intellectual properties

botany: a dance

on a lighter note related to food and eating, this should be amusing:

Michael Pollan’s breakthrough book, “The Botany of Desire,” looks at the relationship between humans and four types of domesticated plants - apples, tulips, potatoes and marijuana - in terms of human desire and what the plants represent.

So, naturally, when Alex Harvey read Pollan’s book, he envisioned a musical….

starving

last night i read a 4-year-old (2005) Time magazine that had a 30-something page special on the American obesity epidemic (that’s where that last post came from), and one of the articles was Can You Be Fat and Healthy? there was a lot of easy to absorb and interesting comparative information in there about being physiologically fit vs. perceived as healthy just by weight and pant size. and then the question:

If you eat well, work out regularly and walk away from your doctor’s office with straight A’s on your physical, what does it matter if you can’t wriggle into slim-cut jeans?

yes, what does it matter, really? why can’t we just be happy in our bodies as long as we’re healthy? how has body image become so twisted?

and then today, thx to Tiny Cat Pants, i read this article about the Minnesota Starvation Experiment (see wikipedia also), which should absolutely be read beginning to end, especially by any women who restrict their calories for diet purposes, but i’ll post a few eye-opening findings here about the effects of a 1,600 restricted-calorie diet on grown men, noting that 1,600 calories is a lot more than a lot of people on diets, especially people on CLEANSES, allow themselves to eat:

Continue reading »

2 requests/demands

i know i am about to eat my tail because i haven’t blogged about last weekend yet and this one starts in -3 minutes, but i just. haven’t. yet. i hope to do so tonight.

in the meantime, 2 items for you about 2 things that are very important to me:

1. i am going to ask you again to please sign this petition for a sustainable USDA. scroll down to read the petition and request. if you have questions, ask them, and i will do my best to answer or point you in the direction of some further information. but the gist is: our current food production model really sucks. we are raping the environment. we are making bad food cheap, and good food expensive. farmers are struggling nationwide. and i say WE, because it is our government, and our tax dollars. so sign it.

2. if you are within reasonable distance of san francisco, i urge you to come to this party tomorrow night, BEFORE 11pm, to see jay blow up the dancefloor. srsly. no joke. you do not want to miss this.

Saturday, February 21, 2009 at 10:00pm
Sunday, February 22, 2009 at 4:00am
Cellspace
2050 Bryant Street
SF, CA
$15 at the door
SPACE IS LIMITED, so come early. if you come late and don’t get in, blame yourself, not the recession.

rainy days and mondays

i am proud to say that after the last autobiographical post, i got right back on the exercise wagon, and have been dorking out at the Y all week. i did 3.25 classes this week in addition to other exercise, and right now, pretty much every muscle in my body is at least a little sore. the .25 is because i checked out the “hip hop dance” class on tuesday night, and after the first 15 minutes determined i was in no way qualified to be in that class and left. so. not. coordinated. monday i did step aerobics again. step class is also super difficult for me, not because it’s too strenuous (although my calves do still hurt, 5 days later) but because of the coordination thing, and usually i make it about 30 minutes through the class trying to follow along and keep up with the moves before my brain - not my body- gets tired. it’s really exhausting, concentrating that hard (do you burn more calories then?), and i know it eventually will probably get easier but it seems to be a very.slow.process for me. so anyway, after about 30 minutes of high-concentration, which is also usually about when the instructor introduces new moves/combinations that i can’t get, i generally give up trying to follow along and just start bouncing around on my step thing to my own rhythm and pattern. so yeah, i’m that dorky girl with the weird hair in the back of the class completely not following along and just bouncing around like some sort of hopped-up fraggle. that’s what i meant by dorking out.

on tuesday and thursday i did body sculpting, which is a combination of squats, abs, pushups, and weird ways to lift dumbells to tone your butt. i have a hard time really pushing myself when i am just working out freely, so as much as i generally don’t get into group activities, i’ve found that going to the scheduled classes at the gym forces me to work out harder than i would on my own. i also want to give props to Reagan for being a super inspiration on the work-out front. she’s just so damned enthusiastic about her own progress that i can’t help but be more motivated to work harder at mine.

besides that, i have been doing other things, even though it feels like all i’m doing is going to work–>gym–>sleep–>work–>gym–>sleep, so to back up to where we left off:

monday 2/2 : went to gym.

tuesday, 2/3: jay DJ’ed on yet another party bus in SF, and we went to ocean beach and the Sutro Baths ruins, which i’d never actually visited. it used to look like this; now it looks like this because somehow, a place filled with water on the edge of the ocean burned down. it was beautiful in the moonlight, but i want to go back there in the daytime. different crew of people, different vibe, different bus, different rules. so, the same, but different, which is good.

wed 2/4: i think i went to the gym.

thurs 2/5, went went to Tres Agaves in SoMa for dinner/margaritas and then I Love You Because… gallery opening, which was really love-filled and moving. the closing party is this saturday 2/14 @ Design Guild in SF.

fri 2/6 former-intern helen invited us to a sock-puppet party in berkeley on friday, which sounded like a fun change of pace. after work i went to Michael’s craft store and got some googly eyes and accessories, and then forced jay to make a sock puppet. we accessorized them even more after we got to the party, and i think they turned out pretty well. the party was fun, although after about 1.5/2 hours, it got just a touch too much to handle because everyone INSISTED that you always talk to their sock puppet, or include the sock puppet in the conversation. these people were very. VERY. into their sock-puppet alter-egos. the best one was the giraffe, by far. imagine a really tall guy with a really long orange sock puppet going around and eating all the plants in the house. i do, however, have more than a little tinge of regret that i didn’t go with judit et.al. to zombie prom that night instead. i mean: LOOK AT THIS. they went to Sizzler. in a white stretch limo. looking (and acting) like zombies. awesome.

sat 2/7 jay is DJ’ed the LoveBomb fashion event @ Mighty in the afternoon, and then we went to Pronoia @ Shine later that night. fashion+music+dancing always makes for a good saturday.

sunday 2/8 we had brunch, walked around west oakland for a while, and then it was off to jason’s for Neva’s 9 month-aversary party.

and then we’re back to the beginning of this post, where i spent all week at work and at the Y, except for dinner with Mary on wednesday night

this weekend, 2/13-2/16:
tonight we are going to a house/dance party (to be clear, not a house music party. a dance party @ someone’s house, with better music.), tomorrow we shall be attending both the LOVESICK lingerie + fashion show (watch out that site has SOUND! and maybe NSFW images), i as a humble non-runway representative of Miss Velvet Cream and jay as my hot date, and then to the above-linked closing party for I Love You Because. for sunday-monday i’ve rented us a cabin on the ocean up in Jenner, where it will undoubtedly be cold, wet, and rainy, but i think we’ll still have a good time. <3

food matters

related to last post: Mark Bittman:  Eating Right Can Save the Planet (NPR - read or listen)

briefly discussed:

challenges: sticking to a whole food diet while traveling, eating out, at dinner parties

personal rewards: lose weight, lower cholesterol, lower blood sugar, joint health

global rewards: better animal welfare, reduced pollution, more sustainable ecosystems

yes we can change farming in america

jay and i watched the documentary “King Corn” last night. perhaps because both of us come from midwestern farming families, it was a little more personal, but while a documentary about corn farming in iowa might seem mind-numbing, if you have any interest at all in food production and economics, i think it was a well-done and interesting film. even jay stayed awake for almost all of it!

the farmers in the film all seemed to feel an impending sense of doom about their lifestyles, communities, and the food system as a whole.  at this point it’s pretty much just the agri-business industry who are interested in maintaining the current food-production model in the U.S. because they are the only ones benefiting and making any money.  everyone (and everything: the plants, the animals, the land, the rivers, the trees) else is losing. and somehow, despite there being record amounts of food production, have you noticed the cost of food going through the roof yet? i have.

i’m not going to go into all the how’s and why’s that this is happening, because it’s complicated. you should see King Corn (available on netflix), or The Real Dirt on Farmer John (on netflix, a REALLY GREAT and moving film that i thought i had written about here but i guess i didn’t), or Fast Food Nation (also on netflix), or read one of Michael Pollan’s books or his Oct08 letter to Barack Obama.

RIGHT NOW, you have a chance to do something to change the USDA.   SIGN THIS PETITION from Food Democracy Now:

It’s time to get serious about sustainable change at the USDA. As a result, here at Food Democracy Now! we’ve come up with a list of twelve candidates for Under Secretary positions at the USDA. And we’re calling them the Sustainable Dozen.

These individual’s backgrounds represent the type of candidates that we expect to be appointed to these positions in the very near future.

As you may already know, while the Secretary of Agriculture is an important position, it is our understanding that Under Secretaries may actually have “more influence on the day to day workings of the agency than the Secretary.”

Time is of the essence. It is vital that you express your voice for Sustainable Change by signing on to support these candidates and those who have worked alongside this community for decades.

NOW is the time to become the Sustainable Voice for change that our nation so desperately needs.

We will deliver this petition with your comments to Secretary Vilsack once he is confirmed and President-Elect Obama to encourage them to take these issues to heart as they lead the USDA and 21st century U.S. agricultural policy into the future.

i think the internet is trying to tell me something

so about 10 minutes ago i got up from my desk and went to the bathroom and on the way back thought about how i didn’t feel like going to the gym tonight, even though it’s now been over a week, what with the holiday and all that laying around intoxicated we did for the past 7 days and me not feeling like it last night, and i consciously noted that i could feel myself going down that awful downward spiral where you feel too tired to go to the gym too many days in a row and suddenly it’s been like…..2 months or something, when, as my yoga instructor liked to tell me, the days you feel the most tired and lethargic are the days you really should go the most. i don’t remember what the longest stretch of me not going to the gym but still paying for my membership was, but i think it was definitely more than 2 months.

and then i got back to my desk and sat back down and the first thing i read was this (hilarious) post, and i don’t think that’s a coincidence. i related to it a little too much. and so yes, i will now be going to the gym after work today. thank you, erin, for that comical kick in the pants.

food-democracy:now

Nicholas D. Kristof: Obama’s ‘Secretary of Food’? (NYT)

As Barack Obama ponders whom to pick as agriculture secretary, he should reframe the question. What he needs is actually a bold reformer in a position renamed “secretary of food.”

A Department of Agriculture made sense 100 years ago when 35 percent of Americans engaged in farming. But today, fewer than 2 percent are farmers. In contrast, 100 percent of Americans eat.

Renaming the department would signal that Mr. Obama seeks to move away from a bankrupt structure of factory farming that squanders energy, exacerbates climate change and makes Americans unhealthy — all while costing taxpayers billions of dollars.

…

Modern confinement operations are less like farms than like meat assembly lines. They are dazzlingly efficient in some ways, but they use vast amounts of grain, as well as low-level antibiotics to reduce infections — and the result is a public health threat from antibiotic-resistant infections.

An industrial farm with 5,000 hogs produces as much waste as a town with 20,000 people. But while the town is required to have a sewage system, the industrial farm isn’t.

“They look profitable because we’re paying for their wastes,” notes Robert P. Martin, executive director of the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production. “And then there’s the cost of antibiotic resistance to the economy as a whole.”

One study suggests that these large operations receive, in effect, a $24 subsidy for each hog raised. We face an obesity crisis and a budget crisis, and we subsidize bacon?

…

An online petition that can be found at www.fooddemocracynow.org calls for a reformist pick for agriculture secretary — and names six terrific candidates, such as Chuck Hassebrook, a reformer in Nebraska. On several occasions in the campaign, Mr. Obama made comments showing a deep understanding of food issues, but the names that people in the food industry say are under consideration for agriculture secretary represent the problem more than the solution.

Change we can believe in?

get in shape girl

i’m 32 now and when they say your body starts changing in your 30s, they aren’t kidding. for the past year or so i’ve really noticed a change in how easily i gain weight, and that my body fat levels seem to have increased despite the fact that i don’t believe i’ve changed anything in the way of how much exercise i get or what or how much i eat. it’s been pretty frustrating, because all the little ‘tricks’ i used to do when i was younger that would easily melt away 5lbs or so gained on vacation or during a holiday weekend like thanksgiving weekend no longer work.

so, we got our asses in gear and recently jay and i have been really good about going to the gym consistently for the past month or so - 4 or 5 days a week - and i’ve also cut a few more things out of my diet and started paying attention to things i didn’t before, like fat content. it was easy for me to go vegetarian; once i made that choice i’ve rarely struggled with ever wanting to eat meat. it also hasn’t really been hard not eating processed or junk food; we keep almost none in the house, and pretty much the only time i eat things like cookies or potato chips is when i’m at a party or something. that hasn’t bothered me much either. but cutting down on fat in my diet - whew. it feels like i can’t eat so many of the things that have been LEFT in and are staples in my diet. salad dressing=bad. indian food=bad. cheese=bad. guacamole=bad. fake meats=bad. oils/sauces=bad. i’m down to a more or less macrobiotic diet, which feels pretty difficult to maintain, but maybe i’ll adjust to this eventually too. although i will never stop eating indian food. ever.

i’m sure it could be suggested that i try cutting out sugars instead of fats to try to create a larger calorie deficit, but given that a very LARGE percentage of my calories come from fruits and juices, i feel like that would be even more impossible since i’m already not eating much bread or processed sugar to cut out to begin with. this morning my co-worker, who’d just sat and ate a pile of bread and cheese that i abstained from, refused to drink orange juice because she said “it’s just sugar! it’s all just sugar!” i’m sorry, but when i’m basically living on beans, salad, sauerkraut, pickles and fruit juices, there’s no way in hell i’m giving up my Superfood.

anyway, this morning i finally felt like i could see a change in the shape/feel of my body. i know that it’s only been about a month since i REALLY started hitting the gym and watching what i eat and that these changes take a long time, but like i said, in the past when i’d put on a few pesky pounds i’d just eat light for a couple of days and dance a little harder over the weekend and it would easily go away. now i have to sweat my ass off at the gym and forgo some of my favorite foods for a month before i feel any different.

for years i belonged to a climbing gym in berkeley where all they had was climbing (which i never did), cardio machines, weights, and a little big of yoga. now we go to the YMCA, which in addition to all that has a pool, classes, and networked weight machines that provide you with a customized tracking program, and the variety is much better. if i’m too tired to do one thing, i can do something else. tonight i had a lot of energy and i did a step-aerobics class for the first time (the cardio didn’t kill me; my complete lack of hand-eye coordination did) followed by a buns/abs class that was rather brutal. i’m pretty sure i’m going to be sore as hell tomorrow, but it felt good to kick it up a notch and really push myself. i think when you’re in pretty good shape already and not really trying to lose a lot of weight but just a little bit and tone up your body, it’s a bit more difficult in the beginning to see any results, and really working out as hard as you can is basically the only way to kick in your metabolism. next i think i’m going to try a spinning class, which i’ve never done, and, of course, there’s always running. blah. hopefully i can keep up the habit and not get derailed like i have in the past (e.g. get the flu and don’t go to the gym for weeks afterward and basically lose all benefits and have to start over), and maybe in a month or so i’ll be able to wear some of the clothes that have been sitting in the back of my closet for a while again. that would be nice.

i voted. *finally*

this.fucking.election.com - a visual retrospective of the political memes of the last 20+ months. reading that list made my head hurt; it makes it seem like american politics have more entertainment value than political value. le sigh.

and better late than never: fuck.john.mccain.com

even so, i admit, despite all my political disgruntledness, i felt a small rush of glee handing over my ballot this morning (i get an absentee ballot, fill it out at home and walk it over because i don’t want to deal with shit like this). i think more than anything it was because everyone working my polling station was african american and the mood in the room was positively joyous, and i felt happy for with them.