skills to survive. I never wanted to live in situations where my kids would drop off their laundry at my house for me to do, or having one that come and eat or pickup dinner from my house because you didn't learn these skills before moving out. And I don't want to have my adult kids return home to live rent free in my basement because they can't maintain themselves in the real world.

Do I expect any of the my kids at home to become a chef or work in my industry? No way. However, I want to see my kids having the ability to cook at home, not being dependent upon corporations to feed themselves, understand how to manage a successful household, paying bills, and raising their own children in a healthy environment. We often set our kids up for defeat, poor health, shorter life spans, and a inability to function. Those of us that do not develop our children's potentials are not the only ones that will suffer in the long-term. Our grand kids and our daughter or son-in-laws often have difficulties with a parent or mate that is ill equip to deal with the day to day of adulthood.

I am the perfect parent? Do I only eat a restrictive diet? Do I know everything about everything? NOT TRUE. But I believe that when you don't share your knowledge on any subject with your children, in a age appropriate manner, it is a cold meal of injustice you are serving up. We parents have been given a charge, these aren't just kids we are raising, but in fact, they are the next wave of leadership we are growing. We are charged with the duty of their safety, education, development, and identity, we have a huge responsibility. Almost everything that our kids grow up to be is in fact our fault, good or bad. Some people never grow up, they just become old children and others become anxiety ridden over achievers who never get the hang of intimate relationships. Yes we must take the blame as well as the credit.

School isn't were kids learn about adulthood, that happens in the home. Teachers can teach algebra or science, but it's isn't their job to raise your kids. Manners, respect, honor, and loyalty must be taught in abundance along with hard skills of paying bills, being a reliable employee, and being a fully actualized adult prepared to take a significant role in a family or their own.

Cooking your meals has many benefits. It is cheaper than restaurant food and it gives you control of what goes in your food. The savings and the versatility that cooking at home can bring is beneficial to your bottom line and your waistline. Fast food and processed foods are designed to be made as cheaply as possible while being highly addictive and while our younger folks cannot see any reason not to eat that way. Those of us who are a bit further down the road have begun to feel the effects of a American diet rich in empty calories and large amounts of fat. Diabetes, heart disease, obesity, and a host of other aliments attributed to this eating style. Since the days of Jane Fonda workout, we have become more unhealthy while spending more and more money on diets, supplements, yoga pants, and health club membership that you don't use.

Not teaching your children some survival skills is not a good option. I know that you can do it faster and better, but they need to practice, so they will be able to do and teach it to their offspring. And do I need to mention the habit fosters a greater sense of responsibility? Creating a mess and not cleaning it up is telling them that they don't need to take ownership of what they have done and it also says 'don't worry, Mom will fix everything', While they are little it should be that way, but as they age, year after year, it becomes a very bad idea. Stop coddling yours so much that they have a stunted emotional growth.  

Healthy eating starts with healthy cooking, eating at a regular schedule, and understanding the basics of nutrition. Do everything you can to equip them for the future instead of spoiling them in the presence. I see teenagers every day that have no idea why they think they don't like to eat this or that. My program is an exposure program in which they cook new dishes and eat food they may not have ever heard of before, giving a lot better toolbox of personal experience.

I have heard my students say things like 'I didn't know mashed potatoes didn't come in a box", "I always thought I didn't like coleslaw", "Chef, I really really liked the green beans." all of which I count as a victory!

I do know that giving something away that you don't posses isn't easy or nearly impossible but I want you encourage every parent, even the ones that don't know a lot about cooking. Grab the bull by the horns, and learn with your kids if necessary, and learn better habits. Live a healthier life while giving one to your next generation.

Power of Words

When you think of chefs you may not think about them as wordsmiths. Be sure that we are a group greatly entrenched in language.  We have a long history and our own lingo. This realm of terms, definitions, and understanding both describes and confines us. Chefs notoriously use language that some find offensive as a daily ritualistic release of tension.

The language of food is important and chefs rely upon it to convey clarity when speaking about a food request. Having said that, I am a chef who is rubbed the wrong way when people misuse a culinary term but expect to receive exactly what they have envisioned instead of what they have asked for to eat. If you asked for the Tomato Florentine soup, you can't be upset by the presence of spinach, for example, as Florentine means spinach in the kitchen.

Recently, I was on a mini-vacation and was looking for food fair. I called the near-by Cracker Barrel and asked if their were gluten-free options on the menu. They said yes, but when I arrived the menu did not have gluten-free pancakes or waffles nor biscuits, they brought an alternative menu that gave both nutritional information and pointed to some menu items as safe for my consumption. Offering me a bowl of oatmeal, fresh fruit, or steak and eggs, is not offering me options. I found it insulting that this was all that was offered and I didn't need them to tell me the fruit was gluten-free. By the way, the oatmeal was amazing and I had an order for dinner later on that weekend, but that is not the point. When I think of Cracker Barrel, IHOP, Original Pancake House, or any other breakfast spot it should not be difficult to make adjustment for alternative eaters, and shame on those who have the boldness to offer me fresh fruit as if I don't understand what gluten-free means.

Re-branding food items under new labeling is a funny thing these days. Every trip to the grocer has me laughing as the things that should be relied upon to be gluten-free have redesigned packaging to inform us of this new revelation of food category. I don't need anyone to tell me that unpopped whole popcorn is gluten-free, what's next, gluten-free water?

Language can bind us together with a common ground of understanding and communication but also can divide us with a loss of clarity or misunderstanding. For many consumers who purchase gluten-free items, not all of us must buy these items for health reasons like I do, but rather buy these items because the term is trendy and new-ish. I'd even bet there are some who couldn't accurately define the term but swears that it is bad for your health. No, no, no... It isn't good for my digestion, not everyone's. 

Nourishing More Than Just the Body

There are lots of components to this realm of food. We point to Southern cooking as Soul Food, rightfully so. Food traditions all are about nourishing the body and the soul. Food gifts are all about wishing you a prolonged life. This is the tradition of offering guests something to eat or drink, a hospitality.

 

Dietary laws and alternative diets are formed by either the rejection of,  restriction of, protection of, or the embracing some food source or holy day. For example, many religions reject pork as a food source, many speculate that this law has roots back before safe cooking and storage of pork was possible. Outlawing the consumption of pork could easily had been as a protective measure to prevent illness among their tribes. 

Food, or more accurately, culinary is the art of food, the place where beauty meets nutrition. This special place touches so much of your life, from business to social, from medicine and health, from marking special events with color, life, beauty, warmth, and love, from the everyday need of fuel to the communal activities of everyone's life.

Every time we gather together we take a communion, small or large, ritualistic or not, that binds us all as one union. The history of food dates all the way back to the earliest of mankind. With out the changes from hunter-gather to agriculture, there would still be no society, no government, no libraries, and no localized written knowledge base. It wasn't until we began to farm for our food and work with animal care for livestock did we stay centralized and formed villages, towns, and cities. A vast amount of time was spent following and finding food stuffs before we learned to farm. Food has always been at the heart of our culture and cultures around the globe. 

All food is soul food essentially. We share and begin to understand aspects of other's daily lives by way of their food. The popular dishes of any country or city, tells the dinner a lot about the people who created it. What types of food are available in that region? If there is a lot of cows versus a lot of lamb can tell you is there are grasslands or rocky hills. How is the climate, hot or cold? Cold climates do not have any tropical fruits and hot peppers. Is there good farming land? If a region has abundance of vegetables types available then chances are that farming is important and available. Do their dishes take a long time to cook or a short time? Asian cultures learned to cook foods quickly because there are not a lot of trees like we have in America so things needed to be done with as little fire as possible.

All good food has one essential ingredient, shared by all sources, and implied by the givers, love. You do not feed an enemy with the hard labors that were spent to grow and cultivate your sources of food. I know that our society is becoming more and more distant from our food sources. We have generations of kids that only know that chicken comes from the grocery store, for example. I spend a good deal of my time educating the young about the real facts of food sources so that they may make food selections based upon reality, informed decisions, instead of marketing brainwashing on the televisions and mass media.   

Gluten-Free Pain In the Gut

If you are not already aware, there is a lot of buzz over the term Gluten-Free. As with many culinary or food fads, most people that are jumping on this bandwagon, often times do not understand what they are actively participating.

Just for your information, gluten is a protein that develops when wheat flour gets wet. Gluten can also be developed in a few other instances, but the vast majority of items that contain gluten, contain wheat flour. Wheat-germ, barley, and other foods that are manufactured with wheat, or in places where flour is also present, can contain gluten. Those of us who are gluten-sensitive or gluten intolerant, the consumption of this protein can create a large allergic reaction that can be very unpleasant all the way up to life-threatening.

I have fibromyalgia. When we began attempting to test for the source of my medical problems, the first test that my PCP ran was a food and respiratory blood allergy panel. I have known since high school that I have respiratory allergies, about 12 of them, so Spring usually finds me taking lots of antihistamines. Last year, before the Spring weather arrived, I had two emergency room trips for unusual swelling of my hands, feet, and facial features. I woke one morning and looked in the mirror and I resembled someone who had been in a prize fight the night before.

My doctors changed my medicines for my hypertensive condition, hoping that it had caused my symptoms. Then another trip to the hospital was required, and we changed to a third medication. At that point my PCP, ordered the blood panel. I had previously been diagnosed with my respiratory allergies by way of a pin prick test sub-dermal test, which at the time was the most accurate test available, but at no time did anyone test me for food allergies.

The results came back with interesting results, moderate reactions to shrimp and sesame, but the big surprise was that I had a large reaction to gluten. It wasn't life threatening, but it was something that was causing great distressed my system. So the next step was to test me for Celiac disease, a complete intolerance to the consumption of gluten. I do not have that condition, which is a immune disease, my testing revealed that of the 18 known symptoms that make up a fibromyalgia diagnosis, I had a large number of them. Not consuming gluten helps to lessen the severity of some of my symptoms but keeping away from this food product isn't easy.

The American diet is largely made up of lots of wheat products, especially fast foods, so eating from the vast array of restaurants available can be tricky when you can't eat wheat. No fried items because most have a flour batter, no sandwiches, no burgers, some instant oatmeal contain wheat flour as a binder, no baked goods primarily, nothing on a bun, many breakfast cereals have gluten, lots of sauces and soups are thickened with flour, see the problem?

As a chef, I have always cooked the majority of the foods eaten in my house, but on those occasions when ordering out is considered, I often am out of options. Since the testing, I watch what I eat so I can be more comfortable, but even being careful isn't always enough. I ate some McDonald's fries with my daughter and had a negative reaction, I am sure it had nothing to do with the 19 ingredient formula they use to make the fries.

Fibromyalgia is hard to diagnosis and the chronic pain associated with the condition can often be misunderstood by doctors. I was, at several different points in my life, given diagnosis that only spoke to one symptom or another, for example, I was told that I have irritable bowl syndrome, which could not be treated in 1990's, but it was only a part of what was going on. Gynecological pain, knee pain, headaches, swelling hands and feet, sciatica, dizziness, memory issues, muscle aches, and a few more, all were treated as a separate issue that would come and go from time to time. I knew it was bigger that this day's issues or the next. I suspected that there had to be a connection to all that I experiencing.

Day by day, I have to deal with this and be mindful of everything I eat and drink. I have had dreams of good toast and jam, a smothered pork chop in gravy, or my favorite type of cookie that has no gluten free alternative. There is a sea change happening on our grocery store shelves and more and more items have options for us who suffer. That's great but even that has a down side. In order to make thing gluten-free, a substitution of the wheat flour for others such as a rice flour is required, naturally. These flours do not act in the same way that wheat flour does, and additives are included to give a natural stretch when bread is rising, for example. They also are not produced as readily as other types of flour, so the associated costs are much higher. The same loaf of sandwich bread that can range from $0.99 to $1.79, for example, can cost you up to 6 or 7 times the price of the original. This is not only a pain in the gut, medically, but also it can hit your pocket very hard. I am glad to find some substitutions that do a great job both in taste and availability, while some alternatives are expensive and horrible tasting. I'd rather not eat a sandwich, as much as I miss them, than to eat one on horrible bread that tastes like an old kitchen spounge.

If you too are a sufferer that has to avoid gluten, like me, and has found a great substitute for wheat flour, please let me, and other readers know, as I haven't found one my self yet.

Snap, crackle, and pop drop.

I was having a stressful but better than average mood today until I heard some very sad news. But before I go there, and I will, I just wanted to make a quick post about my fibromyalgia. I do not want this blog to be taken over by news on my condition, but felt this was worthwhile.

The last couple of weeks I have had a infatuation with cereal, milk, and bananas. I have not been able to consume milk products regularly since 2nd or 3rd grade. I would eat ice cream, well because it's ice cream, and just suffer any upset stomach or bouts with diarrhea that can with it. Now, since I have been on some new medications to control my symptoms, I have found, or reignited, my love of bananas, milk, and cereal. Add to this, a lot of the cereal manufacturers have changed their formulas to make their products gluten-free. Cheerios, for example, was using wheat flour as a binder in their old formula, but now it is certified gluten-free.

I woke this morning and eat yet another bowl of my new found treat. The ability to enjoy breakfast again is welcomed. I haven't been eating breakfast regularly in years as most of what we consider breakfast items were not well suited to eating them and then going to work. The upset stomach and having to rise earlier to fix something to eat, has never been good for me. Making something quick would always leave me with upset stomach, and the items that take longer to prep and consume would always leave me lethargic and uncomfortable.

This last year, or more, has had me making fruit and vegetable smoothies to both raise my metabolism and nourish me throughout the day. This regimen began on a smoothie cleanse and when it was over, I could really tell when I wouldn't fix one, that my body functions were slower and sluggish. So I would make an carry one everyday I was working, and that made it much easier to consume food while away from home, and not be searching the grocery store for something to eat, as the fast food joints had zero, or next to zero, gluten-free quick meals or snacks. On my days off, if I didn't get out the blender, I would be functioning very well, and would regret not preparing one for myself.

The marketplace is improving its options for gluten-free offerings and we sufferers of gluten allergies and Ceilacs disease thank you. The American diet is highly concentrated around wheat flour, it is in almost every well know product, even in ways that are harder to discern by just glancing over the nutrition labels.

Now for the drop.... As I was watching one of my shows on Hulu, a commercial break appeared, and I opened up my Facebook feed only to find out that my life-long favorite artist, hands down, Prince has died at the age of 57. I am heartbroken. The last couple of months we have lost the legends of music and radio that has been devastating to my generation especially, Phife Dawg, Doug Banks a king of radio broadcasting, last week, and now Prince. I grew up with Prince, danced on stage with him once at a show, I've heard every released track, sat in the fourth row center isle to see him perform, took fashion cues, watched his movies, memorized the lyrics and dance moves.

It's with a heavy heart that I say thank you to someone I have only been in physical proximity only once. Goodbye to a voice of my generation that moved us like none-other. And I send my tidings of peace to his weary soul.

Good news, tonight at 10....

I try to stay non-political mainly because I don't like politics. I have lived my whole life in Chicago, a place of many scandals and imprisoned officials. We created a system of doing things known as machine politics, a unique style of corruption. I don't like what happens here and I don't like our current disposition in the capitol.

Anyway you cut it, food is political and increasingly so over the last many years. Corporations who manufacture food, food deserts, malnutrition, school lunch programs, charity food banks, inhuman slaughterhouse practises, factory farms, junk and fast foods, obesity rates, junk science around fad diets, culinary education, nutritional supplements, electronic exercise devices, access to health care, supplemental food programs, all boil down to economics and a dividing social structure that is eliminating the middle class. Unfortunately, food is political and often times it is unfairly distributed, wasted, horded, abused, and can often be misunderstood.

Politicians have proposed legislation to drug test supplemented food receivers, to limit 'luxury' food purchases such as steak and shrimp, and mandate sticker income verification making it harder to qualify for assistance. Hunger is always political, especially when working parents are not earning enough to adequately feed their families. Battles over raising the minimum wage are closely tied into the issue of feeding, if workers working full-time still qualify and need nutritional and housing assistance, then the minimum is no longer adequate.

Present day Chicago, we all are anticipating a teacher's strike, have seen and participated in rallies over minimum wage, police brutality, and racial profiling. It's like we are sitting on a powder keg while staring at a short fuse. I hate politics because of the inherent inequality and greed. Call me a revolutionary liberal, if you must, but no matter the label, I hate the political world around me.

Basic, the very least, everyday common human needs are required to be met, food, shelter, water, safety, and education. There should not be any debate over how we, as a society, a family, a government, make provisions for these needs. This major metropolis has a untold number of homeless people, kids that lack adequate nutrition both at home and at school, low graduation rates of our teens from high school, lack of employment opportunities for young people just entering the workforce, some of the highest taxes in the country, and several other obstacles that make living here difficult.

That's the bad news, now let's discuss the other side of the coin.  There are hundreds and thousands of our residents that are doing well, achieving, striving, and assisting others along their paths. But where is the news coverage of the awarding of diplomas and scholarships. Were are the press corp when our kids and young adults achieve despite the hardships, when they leap over the hurdles, and bust out of the barriers to success?  Who will show the world how talented, brilliant, and strong we are? What is the intent of the press to show so little of the great things that happen everyday? Are we being manipulated into believing all hope is lost?
 

Fake Foods and Fraud

If you were a teenager in one of my culinary arts classes, you may well already be tired hearing my rants, for a lack of better wording, about corporate food offerings. I say often, when you are relying upon a corporation to feed you, you are already in trouble. A corporation, ultimately, has only one goal, to make profit. When your family farmed, their one and only goal, was to nourish people. We have traditions of offering guest something to eat or drink for the same reason. A gift of food implies that you care if the receiver lives a healthy long life.
 
I am willing to come and bare the bad news about these edible non-foods on our health and longevity. My teens have been known to say "Chef, you make me want to stop eating everything". In fact, that is not my goal. I want them to do a couple of things, make intelligent choices about what they eat, I want them to question how and what they eat, and hopefully they will make nutrition decisions based on facts and not on marketing.

These kids have a steady diet of Kruncy Kurls, Hot Pockets, Hot n Flaming Everything, Pop Tarts, McDonald, Wendy's , and Burger King. There are more greasy spoon restaurants in their neighborhood than grocery stores. They never read a nutrition label or even question what they are eating. Is this butter or margarine? Is these long long named ingredients chemicals or food? Just because it can be eaten, should it be eaten? What is natural and what is not?

To this, I bring up a legal case currently in the headlines. A cheese company is under indictment for selling wood shavings as parmesan cheese.  This fraud was perpetrated over many years by a particular company. Naturally, this brings up many questions. Who knew about this? Why didn't anyone report it? How did the consumers not know what they were eating? And I wanted to know how the legal suit is progressing. The totality is that one individual is charged with a misdemeanor crime under one count of crime. This is not something I can understand fully. Why is this a misdemeanor and not a felony? What is there only one name on the indictment? And why hasn't the company been charged with each and every count of sales that were contaminated and sold to consumers?

The other article in recent news are the results of a study that found industrial chemicals in the bodies of fast food consumers. All the preservative and chemical additives are taking a toll on our health and, I believe, is costing us financially by causing disease and needing additional medical expense. Last year was the first time on record that American's spent more money in restaurants than at grocery stores. We are trading nutrition for convenience and suffering a high cost. If you can't read everything on the label, why are you eating it?



http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-16/the-parmesan-cheese-you-sprinkle-on-your-penne-could-be-wood

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-13/fast-food-eaters-have-more-industrial-chemicals-in-their-bodies

Robotic innovations

Lots of robots have been, and will continue to be developed, for the purpose of making cakes, icing them, and some simple decorations. You have probably bought one of these cakes and taken it home from a local grocer. While there isn't anything wrong with these types of products, on the whole, they are not made with any human hands or artistry,

I was once a bakery department manager for a large local grocer, and my experience working there gave me fresh eyes for the manufacturing of these take-n-go cakes. These products are mass produced with a lot of preservatives and cheap ingredients. When I was working in the bakery department, we used frozen cakes from a factory and icings that came in a bucket. While these products can be called 'cake' by definition, they are very different that any cake made at any bakery any place else. In fact, I will claim that the box of cake mix is down the baking aisle is better.

The icing is called buttercream but has no butter involved, just butter flavoring, another chemical. This icing has 1 lb of fat to every 7 lbs of powdered sugar, real buttercream has a ratio of 2 lb of fat for every 4 lbs of sugar. The commercial icing is basicly wet sugar. The difference in taste and mouth feel is very large and often times it has customers saying that they don't like buttercream. I have often done tastings prior to ordering my cakes and even those who make the claim about their dislike to buttercream are often very surprised when they taste mine.

Another icing used at many retail bakeries are called whip cream but it is usually a product called "bettercream". This product is very much like cool whip from the frozen aisle. This, just like the last item, this product has none of the ingredients they are replacing, no cream involved. Both "bettercream" and Cool Whip are non-dairy products made from chemicals and preservatives.

The frozen cake layers bought from factories are using as many preservatives and chemicals they can shove into the mix as they can in order to prolong shelf life and make the highest profit possible. If I am not mistaken, the sell-by date is about a year long frozen, and during my time in grocery stores, I have never seen any of these cakes 'go bad' unless they were damaged or the freezer was broken.

Automation and innovation is inventing new ways to work and turn profits. The problem with this, in my realm of cakes, comes in with a lack of love, creativity, artistry, customization, and a reliance upon chemicals instead of real food.

Real foods are essential for the proper operation of the body, even if most people don't want to account for the calories that pastry supplies. Dessert isn't a bad word when speaking of nutrition, it is however, bad when you forgo eating them in moderation. A good meal should be highlighted by a perfect sweet finish, be it cake, custard, or fresh fruit.

Manufactured food, preserve laden, chemical combinations that are readily available in stores is not the way to eat.  Our bodies, oftentimes, don't even recognize them as food. Our digestion is taking hits all day. We are stuffing all sorts of chemicals into our daily intake without any sign of ceasing. Live long enough and you too will see the news reports that explain why the list of ingredients, that we sold to you as food, is banned due to the risk of another disease or aliment. Big pharma and food additive companies produce formulas and use mass media and sales staff to push the new hot product only to be sued years later by consumers due to the harm it cause.

I'm not against all shortcuts found in the neighborhood grocery store, but I am not in favor of reliance upon the corporate overlords for ingestion of foods. The goal of any corporation is, first and foremost, profit. The thinking at a corporation is if it won't cause harm and be profitable then it is okay to sell. The goal of doctors, nutritionist, and chefs must be a positive viewpoint about the value of the item, what the consumer will gain from eating this item. I want to know how important is this to consume. Price shouldn't be the only measurement used to judge a food.  The question shouldn't be why is this food expensive, but it should be why is this other item so cheap?

Chefs need to be health conscious and have a environmental outlook for their craft.  Industrialized foods were an effective tool for preserving and transporting food during WWII, but once the war ended the machines didn't stop running.  The love and care taken by mothers and grandmothers to produce and preserve jellies and jams, for example, was replaced by the unstoppable soulless steel.

Of course, it is more expensive to order a handcrafted item compared to factory made. Yes, it can be created by machines in the shortest times possible but the losses that are created can't be worth the effort.

Culinary and Chemistry

As I sit in the school library, it becomes painfully obvious that cooking and chemistry is one and the same.  Cooking is more applied science than others courses of study, add in a bit of alchemy and you are square in the middle of chef life.

 

The same skills of formulations, testing, observation, and trail and error, ever present in the kitchens all over the universe.  Even in cases where the chef or cook is cooking from a recipe, all of the steps apply, as good cooks never rely on an untested source when feeding their audience.  Some of us can review a written recipe and spot of it is accurate or not. Others must try it to discover the faults or the accuracy. In either case, mistakes can teach you more than your triumphs in the kitchen.   

The ability to test, modify, mix and remix, ingredients and turn the simple into the worthiest of dishes, let alone into art, is what chefs strive to achieve. Science and art culminate into a type of jazz, painting, sculpture, and architecture. The best of us climb to towering heights and can earn a type of immortality that gives lasting effects on the culinary world. Julia Child will always be with us through her teachings, books, and television broadcasts. The ladders she built will be scaled for generations to come.

We whisk up acids and bases, apply heat or cold, emulsify, extract, concentrate, dilute, expand, divide, and blend, all to achieve the awe inspiring creations. We live for the oohs and awwws that are created by our work. We lose sleep, forgo stopping to tend to our own needs, work odd hours, long hours, and miss out on the simple things, like events we are invited to attend, and even daylight. We arrive in the dark hours of the night and leave again after the sun has gone for the day. We talk more with our co-workers then our families and friends, some times. We can share our story with our loved ones but often they can't really understand who and what we have endured during our work. 

Sometimes I have encountered people who either don't understand what it is we do, or they act as if our work isn't important or not a profession like their's. The amounts of learning and training needed to work at my level can be greater than many other profession and less than others. It is often hard to adequately describe what we do, and how we do it, as many who cook think that they can do my job, or that it can't be that hard, or couldn't possibly take the amount of  hours that it really does. Sometimes my commitment to my work can require me to miss some events in my own children's life for the sake of other celebrations or needs. I don't like that aspect but my food magic show is what puts a roof over their heads.

Mixing magic with nutrition, art with taste, building constructs and designs for the eye, enticements for the nose, and specialties of taste can be very demanding. I love my work and I love teaching kids to think about and improve their options within the kitchen, that can improve their lives and the lives of others around them. 

Elemental Fire

The campfire, the barbecue, the fireplace, the hearth, a tandoori oven, the wood burning stove, the gas light, all of which use the first gift from the gods, fire. The heaven rocked when the news got back that man knew fire. The chef, the pit master, the smokehouse, the luau, are all fire.

There is nothing more primal than fire. A gift and a curse, and a blessing and destroying all consuming elemental thing. Fire has a life of its own and the mastery of fire is a essential bit of what it is to be human. The link between food and nature, nutrition and humanity, simple yet powerful, basic and complex all at the same time.

Fire is transformitive, changing a raw meat into a new thing, charred and sweetened, concentrated rich and flavorful. The fire is the element that created cuisine out of simple items combining with the magic of flame and power. In this age of microwave options we are moving further and further away from nature. We are not spending time in the wilderness exploring, sleeping in tents, finding the unknown stream, hunting and gathering, or even studying about food. Americans spent more money in restaurants last year than in the grocery stores. What is amazing is that, for one thing, that has never happened before, and two it is putting even more distance between the diner and their food source.

As a chef instructor, I spend a good portion of my time familiarizing my students with information about nature and nutrition because they simply don't have any idea where the food comes from other than the grocery store. They are often amazed to learn where on a hog is the ham, that carrots are a root vegetable, that cheese is a fermented milk product, heck I am sure they couldn't tell me where the garbage dump is in their community.

I learned to cook, initially, in my grandmothers kitchen. I come from a long line of great female cooks in the family, both for the families needs and to serve others for a wage. A few of the men in the family could cook as well, but generally it was the mothers that did the majority of the chore. Unlike our white counterparts in America, the women in my family were working outside of the house well before the 1950's and 1960's so the revolution of the working woman was already our reality. Yet, the women in our lineage were cooking at home as well and maintaining the household chores. Food culture and recipe development has been co-opted by corporations.

World War II was the first time large numbers of women worked in factories to supply goods and munitions to our men overseas fighting. Once the men came home, a large number of women did not return to working just in home for the benefit of their families alone. My grandmother worked a full-time job at a discount department store less than 5 miles from our house. She would come home everyday for lunch and either start working on our dinner for the evening or check on what she had begun cooking that morning. She did all the grocery shopping and nearly all the house cleaning as well. She always had a backyard garden much like our neighbors and the family just to the West of our place would plan their garden with her so that we would plant some items and they planted other things so we could trade across the fence.

If you have ever planted vegetables you will find that in a good summer's growth, you will end up growing more than your family can consume so trading harvests was to the benefit of both our families. We probably were the only yard in our area that had corn and strawberries growing.

Weather or not you even roast something on a barbecue grill yourself, once the fire is lit, your nose instantly tells you that something special is happening. We first dine with our nose, then with our eyes and ears, then with our mouth, then lastly with our brain. Fire is the beginning of all of that. A grill, a stove, a smoker, a dehydrator, all started with fire.

Microwaving is something very different. Microwaves excite the molecules within the food starting at the middle of the item whereas fire begins to change the outer layers of the food then the heat is transformed toward the inner parts of the item, so in many ways microwaves are the exact opposite of the natural cooking experience of fire cooking. Microwaving food is creating yet another bit of distance between the food and the cook and dinner.

Food is life. Food gathering and hunting takes a life from an animal or plant that then gives life sustaining essence to those who eat it. It is the food chain, it is primal and essential. When you create barriers between yourself and your food, you leave yourself very vulnerable to a host of problems of health and spirit. Food is ritualistic. It has a rhythm, a constant, a variable, a language that is universally understood beyond any barrier of culture and geography. Welcoming guests into your home always has an offering of food from the host, this is a gift of life, a wish that you strive beyond the visit, an honoring the guest, and this is why it is often considered very rude to refuse the gift of food. The gift of food or drink has the element of careful preparation, expense, and culture transmission.

Fire can be essential to survival in the wilderness, it can warm you in times of cold weather, it can transform foods into cuisine, it's were we began to transmit history through storytelling, and it's where we gathered for safety. All of society began around a fire and continued to grow with cooking. Cooking is as human as language and protection of offspring. Without the skill of creating fires there would not be society, we would still be nomadic, we still be small groups of people, hunting and gathering. It is through fire and agriculture that society is formed. We are no longer a herd of humans but a society with universal truths, no matter the language spoken, mathematics and food need not be explained in order to be understood. Food can be simply about satisfying a need or it can be the catalysis for communion with others or elevated into art.

Food is medicine, food is art, food is humanity, food is society, and food is life giving need. I tell my students all the time that whenever you begin to rely upon a corporation to feed you, you are in trouble. The corporation is a faceless entity that haves laws that treat it like a type of person, but this pseudo 'person' only has one propose, to gain profit. Real people produce food for sustaining life, nourishing the body, transmitting emotions, warding off illness, creating links between generations, a ritual, a communion between people, a humility as all people need to eat, from kings to peasants, it levels all of us to the same place as we all eat.

Enjoy your meals instead of just consuming. Begin to gain understanding of what food really is to us humans and seek out how it can be transformed, into art, or into profit. When profit is the only purpose, when a corporation begins its life, the art isn't for the goodness of the corporation, it is solely for the benefit of humanity, therefore, I contend, that the corporations of food kill the art that is at the heart of the chef, turning them into scientists and machines of profit. Corporations have continuously made food changes to create more an more profit, more and more consumers, more and more addictive people hooked on their products, depended people upon purchasing their products, instead of creators of quality products. Industrialization of food has created many societal problems, illness, addiction. Like any created factory, once turned on, it wants to continue its work. A machine, when it stops, essentially dies once it is turned off, and death isn't preferred, by anyone or anything. Stop bowing to the gods of profit and seek the nutrients that will sustain and enrich your life.    

Politics

I don't typically share on social media my political stance as it isn't a political blog, it's a food blog. On top of that, I have met those who will hold your beliefs against you when doing business, as if it is a legitimate reason to select a vendor or not. Best price, best customer service, best products, ah.... but what was it that you said about the candidates in this year's election?

Finding out that Trump will be at UIC soon and Sanders will be at Argo High School has me feeling spurred to action.  My eldest child is a student at UIC and my middle child goes to Agro like my eldest did before her.

I'm a liberal and if this is problematic for you, then don't finish reading this post. I'll understand. I wish that my career, my business, my educational efforts, and my personal life were not impacted by politics, but food is highly political. I define myself as a liberal, not a democrat or a republican. I am not influenced easily by conspiracies, political propaganda, or other people's opinions. I have learned from many sources in all phases in my life and it is from those experiences and knowledge base that I come to my own conclusions.  

Food strikes at the core of what it is to be human. It touches every one every day. We feed each other and transmit culture and emotions through each bite. Food cooked with love does more for the heart of man than the nutritional input could ever offer. Don't think food is political?  Try living without access to quality food outlets for a month or live without adequate food intake for just a few days, you will have fresh eyes for the issues.

Political promises of a chicken in every pot, legislation imposed on small business, school lunch programs, proposed Chicago Teacher Union strike, and slashed funding for culinary education, culinary colleges closing, food deserts, charitable food assistance program, framer's markets, and even state supplemental food programs such as WIC and Link, are all political.

Some conservatives speak of reductions to vital programs that feed our most vulnerable members of our society and advocate for a vision of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. But what if your deficiencies are the equivalent to not having feet to put boots on? The poor will always be with us, needs will always be present, but suffering malnutrition should not be so wide spread in a 1st world country.

My career as a chef has lead me to feed some well known political figures and for the most part it was an honor to do so, even when I didn't agree with their platform. Every plate filled and every month feed strengthens our society as a whole. A hungry man is a dangerous thing. That hunger will spur him to just about anything to cease the call for calories. 

I wish I could live in a world unaffected by politics, legislation that both aid one group of people while harming another, where profit isn't the sole function of a company or group of individuals. A world without the greed and adversarial warfare. I would like a Zen world where everyone only uses what they need and doesn't bother to take from the most vulnerable ones. A world where there is no issues of lack, ill educated, no sympathy for fellow man, or underpaid and overworked.

As I type this, I can see this topic is going to have to be revisited later on. There's my final thought on politics for the day. The issue of minimum wage. Too many people, that I have encountered, do not understand the legislation of a minimum wage law, why it was enacted, and why many are now advocating that the minimum needs to be raised.

The minimum wage laws were conceived and enacted to combat the injustice of  having a inadequately paid populous. When your working staff is paid too cheaply, the owners of the company earn a much larger portion of the profits than the workers. The resulting expenses of a poorly paid population effect the whole society as medical treatment can't be afforded by the individuals but then must be paid out of taxes raised by the state, the number of malnourished people increases which again effects the need for medical treatment, the children of the underpaid lots of times end up increasing the burdens of the state as the parents cannot afford the basic needs of the families to which they belong, birth control to prevent families from having too many children becomes out of reach, the education of the children of poorer families must rely upon the state to provide those kids an education, and the total health, education, and welfare of the state is greatly reduced. The legislation was written with this in mind, a family of 3 or 4 should be paid enough to be able to supply for the needs of its members; food, clothing, shelter, and education. Without this as a standard, you will increase the homeless population as they will not be paid adequately enough to be able to pay rent, you will have children unable to learn and grow adequately do to a lack of food, and you can eventually find that your society will be forced to commit crimes in order to supplement their needs. Under educated students will finish school without all the tools they need to have a proper sustainable income as adults.

Many people have expressed their negative emotions about raising the minimum wage with statements like "No one should earn that much working at the burger joint down the street, are you crazy?" "How will small business be able to hire employees at that rate of pay?" This issue isn't about the greed of the workers, to me, it is more reflective of the greed of the employers, big or small. If I can't afford to get back and forth to work, then I can't come in an toil for the betterment of your company. If I can't feed myself and my children then I will not be able to spent all my time an effort working for you because I will need to work two jobs to make ends meet. If a worker is under the stress of everyday living to an unreasonable amount, then they will not be a good worker, but rather more like an indentured servant relying upon their betters benevolence.

The trope that companies cannot afford to pay American workers at a minimum wage law of $15 an hour for 40 hours of work, or more a week, doesn't hold up as truth when you look outside of our boarders. Many well known companies have a world wide audience and a international workforce. Take a look at a company like McDonald's. They have presence in many companies and I would have been inclined to believe them when the rebuff proposed changes to the wage law if I had not looked up the rate of pay for this company in other nations and discovered that they are paying this wage, and much more, to their workers overseas. So you can see clearly that this is just propaganda at best. 

Protection of both the company and the workforce is absolutely needed as the company provides work but it is the worker that makes the company successful. When industries become unregulated in lots of different ways, then it isn't long before you start seeing natural disasters, workplace accidents, unfair worker pay issues, environmental violations that put people and wildlife in jeopardy. In my personal experiences, unions are not always successful and sometimes there is corruption within the union officials, however, without unions there would have been a much darker world that would have immersed.

Keep being informed about politics, as it only takes the righteous people to ignore corruption, and do nothing, for evil deeds to arise and flourish.

A Sweet Finish

Ending your dining experience on a high note is the best way and us pastry chefs strive hard to make that happen. Therefore, I never understood some that are willing to create a five star meal and end it with a Walmart cake. I have worked for a couple of major grocery store chains, and I can tell you from first hand experience, that those cakes are chocked full of preservatives and the icing is just wet sugar. I am convinced that the sale of this type of product has gotten a lot of consumers believing that they don't like buttercream, when in fact, most of them have not tasted real buttercream.

Even for those among us that don't much care for sweets, having a wonderful ending to highlight a memorable dinning experience is vital. I'd rather not have a dessert if the dessert can't hold a candle to the meal. For me, it is the equivalent of wearing a designer dress with Payless shoes. I am not advocating for any significant change to your everyday meal time routine, but when you are celebrating the happiest of days in your life, don't skimp.

Most of my pastry clients do not hesitate to order a custom cake for a kid's birthday but don't treasure the special moments for the adults that make living memorable. Eat dessert everyday? Probably not. But when something special is on the horizon, do yourself the honor of something extra special.

Is it important to eat a dessert made from quality ingredients? Of course it is, but many have a attitude that says 'its dessert and it isn't healthy so why worry about it'? But healthy eating is about all the foods consumed, not just the meals and snacks, but ALL of the food calories and nutrition. Making cakes and desserts from real food, quality chocolate, the best butters and flour, makes for the most delicious products and much easier on your digestion and overall health.  

In the News....

This week in the news, there was a curious article about the illegal selling and contamination of Parmesan cheese sold in America. The fake cheese was purposely contaminated with sawdust. These culprits committed a fraud on consumers and possibly threatened the health of those who consumed the product, all for the sake of profit.

What upsets me most, is not the fraud, but the fact that this court has charged the culprit with a single count of a misdemeanor. Now I ask you, why isn't there multiple counts as they sold this product to many consumers? Why isn't this crime listed as a felony? Now understand, I am not placing this crime in the same category as murder, but this is a large crime, with many victims, with the sole purpose of stealing money. Do we honestly know how long they were getting away with this crime? Do we know how many people ate the tampered product?

http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2016/02/guilty-pleas-filed-in-federal-criminal-fake-cheese-cases/#.VtMUDZwrLWI

I don't IHop

Okay, I have had to go gluten-free in order to reduce my allergic reactions. This is connected to my fibromyalgia and the consumption of gluten makes my symptoms much worse. I am not happy about this for several reasons, gluten-free can be rather expensive, sometimes finding gluten-free items isn't always easy, but it is getting better, and my favorite thing to not be happy about is the taste of many offerings in this category. YUCKY.

I have been dreaming of eating toast with jam, or my favorite crackers, but the gluten-free bread that I have tried are not pleasing and 5 times the price of the regular bread. I keep thinking about bread making, cupcakes, and other such things that I enjoy in the original recipes. I have successfully converted several cookie recipes to gluten-free and I have tired a few times to make gluten-free bread and cornbread but haven't liked any of them yet.

I was recently pissed off when I had lunch at the local IHOP because this major chain has no gluten-free option on their menu. I am not understanding why not, as many of the smaller breakfast places have included my specialized foods already. This is a national chain of restaurants and I am sure introduction of this line of products can be done rather easily and without a lot of issues. I am also sure that I have not been the only one to have asked for this option in the last few years.

While I didn't mind eating steak and eggs, I was looking forward to a short stack only to be disappointed. Just this week, I ventured to a nice breakfast joint not far from the house, and there it was, a gluten-free option for pancakes and waffles. I ordered a gluten-free waffle topped with mango and quickly inhaled my meal with glee and didn't mind the extra $2 charged for the waffle.

There are so many things that I now have to be careful of eating in order to lesson my inflammation, hives, stomach aches, headaches, and muscle aches. I am not, not that I ever was, a big consumer of street foods and drive-ins, but now being forced to completely go without forever more, has me not so happy. My biggest heartache is that I can't eat burgers. A burger isn't a burger unless you have a nice bun. I don't like to pick my burger apart to avoid eating the bun. It isn't pleasurable and messy. Booooooo!

So IHOP corporate, please understand our gluten-free necessity. I shouldn't have to avoid your outlets because there is very little I can eat there and I don't want to sit across the table from someone only to watch them eat what I can't while my plate is empty, sipping on tea.

Thank you

Food Deserts

In recent years, the term 'food desert' has come into our consciousness. For those of you who have not heard of this concept, it was brought to light after a academic study was conducted that looked into a possible connection between unhealthy eating habits and poverty. It was discovered that, in some of the poor inner-city neighborhoods in America, a consumer would have to travel 5-10 miles, or more, from home to find a fresh carrot, for example.  At the same time, middle-class residents and higher, has many more options and considerable shorter distances to travel for the same carrot.

Lower economic status brings with it a reduction in household amenities, such as limited refrigeration, and a greater chance that you will have to rely upon public transportation. Having to travel on to purchase groceries out side of your local area can be extra taxing on any consumer but needing to do that on a city bus can make someone give in and just buy what is nearby.

What does this mean? If you are a member of our society that have less economic strength and/or are receiving nutritional supplements, such as WIC or Link, you are far less able to purchase quality food products and whatever you purchase may have to drug home on the bus. This is a real problem health-wise and may have contributed to the high rates of obesity and other related health issues.

For some in this city, buying cheaper food products is the first reaction to a lower food budget but doing so can cause diseases down the line and essentially be extremely expensive and life shortening.

 

In Illinois, the maximum amount a household can be given through food subsidy is $3 per person per meal. Compare this to a trip through a drive-in, people are spending about $8 for a lunch or $5 for a specialty coffee drink. This can be helpful to a family but it isn't a whole lot and therefore I have never understood some who would begrudge a family who qualifies for assistance.

Living in a food desert can also mean you are living below the poverty line and in a higher crime area. It is a struggle but having a set mind to eat better can be accomplished. If you make efforts to not purchase pre-packaged and processed foods, your over all health will be much better. Even on a limited budget, I can't find a good reason to ever eat a hunny bun and a soda for breakfast. Buying fresh foods only can create a bit more work in the kitchen but it can be planned out properly and the extra effort pays off in greater health. Of all the things you can skim on, food should not be one. Buy less expensive clothes, for example, because its better to be healthy than sick and well dressed.

https://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/06/24/1396100/-Think-Whole-Foods-is-a-ripoff-It-s-worse-than-you-thought?detail=emailclassic

Fibromyalgia and diet

Well, my fibromyalgia anyway. As fibromyalgia is a combined group of neurological responses, not everyone has the exact same experience. There are 18 conditions that in combination confirm a diagnosis of the syndrome, a patient must have a majority of them in order to be classified under this disorder.

Where does diet play a role in this disease?  Like so many other disorders, what you eat can be helpful or harmful. One of the effects of my disease is irritable bowel syndrome. I have been dealing with this aspect for about 20 years now. When this first was diagnosed, there was no treatment, and understanding what causes it is still not know but now there's medications to help regulate the movement and actions of the stomach and bowels. A blood panel revealed that along with the respiratory allergies that I have been dealing with since high school there's several food allergies including gluten sensitivity.

I am still learning all about what I am experiencing with my condition after spending a little over a year working with doctors to get at the root of what was going on. The full diagnosis is fibromyalgia, and a chronic knee pain syndrome.

It's a little more than 3 months since the fibromyalgia and knee pain syndrome diagnosis and I am struggling with getting to some sort of comfortable stasis. I changed my diet almost a year ago, gave up gluten, began to intake more veggie packed smoothies, and got regimented on the pill taking. I even had to change my career focus because being a professional production pastry chef is just too hard on me physically. I have always wanted to mentor and teach the next generation of cooks, but I believed it would have been under different circumstances.

I love what I do and I believe that I do it well. I am refusing to be undone by my aliments. I am too young to give up yet. Teaching, while often far more mentally taxing, is less physically demanding. Having trained all these years, I am reluctant to stop working, so I just re-purposed my skills.

These days I dream of eating toast and jam. The reason being is that I would rather do without than eat awful gluten-free bread at 6 times the price of regular. I have been very careful of my intake and modified my amount of activity. I need to add a good exercise routine soon. I have created a couple of great gluten-free desserts and plan on working on a few more. My stomach is at greater ease without gluten but I find it hard to avoid it if I find myself hungry away from home.

As the demand increases for gluten-free options the grocery selections are growing, but this is both good and bad. There are lots of people that are eating a gluten free diet that are not required to do so. It has become somewhat of a fad diet. I, on the other hand, don't have a choice.

I will continue to post on this subject from time to time.

Food Delivery Services

In our modernized age, everything from clothes to tech can all be had online, so is the way with groceries. Peapod, Instacart, Door to Door organics, Home Chef, Amazon, Hello Fresh, Blue Apron, and many more all have the ability to get food to your door from your online requests.

Here in Chicago, the most commonly seen delivery truck in these parts is the big lime green trucks of Peapod. I have had them deliver to me for about 3 years now, on and off, and I have always had a good experience.

Peapod was established in 1989 in Evanston Illinois, making it the oldest company of its kind. Since then, their reach has expanded to other cities such as Boston, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Washington DC. The service is available by zip code and they have a very large pool of available items including their own product label of goods. They sell, in addition to food, flowers, alcohol, cleaning products and paper goods.

Customers can place orders online or via their app. Then their order is hand picked and packaged for delivery. Delivery options can be chosen by the customer by time and date, and as early as the next morning they can have things at their door to restock their kitchen. My favorite part of ordering from Peapod is that they had pick fresh produce that is perfectly fresh and high quality. Our family is in love with their seasonal fruit packs, these boxes of assorted fruit come carefully packed, and I have never had a bad apple in the bunch. There are two sizes of these items and my kids always get excited when it comes like it a wrapped box under the Christmas tree.

The big green delivery truck is refrigerated and the frozen items are kept with the aid of ice packs. You can set your customer options to include text messaging to notify you that you are the next delivery on the route. The very friendly delivery staff unloads and brings in your order to your kitchen or wherever it is needed. If there is ever a problem with an item, invoice, or delivery, the customer service department is top notch at handling the issue quickly.

While there have been other companies to enter this type of service arena, I have not used them. There are now services that I consider more like a chef services, where customers can order a meal set-up. These come to your door as a meal. The food and the recipe information are ordered so that the customer can create a gourmet meal at home. I like this concept as it teaches the customer new culinary skills, allow them to get all the items required, even the harder to locate items, perfect for a nice dinner at home without take-out pizza or the delivery fee and limitations.

If you have a chance, you may want to check out these options in your near future.

Whole Foods, good?

Here in Chicago, we have about 20 Whole Foods outlets. They have expanded their reach and audience rather rapidly over the last few years and are currently building a new one in the infamous Englewood neighborhood. So the question comes to mind, is this a good thing?

The Englewood neighborhood has been historically black and under-served for generations. The area is infamous for having some of the poorest residents of Chicago and a legacy of violence. These recent years, the city has been dedicated to improving the infrastructure in this area. There was a extremely dilapidated shopping district at the heart of the area which has been demolished and is being replaced. Abandoned properties have been knocked down after sitting idle for years and the available public housing has been revamped and repurposed. Kennedy King College, a long standing city college, has built a new campus in the neighborhood which was well over due.

Right near one of the busiest intersections of this area, Whole Foods is rapidly building a shopping center and their store is slatted to be the anchor. This outlet is across the street from the new college campus. Many residents are curious to find out if this will a profitable venture. I would agree that the area needs a grocery store of better quality than the other available offerings nearby, made up of mostly liquor stores with some groceries and a few low cost store chains. But is this the right move for the area?

Englewood is one of a few food deserts present in Chicago, and it has been that way for a while now. Residents have had to go outside of the neighborhood to buy groceries of quality for as least as I have been a resident, I am 45 and lived here all my life. The difficulty of living in a food dessert is two fold, the residents that can travel outside the neighborhood quickly, mostly by car, are spending their economic power in another neighborhood which keeps the other area vital and their area continues to degrade. Secondly, the residents that can't travel by car regularly to do their shopping are left with little option that to buy substandard food offerings which will degrade their health and leaves little economic improvement in their own area.

It is wonderful that there is an effort to make a course correction in this matter. However, Whole Foods has been among the priciest offerings available in this city, and the organic and other high priced food offerings are not familiar to the population of the area. I support the revamping efforts to bring that location back to being a vital and strong location. What no one knows yet, is if this will be successful. Many people are questioning if this is a signal that the city is not just improving the area that has been in such need or are we seeing the first signs of gentrification? Will the current residents embrace and be able to afford to support the store? Or is the store building there ahead of a change in the racial and economic shift in the residents? In Chicago, when a neighborhood makes changes like these, it usually means that the minority residents who have lived in that section for generations, will be pushed out and replaced with non-minority residents with much higher incomes.

The stroller crowd has been rapidly moving into a area of Chicago that is known as Boy's Town, it was a heaven of activity and housing for our LGBT people. With that shift in population, the area is being forced to close some long standing business and the lots of its residents can no longer afford the increasing property values since the area became popular and desirable.

Will the same shift happen in Englewood? Or will Whole Foods fail to improve the health and options of the residents? If the neighborhood is gentrified, where will poorest of the residents be push into next? If Whole Foods fails, will any other chain store be willing to build in the area and keep from having yet another closed store sit idle? I think, everyone wants the area to be improved, but how do you do this successfully??

Food v "Food", Part 1

One of the major themes in my teaching to our young folks is that I constantly challenge their idea as to what is food and what is "food". I began this after watching them eat all sorts of garbage, listening to them talk about what they like to eat, and then seeing the deficits of understanding about nutrition. When you talk to kids that cannot identify that margarine is not butter, don't eat vegetables, drown their food in hot sauce, and never ever ask what is in this food... there is trouble brewing. A very large portion of the population that I teach just eat what they like and they never give a second thought to what they are consuming, while childhood obesity rates raise.

 

I teach them how to read a nutrition label, show them that vegetables aren't scary and can be very tasty depending on how it is prepared. I challenge their tastes by making them at minimum sample the dishes we prepare, make them look at what they are eating and why. It isn't easy work especially since the come to my class believing all that we are going to do is cook. If it were up to them, they would work in my class as if it was a cooking club, but its not, it's a culinary class. If it were up to them, we would only cook those things in which they are already eating regularly. The difference between a cooking class and a culinary class is very similar to the difference between food and "food".

 

I am fully aware that lots of food choices that are made in the households, in which my kids live, are done so with economy and convenience in mind. We Americans have totally bought into the idea that food must be cooked quickly and if you are in a lower economic rung the cheaper products tend to win the race to the shopping cart. Lots of our citizens are quick to spend a lot of money on clothes but not a lot on food. This is backward thinking, as clothes wear out quickly and go out of style, but your health is critical. I too have to consider my economy when purchasing, I buy some convenience foods, very few, mainly because I am not home for dinner 3 to 4 nights a week so the cooking duties fall upon my kids at least a couple nights a week. However, understanding what you are exposing your health to buy the constant consumption of these are risks most of us cannot afford. All of my children cook, nothing too fancy, for my middle school and high school kids, but my college kid does quite well, as she has had much more training.

 

Kids don't think about health and nutrition often as they have those perfect metabolisms and digestion that keeps up with the junk they consume. I often ask them what if the aging process begins to break down your body at a young age because of what they eat?

 

The populations that I teach are made up of inner city minority kids who's families are dealing with members that are impacted by cancer, hypertension, diabetes, glaucoma, drug abuse,  immobility, and early death. What they are more concerned with are the drug overdoses and deaths from gun violence that they face daily. I have talked to my kids and heard about the reasons they skipped attending class due to being in the hospital visiting their siblings and loved ones. They tell me of how many funerals they have had to attend and when asked questions about life longevity they tell me that they are not concerned with living to 100 because they are expecting to die before they are 30. It's easy to not think about your  health when you don't think you will survive very long, so why not eat and do whatever you enjoy today because tomorrow may never come.

 

So, there I go into the breach attempting to change their view of not only what is food and what really isn't food but also trying to change their world view through cooking and teaching. I speak to them about their life goals and dreams as well as their diet. I convey to them the impacts of poor diet don't just show up on the inside, but these things affect their appearance and their future. Basic nutritional information and health are done every week along with recipe comprehension. I am a firm believer that it isn't their fault that they don't know these things. I am a firm believer that you cannot give someone else something that you don't have. A great number of their parents either don't have time to teach them these things or don't know enough about the subject to teach them to their children. The notion of eating whatever is cheap and accessible is costly to your health. Anytime that you can go to the store and buy a 2-liter of soda pop for 99 cents but the same amount of juice or water is 4 to 5 times the price.... something is off.

 

I tell everyone if you cannot read all of the ingredients on the label then you might not want to eat that product. Whenever you leave control of your health and nutrition up to a corporation, you are already in trouble. The one and only purpose of a corporation is to make money. They make decisions not based upon what is best for the consumer, they make decisions based upon profit. If a natural item cost five cents per unit and a artificial substitute costs 3 cents per unit, the corporation will used the chemical substitute to gain a bigger profit margin.

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These artificial things do not create the same reactions in the body as real food does, and if you are around enough, you will see how the FDA and researchers will prove them to be harmful in the long run and it's use will then be stopped. But what about all the people that consumed these chemicals for years and are possibly suffering the after effects? Wouldn't be easier to select the natural food options and not suffer any side effects? I want to see my kids live long long lives full of joy and not short lives filled with discomfort and disease.

 

Any food that has multiple multi-syllables  chemical names and are high-up on the ingredient list should make you take pause. If you don't know what it is, then maybe you shouldn't be eating it. Can you find those items in your kitchen? Why are they in your food? Corporations make it difficult to make good choices. Their marketing campaigns, packaging, confusing labeling, hidden sugars, cheap ingredients, market saturation, are pervasive and target your kids.

 

A large percentage of your average citizens do not fully understand how to read nutrition labels.  The first thing that everyone should know is that the list of ingredients is listed in order of amount from the highest quantity to the least. In other words, if you are reading the label and the first ingredient listed is sugar then you know right away that is isn't a healthy item to eat. Secondly, look at the serving size on the package. This is one way the corporation tries to fool the consumer into believing that the item isn't too bad for you. A small package of potato chips is commonly consumed by one person, but the manufacturer may use the serving size as 4, for example, that way, if you aren't paying close attention you can believe that the bag is only 100 calories when it actually is 400 calories, deceiving. I also encourage folks to Google the chemical names listed to see their purpose, possible health issues, and perhaps why they are used. Knowledge is power.

 

Last year was the first year in American history that consumers spent more money in restaurants than in grocery stores. That is huge news to both the culinary industry, retail food store, and the medical community. Our families are not growing, harvesting, cooking, hunting, or controlling the most important aspect of their health, food!

 

Nourishment

There's a national attitude about food that is not in our collective best interest, only seeing food as pleasurable.  It is so apparent when you talk to kids about nutrition or health. Children are only interested in what they enjoy so if it tastes good they are content.

Some of us do as we are expected to do, become an adult and put away childish things.  The majority of Americans are not maturing as expected and continue to eat like they did in high school, which wasn't very good for them even then, creating a greater risk their own health. More often than not, it takes a doctor to inform said adults that a reevaluation of their consumption is required.  Diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, gout, cardiovascular disease, high cholesterol levels, ulcers, irritable bowel syndrome, acid reflux, and a whole host of discomforts are directly related to our dietary consumption.

Please understand that I am not a person that jumps on the diet bandwagon at the start of every new year and as a pastry chef some feel like I am not qualified to preach about health. Wrong. I am not a advocate for rigid dietary restrictions because of the psychological effects of such limitations. Telling a human not to eat their favorite things only makes them crave them even more.  I advocate balance and a focus on healthier choices. Everyone needs room in the diet for treats and snacking.  We are social animals and celebrating always involves eating. There is nothing wrong with eating dessert, it is however, how often it is consumed and which dessert is chosen that makes all the difference.

Health comes from balance,  balanced diet, balanced emotions and stress, balanced work and life harmony. Eat to live instead of live to eat. Food is the first line of defense against disease and discomforts.  Too many people are addict to some very destructive eating habits, are living in a food dessert, haven't faced the reality of what junk food does to the body when you consistently consumed, and often times live in bodies that are not working well because it isn't being maintained properly.

Last year was the first time in U.S. history that it's citizens spent more money in restaurants and eating out than they did in grocery store purchases. The 'give it to me quick' mentality is taking it toll on the health of our nation.  Lots of the food regulations and feeding programs that we have grown up with and are most familiar with, were developed after a large amount recruits enlisted for WWI were so underfeed and malnourished that they were practically or completely unfit for combat. The U.S. government understood if the nation is not nourished properly that it would not be able to defend the country from foes. Tag along to that, it stands to reason that school age children can not make the most of their educational opportunities if they are not well feed. Mandatory regulations of school lunches, for example, is a result of the governmental effort to assure that our citizens are not burdened by a lack of nutrition.

Furthermore, the changes experienced in the American workforce has put pressure on the households to eat differently than their predecessors. Less that two generations ago, 90% of meals consumed in American were prepared at home, which included boxed lunches. These days convenience foods reign supreme in the food marketing wars. Get it quick, microwave it, take and bake it, and buy it precooked, all are outselling fresh produce and meats. The heavy demands on workers to increase work out-puts have pushed the average 8 hour work day on to the back burner it seems as often longer hours and taking work home is more and more common leaving whomever in the household that is responsible for meal production with less and less time to plan and produce what the family is consuming.

The biggest danger in this tend is simple, whenever you become reliant upon a soulless corporation to do things for you that are critical to your overall health, you are in trouble. Why is a pint of orange juice 3 times the price of a cola? Corporations really only have one goal, to make money! Cheaper, faster, longer storage life, and readily available is how a corporation makes its goals. Food additives and preservatives most often do not help your health, they only help the corporation to make money. I have seen in my lifetime alone, several sugar substitutes, food color, and other chemicals available for the consumer to purchase have been removed from the marketplace after finding out that they cause a cancer or a serious risk to public health, but how many years and how often have the public been eating them before they have been outlawed?

Just some thoughts to consider as you prepare your next grocery list....