*Going Veg 3-5-09

Moving Right Along

Its funny. I have Michael on the bandwagon with me, and already, day two, he is sending me pictures from the dinner table. Not that I don’t have the utmost respect for Mrs. Michael, but when she makes a killer dinner with plantains, I have to be a little jealous. Love plantains, never was good at cooking them. Will walk off with every bag of plantain chips I can find, lock myself in a dark closet and eat every bag. Thankfully, I don’t live in some warm lower hemisphere, or I’d sprout a tree out of my head.

So, last night we wailed on nutrition in lecture. Somehow, again, I was rapt, attentive and like a bulldog on a buttcheek over the information. Chef mentioned nutritionist education after culinary school… got my gears churning.

Apparently, chefs have the very worst diets of anyone on the planet. If it can be deep fried and consumed steaming hot by fingers while working, it goes in a chef’s mouth. Good thing I have practice eating on the run (Imagine a surgical mask moving up and down as I chew a mouthful of graham crackers and peanut butter as I scrub in), because in a kitchen it will not improve. But I digress. So, Gout is an occupational hazard, thanks to nitrates and nitrites in foods (sauces, gravies, processed meats, serious charcuterie). Vegetables are tasted on the fly before plating, and that is about it for the plant kingdom. What cooks make for their patrons is hardly the same cuisine they dine on for a proper meal during their awake hours. Most cooks and chefs throw down a pickup dinner for ten on the weekends and get a balanced meal that way. Given that information, consider that a malnourished cook is making your dinner. Puts a new bent on things.

My little vegetarian project had me thinking that I could beat the dietary monster down if I ate all fresh (read: raw) vegetables and fruits, just enough grains, legumes and seeds, dairy and eggs. The school of thought that inspired a nation of great chefs, that revolutionary mantra of Alice Waters that tells us all to take fresh produce and do as little as possible to it was the route I was taking until I stumbled on something interesting. On the ride home last night, I found a copy of this week’s The Economist* on the MAX. Love the mag- wish I could afford another subscription… Anyway, an article on cooking caught my eye. Usually a poli-sci mag, I was a little curious as to the cover tease of ” How cooking made us human”.

People have disputed the design changes in Homo Sapiens over the millennia, from larger craniums and small torsos to the inverse configuration. Some theorize that a plant based diet put less bulk on a frame, thus making the cranium larger, if not only in appearance. When meat was introduced to the diet, it bulked up the torso, maybe diminishing the cranial structure in actuality, but definitely increasing the pelvic and torso structure sizes. This leads to another argument- the one over raw food versus cooked food, and the whole Two Angry Scientists In a Burlap Sack thing starts all over again.

What the article points out is that raw foods tend to not be as readily absorbed as cooked ones. Heat, when applied to foods, begins to denature proteins (readies them for amino acid action), soften fiber, gelatinize starches- all readying them for as much absorption or utilization as possible by the body. In short, the caloric content of foods does not get altered, just the availability of it is altered in favor of intestinal absorption. How much is it different? That raw carrot versus a simmered one? Anywhere from 50% to 95%. They proved it a few different ways, and the evidence is pretty clear.

So, as I sit here contemplating my packed lunch for tomorrow, I will have to ponder slightly my preparation of produce. It would be pretty embarrassing if I myself became as malnourished as a chef while pounding down half a farmers market haul every day.

Daily Report

Morning blood sugar: 96 (Yeah!)

Food Consumed

Granola, milk, yogurt and a packet of Vanilla Whey (better than that nasty assed Hemp whey!)

Sweet potato and okra stew from last night’s production (yummy!)

Quinoa, garbanzos and vegetable salad, a hard boiled egg and a peanut butter chaser

Garbanzos, cucumber salad and a hard boiled egg

A cup of hot cocoa with whey protein powder and a Kind nut bar

School food:

A bite of NY strip, a bite of Filet Mignon, a little mashed potato

Nutritionally Speaking:

I’m sitting at around 24 % protein calories, or 99.5 grams today.
Carbs- 44% of calories, only 186 grams. No wonder why I was so damned cold all day!
Fat- 32 % of calories, about 60.6 grams

* Vol 390 Number 8619