Food Paralysis

I've never been afraid of food. As a little girl, I was every mother's dream (my mom, however, may  beg to differ) and ate most everything you put on my plate. Fruits. Veggies. Meat. You name it, I probably ate it. At least, that's what I remember.

Granted, there are some foods that to this day turn my stomach. Like butterscotch. Talk about vomit reconstituted. And while I love the taste of shrimp, the tails kind of give me the willies, so much so that I will leave half the meat untouched just to make sure my lips NEVER get anywhere near that tail. And then there was that period in high school when I gave up on eating the sandwiches that my father invariably packed for my lunch. It really only took one deviled ham sandwich topped with an over-sized dose of mustard to really put me off my feed, permanently. So, rather than tell him that the thought of eating another of his sandwiches was akin in disemboweling myself, I simply hid the brown paper bags in the trunk of my car until I had opportunity to dump them in the garbage cans on trash day. Some days, this meant that I went without lunch, or took my babysitting money to go out with friends. Eventually, the bags of rotting sandwiches were discovered, and I had a lot of explaining to do. And a lot of garbage to get rid of.


Outside of butterscotch, shrimp tails, and deviled ham and mustard sandwiches, I was game for just about any food you put in front of me. In some homes, parents had rules about cleaning your plate at dinnertime, and if it was a rule for me, I honestly don't remember it (probably because I usually ate it all without complaint). I was a growing, active girl.

Unfortunately, it might have been this same "eat what you are served" philosophy that landed me in weight trouble. Sure, very few of us reach our early 30s still weighing what we did in high school. But for me, a former varsity athlete, the change was drastic. In the final days of my pregnancy with my daughter, I tipped the scales with 110 more pounds than I carried my senior year of high school, just 11 years before. I'm not proud of this fact, especially considering that most of that weight was gained in just six short years. And, certainly, measuring one's weight when in the final two weeks of pregnancy is never a good measure of one's overall health. But one year after her birth,  I still was lugging around 70 pounds more than I had in high school, and that fact was sobering, depressing, frustrating, and embarrassing. I have to say, typing out these numbers for the whole world (or, more accurately, my online friends) to see is incredibly difficult. We Americans tend to view weight as that dirty little secret that we only let out into the light of day when on the way to Weight Watcher's meetings. And sometimes, not even then. 

When my daughter finished nursing at just over a year, I decided it was time for a change. For me and for her. I needed to begin to take my health seriously. My blood pressure wasn't getting any better, and I really didn't like seeing who looked back at me in the mirror every morning. Plus, I didn't want to be one of those moms who inadvertently set a bad example for their daughters. I was already making the healthiest choices I could for my daughter (breastfeeding her and making her baby food myself) because I wanted her to grow up healthy. But I wasn't making those choices for myself (nothing like eating take-out from McDonalds while feeding your baby homemade organic green bean puree). And I wanted to be a woman who was healthy, okay with her weight and body--something that is all too rare these days, it seems.

So, on October 26, 2009, I joined Weight Watchers. And began my own personal food revolution. What, exactly, did this "revolution" entail?

• I joined a "Vote for Real Food" group on Facebook, started by one of my favorite colleagues, and began engaging in an ongoing discussion about food. 
• I watched Food, Inc., an unsettling documentary about the industrialized food system here in America (Did you know that the chicken you buy at the store, in addition to being pumped full of hormones, grown without ever seeing the light of day, and genetically engineered to so breast-heavy that they cannot move around freely, is washed in ammonia to kill bacteria?) Can you please pass the Windex? 
• I read two of Michael Pollan's books (In Defense of Food and The Omnivore's Dilemma), both of which is highly recommend to anyone serious about learning about the food they eat and why a change is necessary.
• I was a religious follower of Jaime Oliver's Food Revolution on ABC this spring.  
• I gave up soda pop and margarine. 
• I vowed to buy organic/local products whenever the option was presented.  Even Linda, one of the checkers at my neighborhood Safeway, knows to ask me when I check out whether each bag of produce I am buying is organic or not (I think she kind of secretly dreads when I show up in her lane on Sunday nights).
• I began frequenting the Portland Farmers Market (and am counting down the days--six, to be precise--until the Scappoose Farmers Market opens).
• I started shopping mostly the perimeter of the grocery store.  
• I rediscovered my love of cooking (not just re-heating pre-processed foods).
• I paid into a community shared argiculture (CSA). The half a farm share we purchased through Dart Creek Farm in Yankton, OR provides us with a box of fresh produce every two weeks, grown locally. 
• I'm committed to putting in a garden this summer (granted, it is off to a slow start as our yard is still majorly under construction, but I can still hope and dream).

And while I knew that the changes I had made in my life were drastic (I have now lost 48 pounds since the end of October and am within 7 pounds of my ultimate goal weight), it hadn't really struck me how far I had come on this journey until last Sunday night. My daughter was home in bed, my husband listening to the monitor while completing reading for his master's class. I hadn't had a chance to get the weekly grocery shopping done (thanks to a temper tantrum--not mine, but by the end, almost--in Wal-Mart over an over-sized inflatable ball). But now that the little fit-thrower was successfully down for the count, I took the chance to grocery shop in peace and quiet (this, my friends, is better than a day at the spa).

In the mood to stretch out my shopping adventure, I decided to head into Scappoose and the local Fred Meyer. In the past, their produce section, especially organics, seemed to put the piddly assortment at Safeway to shame. Add that to the rather large section of health food, tofurkey, and other vegan offerings, I was prepared for an organic, whole-food orgy.

But what I experienced when I walked in the doors was not the nirvana that I had hoped for. Instead, I was faced with a display nearly 35 feet long full of apples. Red delicious, Fuji, Granny Smith, Jonagold. Perfectly polished, stacked deep. The bounty of America was laid before me, washed, waxed, and ready to be consumed.

And I had to force myself not to run from screaming out the doors away from this nutritional "wonderland."

It took me a minute to realize why I was reacting so strongly to the sight of these apples. Maybe for a less-informed consumer, this apple-rific vision sends all the right messages to the incoming shopper--about the bounty that nature has provided to us, a reminder to us all about the importance of eating our fruits and vegetables, a "whole food" taking over the coveted entry access spot that could have been filled with boxes of fake cheese crackers (i.e. corn with a side of corn). But to me, it felt like these apples were not just passive participants waiting patiently for some hapless consumer to pick them up and feel good about their healthy purchase. Instead, these apples were relentless demons, genetically altered to be sweeter but considerably less nutritious than those grown in the United States just 50 years ago, grown with so many chemicals as to prove seriously dangerous to those of us who eat them:

More than half of the 610,000 children ex-posed to an unsafe dose of OP insecticides each day, get that dose by eating an apple, apple sauce or apple juice (Table 2). A child is just as likely to eat an apple with 9 pesticides on it, as he or she is to eat one with none. The aver-age one year old gets an unsafe dose of OPs 2 per-cent of the time he or she eats just three bites of an apple sold in the United States. Some apples are so toxic that just one bite can deliver an unsafe dose of OPs to a child under five.

My reaction to the apples was merely a precursor to my dissonance with the rest of my shopping trip.  I was horrified with the lack of fruit choices in the organic food department, and left the two shriveled mangos on the shelf, opting instead for one chemical- and guilt-laden one.

As I struggled to pick out two gallons of organic milk--one for my husband and me and one for Lilly--I got hung up reading the labels. I wondered, really, if the cows that produced this organic milk ever got to spend time outside, or if they were simply given organic corn feed (a substance that cows were NEVER designed to ingest in the first place, but which we in industrialized society feed them because it 1) makes them fat quickly and 2) is cheap, dirt cheap. And it's not until later this summer that the USDA is changing its regulations about organic milk to reflect that the cows that produce it must get at least 30% of their food from pasture). I wondered about whether "ultra-pasterized" milk means that all that is good and whole and valuable about drinking milk has been stripped away. I wondered how vitamin A and D are added to "organic" milk without anyone making a fuss.

My paralysis didn't stop there. I completely avoided the butcher counter altogether (thanks to Food, Inc., I now have a freezer of home-grown beef, three broiler chickens on order from Dart Creek Farm, and a pig being raised by my in-laws for slaughter this fall).

I struggled to buy eggs. I usually buy eggs from Dee Creek Farms out of Woodland, WA because they are pastured chickens and the eggs are divine (rich orange yolks that stand up proud in the pan and cook up like no eggs I have ever seen). But I hadn't been able to run into the Portland Farmers Market in a couple of weeks and had used my last egg that morning making breakfast, so I was forced to choose between organic eggs, cage-free eggs, and free-roaming eggs. I knew that the truth was that all of these birds still lead miserable existences inside cramped henhouses where they chose not to venture out of doors--who would, really, when the stream of unending food is conveniently placed right under your beak? After five minutes, I picked out a dozen eggs, feeling like I had sold a portion of my soul to the industrialized devil.

I won't bore you with my indecision about pasta, canned black beans, and whole wheat sandwich bread. But I will tell you that I felt utterly defeated and not the least bit hungry when I left the store with groceries that I was loathe to put on my table.

I know to some of you this whole rant about food may sound snooty. I would have thought so just a few short months ago. But now, knowing what I do, I question my food. Most every bit of it. And as a result, even more of my time is taken up with the act of providing food for my family, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I make breakfast every morning, and it consists of one of the following four basic meals: scrambled eggs with wheat toast, old fashioned oatmeal with raisins and brown sugar, homemade banana waffles topped with slices of the same fruit, or pancakes from scratch with some fruit topping. Add a side of fruit and a glass of organic milk, and you have breakfast in the Arnold household. I pack a lunch for myself and Lilly (Corey's a big boy and can make his own lunch if he so desires). There are not fruit snacks or pudding cups to be found--instead, we find organic yogurt, fresh or steamed veggies, fresh fruit, and a sandwich or leftovers. And don't even get me started on dinners.  Check out my notes on Facebook if you really want more details about what we're eating at suppertime and try them for yourself. The meals are much more satisfying (and healthy) than anything you can buy in a box, bag, or microwave-ready carton.

By no means does all this mean that we are "above" getting a pizza now and then, or going out to eat. But I always have a little nugget of guilt left over after such a splurge. It's hard for me to be ignorant of the food I eat anymore. When I am forced to be ignorant, I can't help but feel that I have somehow voted in favor of all those things I don't approve of--like factory farms, feedlots, and chemical pesticides. That makes those ultra-sweet Fuji apples that much harder to swallow.

Michael Pollan writes in his book In Defense of Food that the rules we need to choose the right food are really quite simple: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." How sad is it that even trying to follow these easy but basic rules leaves me sick to my stomach when shopping--for food--on a Sunday night?

Something has to change in this country. For our health, for our environment, and for our increasingly obese children. So, do you want another portion of chemically-laced, uber-processed, hormone-injected MEAL-ON-A-STICK (if so, it's on sale in nearly any aisle of your local supermarket)? If not, I say we chuck it all in a brown paper bag, toss it in the truck of a beat-up Buick Skylark, and start making a better choice (for a cleaner, healthier plate).