Dieting and frugality

wosnes · Post by **wosnes** » Fri Jul 18, 2008 1:22 pm

I was reading this
http://www.blogher.com/when-less-more-w ... e-frugally

Be it money or food, most of us don't live frugally. We practice abundance. We don't go for quality over quantity. We don't eat less -- or do anything less.

Reading that also reminded me of this, which I found in an issue of the Simple Living newsletter:

Janet Luhrs wrote:My friend Helen Sherpa has lived in Nepal and the U.S. She once told me an especially poignant lesson that Iâ€™ll never forget. â€œIn Nepal,â€ she said, â€œWe have need-based shopping. It never occurs to people to buy products they donâ€™t need, because there is no advertising, no sales, no junk mail, and no credit cards. Also in Nepal, because people walk to the neighborhood store, they buy only what they can carry home, and then make do.â€

Helen says our lack of connection with the person who made the item encourages waste. â€œIn Nepal,â€ she says, â€œYou have a tailor repair your garment. In the West, we have no idea who made our things, so itâ€™s easy to give it all to charityâ€”out of sight, out of mind, and, as a result, we generate huge quantities of waste.â€

What if we had no advertising, no one to tell us what and how to eat (aside from our mothers and grandmothers), no flyers or ads on TV to tell us what is on special this week. What if we did have a connection to our food -- who grew it or sold it and in many cases who cooked it?

Interesting idea...

Hungry Girl · Post by **Hungry Girl** » Fri Jul 18, 2008 1:27 pm

Hi Wosnes:

What a sobering thought! i definiately see conncections between all my bad habits, shopping, eating, and other unattractive behaviours.
HG

Finnigan · Post by **Finnigan** » Fri Jul 18, 2008 2:21 pm

Wow! Definately food for thought. My TV better watch out. There is only my wife and kids standing between me and it, and I've got a 12 lb hammer in hand.

ThomsonsPier · Post by **ThomsonsPier** » Fri Jul 18, 2008 3:11 pm

Finnigan wrote:Wow! Definately food for thought. My TV better watch out. There is only my wife and kids standing between me and it, and I've got a 12 lb hammer in hand.

Unforeseen shovelglove benefits!

I know that my diet has improved radically since I stopped watching television and started shopping at the local farmers' market. Having said that, most of my higher level knowledge of nutrition and exercise mechanics come from people I know through the internet and my job in software pays for it all, so simple living has its pros and cons like anything else.

blueskighs · Post by **blueskighs** » Fri Jul 18, 2008 3:46 pm

"frugality" "moderation" "simplicity" ... advertising is all about making these "virtues" appear less than desirable,

the truth, in my experience, is these qualities enrich our lives greatly while they significantly reduce the stress and strain of buying into the consumer lifestyle.

one of the parameters i use when shopping is do i really need this? if the answer is no, i try to keep on moving.

great post wosnes,
you are on a streak this week!

Blueskighs

Stacy Jo · Post by **Stacy Jo** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 3:55 pm

This is a concept that would be good to see take off (again - my parents were frugal, because they grew up during the Depression).

For the most part, I only buy what is needed and save my "wants" for special occassions. I will say though that I do splurge when it comes to my astronomy hobby, but not by too much. I recently got a telescope to add to my collection, but because it was on sale.

I'm not a big clothes horse even though I love fashion. I like to keep things simple because it makes life more fulfilling.

Great post on this wosnes!

Stacy

gingercake · Post by **gingercake** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 9:56 pm

I am seriously thinking of giving up TV. At least, cable. It's a little scary because I do loves mah TV, but I think it would feel good, ultimately, and bring improvements. And if I go crazy, I can always get it again...

I definitely can connect many of my food cravings to advertising. And my cravings for everything else.

vmelo · Post by **vmelo** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 11:35 pm

gingercake wrote:I am seriously thinking of giving up TV. At least, cable. It's a little scary because I do loves mah TV, but I think it would feel good, ultimately, and bring improvements. And if I go crazy, I can always get it again...

I definitely can connect many of my food cravings to advertising. And my cravings for everything else.

I could easily give up television and have done so in the past. I lived in another country for 6 months, and my husband and I never got around to getting a television. We didn't miss it at all (we did have a radio, though). As a matter of fact, I was much less stressed when I didn't get a steady dose of [bad] news. I only have television now because my husband wants it. Otherwise, I'd be willing to give it up.

blueskighs · Post by **blueskighs** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 2:29 am

I've lived years without tv in my life in the past and found it very refreshing.

Now I am married so difficult to boot it out of the house completely

So we just watch DVDs and shows we tape.
Don't do random watching.

ALSO no commercials on DVDS and you can fast forward though them when you tape.

Blueskighs

Julie V · Post by **Julie V** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 11:58 am

I just finished reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and it kind of speaks to this topic as well. She and her family eat locally for a year, growing most of their own food. One point that struck me is that today, we go into the supermarket and we can have any kind of food at any time of the year. Our great-grandmothers ate asparagus and green salads in the spring, corn in August, pumpkins in the fall...

wosnes · Post by **wosnes** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 1:28 pm

Julie V wrote:I just finished reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and it kind of speaks to this topic as well. She and her family eat locally for a year, growing most of their own food. One point that struck me is that today, we go into the supermarket and we can have any kind of food at any time of the year. Our great-grandmothers ate asparagus and green salads in the spring, corn in August, pumpkins in the fall...

I was reading an interview or article about Edna Lewis, who wrote a number of cookbooks about Southern cooking. She said that fried chicken was typically a summer, picnic food because the chickens that had hatched in the spring were the best fryers.

I've also read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and thought it was very interesting. I don't remember now if chickens usually only hatch in the spring and if modern growing practices have them hatching year round. Could be (I do remember about the turkeys).

There's certainly something to be said for eating seasonally. Food really does taste better.

blueskighs wrote:great post wosnes,
you are on a streak this week!

Thanks. I have my moments.

kccc · Post by **kccc** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 4:11 pm

Julie V wrote:I just finished reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and it kind of speaks to this topic as well. She and her family eat locally for a year, growing most of their own food. One point that struck me is that today, we go into the supermarket and we can have any kind of food at any time of the year. Our great-grandmothers ate asparagus and green salads in the spring, corn in August, pumpkins in the fall...

That's on my "list of things I'd really like to read," but I haven't gotten there yet.

I do love seasonal food, though. My son and I just went to a pick-your-own blueberry place, and came back loaded - I put 10 cups in the freezer and kept out enough for eating. SO good.

Wosnes, you've been on a roll of late!

blueskighs · Post by **blueskighs** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 5:53 pm

modern growing practices have them hatching year round

actually it is true they use "synthetic lighting" into "tricking" the chickens into thinking that its "spring" all year round, this information from the lady who sells eggs at the farmers market.

She has more eggs in spring and less in winter and fall - nature allows even chickens to rest but animal farming industry does not

since she apparently has some eggs in winter/fall? I am not sure how cycle works, but I have only been buying eggs again since march so we shall see. i only eat eggs i have bought from her cause I know they are TRULY free range having seen the chickens walking around her farm scratching, and eating insects, getting out doors and getting real sunlight.

I wont go into horrors of what the animal farming industry does to chickens here, but if you are interested there is lots of information out there, suffice it to say that i prefer not to put THAT kind of stuff on my plate

Blueskighs

wosnes · Post by **wosnes** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 6:19 pm

Foods to splurge on:

http://cheaphealthygood.blogspot.com/20 ... ge-on.html

On the other hand...

I've been reading Things I Learned from Knitting...whether I wanted to or not by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. One of the essays is called You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. She tells about trying to make a wonderful mushroom stroganoff from a gourmet cookbook except she used milk instead of cream, button mushrooms instead of portobello and shiitake, margarine instead of butter and came out with a "pale imitation" of the dish she'd tasted at a friend's home. She says, "I am just glad to have learned that I didn't get the stroganoff I expected not because I am an incompetent and everyone else is more skilled than I am, but because sometimes, if you start with crap, that is what you will end up with."

You can also take a recipe from "okay" to "wow!" by upgrading ingredients. Not the Emerilesque "kicking it up a notch" (I think Emeril often kicks things up too many notches), but just better quality ingredients.

vmelo · Post by **vmelo** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 7:17 pm

blueskighs wrote: I wont go into horrors of what the animal farming industry does to chickens here, but if you are interested there is lots of information out there, suffice it to say that i prefer not to put THAT kind of stuff on my plate

ITA!! If anyone is interested, here's a link to an article by Michael Pollan. It appeared a few years ago in the New York Times magazine:

http://www.rawfoodinfo.com/articles/art ... place.html

Pollan has also written some books on whole-food eating and such.

blueskighs · Post by **blueskighs** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 7:47 pm

The industrialization -- and dehumanization -- of American animal farming is a relatively new, evitable and local phenomenon: no other country raises and slaughters its food animals quite as intensively or as brutally as we do. Were the walls of our meat industry to become transparent, literally or even figuratively, we would not long continue to do it this way. Tail-docking and sow crates and beak-clipping would disappear overnight, and the days of slaughtering 400 head of cattle an hour would come to an end. For who could stand the sight? Yes, meat would get more expensive. We'd probably eat less of it, too, but maybe when we did eat animals, we'd eat them with the consciousness, ceremony and respect they deserve.

quote from the article vmelo posted above,

unfortunately we are exporting our animal farming industries, so that we are and will no longer be able to lay claim to the statment that :

no other country raises and slaughters its food animals quite as intensively or as brutally as we do

Blueskighs

Julie V · Post by **Julie V** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 11:46 am

Glad to see the Michael Pollan stuff posted here as well. I read his Omnivore's Dilemma a few years ago, and what an eye-opener that book was. Not just with the meat, although that was huge, but also with the corn, how it's in absolutely everything. I laugh when I see "maple (flavored) syrup" in the store and the first ingredient is corn syrup.

I think it's easier to sit down and really savor my food when I know where it's been, what kind of human labor went into processing it, etc.

OrganicGal · Post by **OrganicGal** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 11:56 am

I don't have cable on my tv...so I don't watch tv shows. I do watch movies/dvds fairly often or go to the movies. I think this has made a difference to a lot of things in my life.
I have also read Animal Vegetable Miracle and really enjoyed it. It is part of why I opened my Organic grocery store.

And I'm with blueskighs on being able to tell you horror stories of factory farm animal mistreatment. If I did you would never eat another piece of beef or chicken or an egg unless you knew exactly where it came from.

We should all become locovores again (buy locally grown, produced, prepared foods as much as possible).

BrightAngel · Post by **BrightAngel** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 1:28 pm

Interesting information,
and sensitive people need not click the links,
However, speaking for the omnivores among us, PLEASE. . .
Any of those who wish to share specifically and in detail on this,
Please do it in a Thread with a warning. . Labeled "Animal Brutality" or somthing like that,
so sensitive people don't stumble into it without warning.
Thanks.

wosnes · Post by **wosnes** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 3:23 pm

More from the same columnist/blogger with more to come:

http://kitchenparade.com/2008/07/how-to ... rt-one.php

http://kitchenparade.com/2008/07/how-to ... rt-two.php

funfuture · Post by **funfuture** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 9:13 pm

I love all these links - both the Pollan and the frugal food links. Really interesting and educational for me!

wosnes · Post by **wosnes** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 9:27 pm

Might be starting to get redundant, but I found these two today while looking for something else:

http://madelynfernstrom.ivillage.com/he ... n_a_1.html

http://madelynfernstrom.ivillage.com/he ... eting.html

Lots more from Pollan at http://michaelpollan.com/ I particularly like Our National Eating Disorder, Six Rules for Eating Wisely, and Unhappy Meals.