ASK Musings

No matter where you go, there you are.

Yearly Archive: 2012

Tuesday

18

September 2012

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COMMENTS

Week 2 Real Food Results and Week 3 Challenge

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Well, we survived Disneyland. And not just Disneyland, but Disneyland in 108 degree heat. And we did it while (mostly) sticking to the week two direction: natural beverages. The website framed it as limiting beverages to water, coffee, tea, milk, and wine, plus one glass of juice at some point during the week. Since her reasoning was based on Michael Pollan’s discussion of alcohol in general, we decided to keep beer and spirits in there as well. And we were primarily successful. Except for the strawberry margarita I had on Friday night, our drinks fit the bill. And I survived not having diet coke after diet coke in the crazy heat.

Going forward, I think I am going to stick with this one, with a couple of exceptions. The first being I can have a hot chocolate every week or two. Yes, it’s basically sugar with some milk thrown in, but I do love it. And one every 7-14 days is a lot better than … daily. Yikes. I think sticking with alcohol beverages that aren’t mixed with fake or heavily sugared drinks is also the plan going forward, but I also recognize that, on occasion, I’m going to have a daiquiri. And it will be super yummy.

We also managed to keep up the two fruits or veggies at each meal from week one! We were able to find salads and fresh fruit at Disneyland, and the only real failure was Sunday night after our flight back. The pot stickers WERE vegetarian, but still. No veggie or fruit side.

The challenge this week? Limit you meat to local, limit it to 3-4 meals total, and don’t make it the centerpiece of your meal. Well, it’s Tuesday, and I’ve already (I think) failed on the local front. But in my defense … I had a tasting for our wedding yesterday, and one of the items isn’t usually locally sourced. As I did actually want to taste what we’ll be serving our guests, I didn’t pass on it. But the rest of the week shouldn’t be a problem, since we aren’t big meat eaters in the first place, and it’ll be fun to be that person asking wait staff if the chicken eats hazelnuts.

Tuesday

11

September 2012

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COMMENTS

Real Food Week 1 Recap plus Week 2 Challenge

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Well, the first week was a success! It was fun to try to figure out how to make sure we were each eating at least two fruits or vegetables with each meal. It sort of bled through to everything else; it seemed odd to eat something really unhealthful with a side of steamed zucchini and some cherry tomatoes. My lunches were especially healthy – it was easier to just bring it each day then to try to buy something that had enough fresh produce to fulfill the requirement.

I also found myself making (slightly) better choices the two nights we ate out – I even chose salad instead of fries one night. I know. Since we know what is coming in other weeks (e.g., only 100% whole grains), we're also making some better choices at the grocery store. As we go through, trying to clear out foods that will eventually be deemed not so good, we're replacing them with what will be the better choice.

For the most part. I mean, I still bought canned whipped cream to go with the fresh strawberries we got at Whole Foods this week. What? The sweetener restriction is still a few weeks away.

The challenge this week: the only beverages we should consume are water (still or sparkling), coffee, tea, milk (cow or other) and wine. And if we want to sweeten our coffee or tea, we can only use pure maple syrup or honey. Now, I thought it was wine or beer, which seemed to be the rule of the full challenge, based off of the blog comments. I'm fine with beer being included, because it is suggested that there are some benefits to alcohol in general (although wine seems to be best), and because beer isn't a big concern of mine. Austin will look to keep to the average of one alcoholic drink per night, and I'll try very hard to not have hot chocolate all week.

We're also keeping up the two fruits/veggies this week because we both really liked that. We're traveling this weekend to an amusement park, so that alone should be an interesting challenge within a challenge.

Tuesday

4

September 2012

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COMMENTS

100 Days of Real Food

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Thanks to my friend Ashley 'liking' something on Facebook, I saw this blog and was pretty quickly clicking through all the content. If you know me, you know I find food and health extremely interesting. I recently finished a Peter Singer book on food, and was suckered into buying the lovely illustrated Food Rules by Michael Pollan (thanks Anthropologie). I find the information so fascinating but haven't done much with it other than paying a lot of attention to whether my berries are organic, and continuing to reduce the amount of meat I consume.

But I love challenges – especially ones that build upon each other. I like setting goals and trying to meet them. And since I think of September and Labor Day as a great time to try to reboot habits I hope to have (it's like a new school year starting), I'm going to take a stab at the 14 weeks of mini-challenges. Austin is in it with me, so hopefully we'll be able to improve our eating habits and overall health. Luckily we're both active and pretty healthy to begin with, so none (well, almost none) of these changes are going to be horrific. I think it's going to be fun.

This week we start with eating two fruits or vegetables with every meal. That's not a huge challenge, but the point is to actually REPLACE something that's less healthy. So instead of a Pasta Roni side, have a second veggie side. It'll be a nice way to ease into things, especially because we're also taking this week to sort of scrub out some of the packaged and less healthful food without wasting it by throwing it out. This should help us make better choices as the weeks go on. 

From my perspective, week 6 will be a challenge, as I was raised on things like non-fat milk and low-fat products. I've read many different places that these items really are not better for you, but getting the prevailing mindset out of my head is going to be a challenge. And of course, anyone who has ever met me knows that weeks 9 and 12 may be my downfall (and the latter coincides with Thanksgiving – perfection).

I plan to update the blog each Sunday going forward, so if you care, great. If not, feel free to set up whatever filters you have – I'll try to put "Real Food" in the title each time.

Monday

25

June 2012

0

COMMENTS

Kind Folks

Written by , Posted in Adventures

This morning Austin and I went for a run. About three miles in (with a mile
to go), I tripped. Now I average about one stumble every three or four
months; I run on sidewalks and the ones in my neighborhood are in disrepair.
But this time I ate it hard. Thankfully my hands were fine, as was my right
knee. But oh man, my left knee. Not broken or anything like that, but
really, really ugly. Austin asked if he should run home and get the car;
like an idiot I initially said nah, I can finish the run. Ha!

I got up with some help, and it was not a good look. Austin waved down a
parks department employee to get some tissue, and I attempted to clean
myself up while Austin ran home (literally) to get the car. I slowly limped
towards home at the same time, and two different times women pulled over in
their cars to make sure I was okay and didn’t need any help. I thought that
was extremely kind – one even said “I’ve had that happen before and wanted
to make sure you were okay.” Ah, shared embarrassment. Always good for
bringing people together.

Then right as Austin pulled up another woman, this time out walking,
approached me to see if I was okay. I said I was fine and then she said she
was a nurse at the nearby hospital. She gave me a couple of tips on cleaning
the wound, then pulled some alcohol pads out of her backpack. So nice and
helpful! Especially as I had just been thinking about how we don’t have any
alcohol in the house to clean this out.

My knee is sore and is going to look nasty for a while, but I feel good
knowing that some of my fellow Capitol Hillers are so kind.

Tuesday

5

June 2012

0

COMMENTS

Why are we judging people who need help?

Written by , Posted in Politics

There’s a someecard I’ve seen going around with this quote on it:

 

"So you’re on food stamps, but you can afford an iPhone… Seems legit."

 

I’m disappointed that people feel the need to judge poor people who seek out government assistance. Sometimes it is presented as concern, sometimes it is based on innocent ignorance of the facts, and sometimes it seems like it represents a desire to project hate onto people who haven’t been as successful (or lucky) as the hater.

 

While food stamps are just one way the government can provide support to people, I think they’re a pretty good one to discuss, primarily because of the way they’re structured. The SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) provides funds for very specific food items via EBT cards. Fraud is a concern, but .

 

Eligibility

Eligibility is spelled out pretty clearly here: http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/applicant_recipients/eligibility.htm

 

In case you aren’t in the mood to flip between websites, here’s a breakdown:

·         The monthly take-home (net pay) has to be 100% of the poverty level or lower for the family size. For a family of four, that’s $1,863.

·         If you want to look at it from the gross income perspective, the monthly take-home must be under 130% of the poverty level. For a family of four, that’s an annual salary of 29,064

·         You can have some resources saved up and still be eligible for food stamps. Why? I’m guessing because the government doesn’t want to people out on the street before they ask for help (which is what I think many people who dislike government assistance would prefer, but more on that later).

·         One can only draw SNAP benefits for three months in any 36 month period without working or being enrolled in a training program to get back to work.

 

So, one can have something in savings (but not much), must be taking home income equivalent to about 100% of poverty level, and if unemployed, be able to get back to work or find training within three months. Those requirements seem pretty intense.

 

And with those requirements, what do these high rollers bring home? Well, a family of four can get UP TO $668 / month. That works out to about $5.22 per person per day for all of their food. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks. 

 

The Food Stamp Challenge

Some of you may have heard of the Food Stamp Challenge. The most famous example is Chef Mario Batali’s attempt to use only the equivalent of SNAP for his family of four for a week. He’s a chef, so he’s used to the finer things but he also has the skills to use a variety of ingredients in clever ways, and he has the benefit of time to spend on this project. He should have no problem with this. Wrong. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/15/mario-batali-food-stamp-challenge_n_1517572.html

 

If someone with culinary training and lots of money to take care of the other things in life (like, say, childcare) finds it challenging, that says a few things to me. Namely, that these benefits are not only not extravagant, but they’re probably too low to really meet the need while still allowing the beneficiaries to make healthy decisions.

 

Some people who have been on SNAP resent the Food Stamp Challenge. Chef Batali got to stop after a week. Yes, it was a tough week for him, but he knew that after seven days he could go back to his extravagant life, filled with decadent food. People who are on SNAP out of necessity don’t have that luxury. They have to figure out how to make things work. They don’t get to ‘splurge’ on the berries their kid really wants – have you seen how expensive berries are? They’re like $4/pint, and they go bad so quickly. And if they DO save up their benefits to do something wild, like buy a generic brand cake mix, they get the stink-eye from judgmental people in line behind them.

 

So those receiving SNAP have shown they are making a very small amount of money, they are working (or in training for work), and they have very little by way of savings. I do not see why that should be looked down upon unless we’re less interested in the assistance provided and more interested in judging why someone needs the assistance in the first place.

 

Choosing Judgment

Which brings me back to the card that started this all. When I read that card, I saw a pretty disturbing world view. It’s a world view that suggests that receiving government assistance and having personal possessions (especially those that appear to be expensive) should be mutually exclusive. That people who receive government assistance should be scrutinized and ridiculed. And I see stereotypes that just flat out bum me out.

 

I don’t subscribe to the view that people who are poor are somehow evil, or deserve their lot in life, or have something fundamentally wrong with them. I was lucky to be born to parents who had some money, who supported my education, who saved for me to attend college, and who helped me out before I found work after graduate school. That doesn’t mean I’m somehow more virtuous or more worthy of dignity than someone whose parents didn’t provide them with the same support. And yes, I fully recognize that some people who had zero support and zero help still made awesome lives. That should be applauded and admired, but not used to say "see, I did it, why can’t YOU do it too?"

 

And looking at just the very basics of sentence card that inspired this posting – it makes ZERO sense for someone who has an iPhone, but then loses her job and needs assistance, to get rid of the phone. Even if all that it is good for are pre-paid minutes, selling the phone for $50 means she has $50 to spend on food but no longer has a way to let her parents know she’s alright, or to make calls looking for employment. And if she has a $25/month data plan that is part of her contract, how much sense does it make to break the contract AND lose her ability to look for work?

 

This short-sightedness infuriates me. That attitude is asking the person in need to cut off her nose to spite her face. It seems to be based in resentment. ‘I have an iPhone and I don’t need government assistance. Clearly that person made poor life choices and now I have to pay for it.’ Moreover, it also requires that people who need assistance live lives void of some of the simpler things.  Why should the person on food stamps not be able to buy the cake mix once in awhile? Why do we demand that people who need help be miserable while receiving it?

 

Maybe that person who needs assistance did make poor life choices. And maybe she didn’t. Maybe she had a job and was paying off her student loans when she was laid off. Maybe she’s trying to make the responsible decision to pay for healthcare to stave off going deeper into debt if she gets sick, and needs some help getting food for awhile. Why jump to the conclusion that someone is gaming the system?

 

Fraud

"But what about all the FRAUD?!" Honestly – what about it? Currently SNAP fraud is estimated to be 1% (http://www.fns.usda.gov/cga/PressReleases/2012/0164.htm). In dollar terms, that sounds like it would be a lot. And it is – it is over 718 million dollars in fraud annually. That’s a lot of lost money!

 

It’s also … less than the cost of one day (ONE DAY) of the war in Iraq.

 

One day of the war in Iraq was more costly than a year’s worth of SNAP fraud.

 

I think that says a lot. It suggests that it isn’t really about the money at all. It suggests that some people are more concerned about someone else getting something they ‘don’t deserve’ than they are about why the person needs assistance in the first place. It makes me think that there are a whole lot of people out there who were born on third base and think they hit a triple.

 

Wrap it up, A.

We ALL need help at times. Most people I know received government assistance in the form of a subsidized student loan, because they wanted to improve their lives but didn’t have the money at the time (myself included, for graduate school). I don’t begrudge any of us that – I don’t think "damn, I want those tax dollars back", because that’s help someone needed.

 

We all face circumstances that test us, and sometimes those circumstances are our fault, and sometimes they aren’t. Instead of taking the common path and assuming that those people, with their food stamps (and welfare – oh god, their welfare) are somehow gaming the system, wasting YOUR tax dollar, maybe think instead about how fantastic it is that you don’t need that assistance right now, and how fantastic it is that if you do, even for just a little while, it will be there. It’s a view grounded in reality, and one that seems a lot healthier than carrying around the anger that so often comes out when this topic is discussed.

 

Better Reading

For a better, real-world discussion of the process of getting food stamps, including the fear and judgment, check out this article, and especially the comments. It’s pretty illuminating. http://www.xojane.com/issues/notes-food-stamp-office

Saturday

3

March 2012

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COMMENTS

From the ‘Not Cool’ files

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This morning we went down to our car to head out to Greenlake for a run. I got in and noticed the glove box was open. You can probably see where this is going…

One of us left the passenger door unlocked. We think we know who, but really we both do it on occasion. Our parking garage is secured, in that you need a remote to get in.

So, what did they get?

– A partially used travel-size deodorant
– 20 ponytail holders
– About eight starburst candies
– The connector that allows me to listen to my iPod through the stereo. They didn’t take the remote to the garage, which makes me think they live here and were drunk. Dried vomit not far from the car seems to support this theory.

It’s annoying, but mildly entertaining considering how lame their haul was. But still. Not cool, folks. Not cool.

Sunday

26

February 2012

0

COMMENTS

Kind vs Honest

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I was talking with a friend recently about something a mutual friend had said. It was an opinion that was shared, and some people viewed the opinion as harsh, and some thought it was right on and not harsh at all (I think it was probably somewhere in between). The friend I was speaking with fell into the ‘thought it was harsh’ category, and made a statement to the effect of “I try to never say something that will hurt someone else.”

My first thought was well, of course! I’d hope that’s the case. I’d hope that all the people I choose to spend time with have the same mentality. They may not always be successful, but I would hope that they at the very least would not be trying to hurt someone.

But then I thought about it a little bit more, and I realized I wasn’t entirely sure if a) that’s a motto one could live by and b) that’s a motto one SHOULD live by.

To be clear: I loathe the “I don’t care what other people think, I’m going to tell it like it is” attitude. I find it to be extremely immature. First, the “like it is” is so rarely connected to reality. It’s nearly aways an opinion, not a fact, and something the speaker with that attitude hides behind in an attempt to justify a really poor attitude. Second, it shows such a profound lack of caring for others. Sure, there are plenty of people who do not care about others, and I suppose it is handy to have a little shorthand to determine who those people are, but frankly I’d rather they just learn to act in less of a childish manner.

I also (usually; I have to admit I have my weaknesses) see no point in being so blunt with a comment as to act in a jerky manner if there is a way to phrase something so that it still honest but not rude. “I prefer the red dress to the blue one – it seem to flatter your figure more” is both true and kind; “the blue dress makes you look fat,” while possibly true, is not kind. Even though the former comment is both true and kind, it still might cause hurt feelings. The wearer might not have thought the blue dress was unflattering. Perhaps they are being too sensitive, but at least in that type of one-on-one interaction it’s pretty easy to read the situation and determine how to go forward.

But sometimes that isn’t possible, or isn’t practical, like in some social media situations, where one’s opinion possibly is going to be read by a few dozen folks, some of whom are likely to disagree. Is there a point at which one’s opinion may, simply by virtue of it existing, hurt others? And not because it’s necessarily a bad opinion, or a wrong opinion, but merely because it exists? In that case, are people expected to never mention it for fear of it causing pain for another person?

Two examples are religious and political beliefs. I recognize that religion and politics are things that some people choose to never discuss outside of their very close friends; however, I find politics and public policy to be interesting and a crucial part of my life existence, so it seems almost disingenuous for me to simple pretend that I don’t have opinions on them. I enjoy having a blog (which links to various social media), and I enjoy using it to think through issues and (if I’m lucky) hear the opinions of others. But I may have opinions that, if others think them through, could be viewed as hurtful.

For example, during the Komen Foundation / Planned Parenthood incident that occurred at the beginning of the month, I posted a link and expressed my support of Planned Parenthood. But is that hurtful to others who support Komen? Is it disrespectful? I can hear people saying “you can’t worry about all that all the time,” and yet is does seem that plenty of reasonable, rational folks do find such things potentially offensive. I don’t want to censor myself, and I really enjoy good discussions, but I also don’t want to be an asshole.

Hmmm.