Breakfast with Confidence

I know that it is only the second week in grad school, but I am still really excited about meeting new people and listening to new ideas. Although I am proud to be accepted into grad school, I am quite humbled. I feel like I am starting all over again, but what is great is that I can express my ideas in a collaborative effort that might actually help others. Currently, I am reading, reading, reading. Most of what I read is well, dry. So much of it is filled with scholarly jargon and I too have been guilty of writing this way. It is embarrassing to admit. I am so glad that the authors of my research design textbook think so too. They actually make light of it and I am so glad because I give a little chuckle while I read.

I did come across some very interesting but alarming articles that discussed food insecurity. Food insecurity not only affects the poor, it affects all of us. Think about it. In the past few years, our country’s supposedly trusted food producers underwent the largest recalls in U.S. history because of contamination or the company’s failure to inspect their products. Spinach, beef, candy bars, peanut butter, and eggs were the largest. As a result, Congress passed a food safety and inspection bill of 2009 in September, which gives the FDA the power to initiate recalls instead of asking the companies to do so after people get sick. Additionally, this bill requires that food processors and producers pay a fee for inspection services. Sounds good right? I thought so until I read that this would adversely affect small farmers and these small farmers are not the folks guilty for poisoning us. Thankfully, the bill was revised to exclude smaller producers. Thankfully for me since I am planning to sell my produce this summer and the last thing I want to do is poison anybody. We take food security for granted, but these past few years have been eye openers.

Food insecurity is also the fear of being unable to afford access to uncontaminated nutrient dense foods. This is especially true for the poor. I like to buy organic foods that are in season. When I do this, I know that I don’t have to worry about pesticides or hormones. I also know that I am purchasing foods that are more likely to be local so my carbon footprint won’t be so darn big. Most importantly, I am purchasing food that tastes better and are at their peak nutritional value. I prefer to support Community Supported Agriculture like Los Poblanos Organics or Beneficial Farms. However, I notice that my grocery bill is higher when I do this and I will pass on these foods because they are often too outrageously priced for our working class income. For the poor, it is more cost effective to get more for the money. Sometimes this means buying high caloric processed foods like those terrible 99 cent Totinos pizzas. Unfortunately, a can of asparagus is cheaper than fresh asparagus. This bothers me because access to fresh healthy food is a privilege rather than a need. It has been this way for centuries, but haven’t we progressed since the mid ages?

Purchasing and preparing healthy food for my family is a way that I show love and caring. I know I am not alone in this. I would feel inadequate if all I could afford to feed my family is baloney sandwiches on white bread, but there are some who do this because they feel they have no other choice. I think this hurts culturally as well. Have you heard the term, “Mexican steak sandwich?” This is why I feel so strongly about community gardening and finding ways to make a little go a long way but there are roadblocks and I will talk more about that later.

As much as I don’t want this to be a preachy blog, I am going to suggest some good ways that I eat breakfast on the cheap. My favorite is oatmeal. For the most part is cheap for a large canister and in bulk form. It has nutrient dense calories and plenty of fiber. One has the choice to dress it up with versatility. I also really enjoy eggs because they are cheap, versatile, and nutrient dense. Beans, yes, beans for breakfast!

Here are some of my favorite, fast, and cheap breakfast ideas. Please share yours.

Peanut butter oatmeal (Add 1 tablespoon of any nut butter to instant or regular oatmeal, with ½ cup of milk and a tsp of sweetener of choice, I like honey.) It tastes like a peanut butter cookie. This doesn’t even cost a dollar. 2-5 minutes tops. Add bananas to make it sweet and omit honey.

My version of migas (two corn tortillas fried up in olive oil, pour in one beaten egg, pour ¼ cup of salsa or chile, a small handful of cheese) Add a glass of juice or a piece of fresh fruit and you hit all the major food groups.This is less than a dollar and takes about 5-10 minutes to make.

Whole wheat toast or tortilla with a slice of tomato and a fried egg in olive oil. Add salt, pepper, and tobacco or chile powder. This takes 5 minutes is also less than a dollar.

Plain or vanilla yogurt with a handful of walnuts (I don’t mind them if they are not toasted) a teaspoon of honey or agave nectar and fresh fruit like banana. This is actually more than a dollar unless you buy the yogurt in bulk. This takes the less time.

Refried beans in olive or canola oil dished up on a whole hard roll or even a bagel topped with ¼ cup of salsa and small handful of cheese w/ fresh fruit. Less than a dollar and about 10 minutes to make.

Remember that breakfast means breaking a fast and we are blessing ourselves when we give our body something healthy and be part of the quest to help end food insecurity.

Comfort Food

First, I have to spill it in review of the week. I officially was accepted in my graduate program, but I really had to hit the ground running. I go part-time, but it is intense. I am humbled at so much that I do not know that I feel a little insecure about it. I have been reading and writing and researching, but I have not found my niche. Time management has been a struggle and I am trying to find a part-time job. In this economy, that is not an easy task especially if one is picky about schedule. The most exciting event this week had absolutely nothing to do with my life, thank God because it involved some ex-boyfriend of some other lady dousing himself and vehicle with gasoline, driving into her home and lighting a match. Thank the lord that no one was seriously injured. The boyfriend lived two blocks from me and he spoke with me all summer about girlfriend. I often tried to avoid him because his topics were awkward. The girlfriend lived four houses down from me. Let's just say it was quite the sight to see. I was blown away to know that something that seemed to be pure gossip turned out to be a cry for help. I feel a little guilty in some way. He was a very lonely person and a Viet Nam veteran. Although what he did was seriously violent and psychotic, it indicates some serious emotional pain.

With all this, I needed a little something that had nothing to do with school. I took my kids to the library. (I know, how does a library have nothing to do with school?) Well, if one checks out a book purely for enjoyment, that's how. I checked out French Women for all Seasons by Mireille Guiliano, which is a supplement to the best seller, French Women Don't Get Fat. The best way for me to explain this book is that it is a concept book to enjoy all things beautiful about being a woman. She asserts that the path to a healthy life and trim figure is to enjoy foods at the peak of their season and to stop denying pleasurable foods or feeling guilty about indulging a little and I stress "little." She uses zero science and includes rich desserts in her recipes. She also includes tidbits and advice for fashion, which is unlike any diet book I have ever seen. My favorite is that she makes sure to include a glass of wine with every dinner. Now I read all sorts of diet plans and I have to say that this one was very refreshing. She discusses portion sizes and includes numerous fruits and vegetables in her sample menus. She ridicules American diets because we eat in such a rush and that our food ways are often a battle and source of guilt other than a comfort and pleasure if done in moderation. Eating for need and pleasure rather than eating for need, want and/or guilt is her motto.

I can see many dieters, dieticians, and some medical professionals outraged at her motto except she is not saying to eat for comfort and many of us do it. I often question the strict dogma about eating for comfort. Since birth, humans eat for comfort. It starts from the comforting sensation of suckling and feelings of touch and smell. This doesn't just go away. However, I also remember reading research stating that toddlers eat until they feel satiated even if they like the food. They simply stop eating so easily. This stops somewhere around three years of age. We eat to comfort ourselves or because we are bored. We also eat in social functions, which is also comforting. Now I definitely don't agree with eating for boredom, but the other two, I am not so sure about. I am a believer that eating as well as cooking can be artistic and that there are a variety of foods that will match moods. Let's just hope the mood isn't always, "I had a bad day at work." or "My boyfriend and I just got into a fight." Even worse, "Let's have an eating contest?"

If I eat for comfort when one of these moods strike, I integrate food for comfort. I try to say, I had a bad day at work so I think I will make myself something special for dinner or I may have a cup of ice cream with fresh bananas for dessert. If my husband and I fight, I might indulge in some cheesy pizza with veggies. As for eating contests, I will lose. This morning, I am cooking up one of my favorite breakfasts, oatmeal with stewed prunes. It is very sweet and very healthy. I use juice, orange zest and a little red wine to stew the prunes. This is comfort food for me. So if some emotional pain strikes, eat a little something. Stay away from the booze and of course the gasoline. You could indulge in my favorite comfort foods of all time, beans and rice.

Help Promote Self-Efficacy

I have to write a concept paper that describes my ideas that I can put to action. I am taking a course that will help me manage health promotion programs and find funding for a collaborative research interest. It is a good thing I met some other two girls in class that have about the same ideas that I do. Not exactly, but I am confident that we can find common ground easily. If you have read some of my previous posts, my interest lies in what food, health, and gardening does for self-efficacy. What is self-efficacy? It is the belief in yourself that you are capable of attaining goals. It encompasses good self-esteem and inner locus of control, meaning you control your situation. With self-efficacy, you exhibit a positive outlook in life and have successful social interactions. I have to admit that this has been something I have wanted to improve in myself for my entire life, so it is a challenge for me to do this because part of me says, "I can't manage something this big."

I am really interested in expanding community involvement in urban gardening and these urban gardens can be in any setting. The two gals I am working with are very interested in promoting health in mid and high schools through healthy cooking programs. What is healthier than fruits and vegetables? Moreover, what is healthier than feeling the success of completing a task that is so good for you. I don't know about you, but when I was a kid, healthy food was so uncool. I remember many cafeteria quarrels about how gross someone was if they ate the fish or brought wheat bread instead of white bread. If a kid drank the white milk instead of the chocolate, that kid was weird. Conformity to food ways as children was very common, but when we give them control of what they cook and eat, it becomes cool. The organization Kids Cook does this while using locally grown food, but their funding is limited. I want to see an organization called From Playground to Table. This would involve edible playgrounds rich with pomegranate and apple trees and perhaps a corn maze.

Eventually, I am going to focus my interest on a low income community in Albuquerque that will enable them to start and maintain a community garden and provide workshops and education to those who are willing and able to plant a garden at their homes. Additionally, I also want these folks to have the ability to not only use the produce, but to sell it at a local growers market. Eventually, I would like to find funding for a truck similar to those that people use to sell fast food and have a traveling growers market. For now, we are going to concentrate expanding funding for middle school and high school students to participate in Kids Cook.

So I need to provide a mission statement with goals and objectives. I also need to find funding for this project. I have browsed Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Daniels Fund. I would also like to see what the USDA has to offer as well as some local foundations. This is so important because with our new governor in office, the schools are looking at more financial cuts. The outlook is grim indeed. I am using this blog as my own journal and an interactive way for my friends and peers to share ideas with me since I am new to this topic. I am going to leave you all with a quote that I really believe defines self-efficacy for me. Thanks for checking out my post.

"To do anything but your best is to sacrifice the gift."—Steve Prefontaine.

 

 

Happy New Year: A Review of Holiday Blues

I am going to say what you are not supposed to say at Christmas. This was a crappy Christmas. No, we did not encounter any kind of catastrophes. Instead of fun in the snow, enjoying all the grub the holidays have to offer, and playing with Christmas toys, we sat on the couch sick, sick, sick. No Christmas movies were available unless we wanted to pay $3 for them because Comcast Cable Company is run by many greedy mongers. We did not go to church for services with family. We had a ton of family here, but whenever I do that, I run into my ability of never being prepared. I was caring for a sick toddler all day.
Christmas Eve is always such a conundrum for me. Both mine and my husband's family are very demanding when it comes to time with us. Everyone maintains that we should all be together on Christmas Eve and running around like chickens on Christmas day. Of course, we all love the fare. Traditional New Mexican Christmas Eve cuisine consists of hot posole with chile colorado and tamales are available for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Let's not forget biscochitos and pastelitos, which I did not get to enjoy. Although the constant running around stresses me out, we did not get to do it this year due to illness and I was heartbroken. Unlike most Americans, who gain weight during the holiday season, I lost weight on a diet of ibuprofen, hot tea, and disappointment.
I did have some successes though. I baked lots of sweets to cheer us up and I am proud to say that I made the best batch of gluten-free sugar cookies I have ever tasted. I also made great fudge too. I have always been too busy multitasking that I could not devote the stirring time to the fudge and since sugar cookies have never been my favorite, I bake them last and typically burn them. Not this time. But my biggest success was the lentil kale soup I made to nurse our illness served with a delicious and buttery gluten-free brioche. Not traditional Christmas or New Year foods, but a great substitute for the black eyed peas and corn bread. Lentils swell and Kale is green. Here is to a healthy and prosperous 2011!

Black-eyed Peas…Maybe for Southern Folks

I went to my sister's house for a game night New Year's Eve party. She had all sorts of goodies like salad and boneless chicken wings and a rich raspberry chocolate cake with inch thick cocoa frosting covering it. She also made a black-eyed pea dish with cornbread. Why the trouble? Black-eyed peas and cornbread did not really go with the rest of the fare. My brother-in-law informed me that this dish was for after the New Year began. Well after a night of drinking, I am not sure that I would be in the mood for black-eyed peas and cornbread. In actuality, I was not able to stay and ring in the New Year, but I do remember eating black-eyed peas pretty much every year as a kid and well into adulthood.

Often my family would eat a New Year's Eve dinner which contained many of the same elements that southerners eat with some variation. There would be a ham or a pork loin roast, a salad, a potato dish, bread and the watered down bowl of canned black-eyed peas. Looking back, we really did not give these lucky gems the respect they deserved. Canned? If black-eyed peas were supposed to provide us luck then why not make them the center point of the meal? Later, my mother would make variations of black-eyed peas. I can remember one year when she put them in a pressure cooker and left them on high heat while she went out. I was in charge of them. I had no idea that they were left on high heat. While playing with my baby, I heard a huge pop and loud hiss followed by a scream from my baby. I scurry into the kitchen and find black-eyed peas on the ceiling, puddled around the stove and floor. I didn't feel very lucky that I had to clean them up.

I have also adopted this tradition over the years only to discover that neither my son nor husband liked black-eyed peas. One year, I actually thought I bought fresh black-eyed peas without the pod, but they were really a somewhat moistened mystery legume painted with the black eye. I warmed them instead of cooked them and they were really hard and gross. That also did not feel very lucky. It was that year that I decided that this tradition was stupid especially since I did not know why black-eyed peas invoked good luck.

After some minor research, I discovered that this little legume was probably cultivated in West Africa. It is an efficient crop as it is virtually pest free and can withstand warm temperatures with little water. Being that it is a legume, it has a great nutritional value and adds nitrogen to the soil. Its reputation as a good luck food has its roots in the Jewish New Year Rosh Hashana dating from 500 CE. This explains why so many of us Americans eat this. It is not just a southern food since so many Americans have Judeo/Christian roots. However, American tradition did start in the south during the Civil War, but by accident. Black-eyed peas were one of the foods not destroyed by enemies because they considered these legumes as animal food. I guess these troops were lucky that they had this humble legume to keep them alive. Later, and contrary to Jewish tradition, black-eyed peas were served up with pork and greens.

The luck part is associated with the swelling of the bean, meaning prosperity. That's it? I think I will just continue eating my beans and rice since both legume and grain swell. As I eat, I hope that I will have an abundance of black-eyed peas in the pod since that is how I enjoy them most, flavored with a little bacon of course. Here is to a prosperous New Year!