Where Did Your Corn Grow?

It's no secret that Woolworths and Coles together hold a duopoly over the Australian Grocery market. Whether you are discussing the wine market, the devastating effect it is currently having on our dairy farmers, or the consequences of their sheer market power due to their ~80% share, it's all bad news.

Except of course for you the consumer, you get a great deal, in fact it's a steal. Because your savings are coming straight out of the pockets of our local farmers and if we don't start taking care of them, pretty soon we won't have any. Not to mention the true cost to the environment doing crazy things like transporting oranges from California to Australia aren't even considered in the monetary equation.

What's the solution? Farmers markets are becoming more and more popular, which is great, but they are typically only on once a week, with a 3-6 hour window.

On my recent 6500 km drive across Australia, I stayed a few days with my sister in Canberra. Her local shops contained one of the coolest shops I've ever visited! Choku Bai Jo sells produce from local farmers. The goal for the shop was to give farmers another outlet for their fresh produce making it easier for the public to access it.

What a great idea!

 

 

The farmers name, growing region and distance from Canberra are listed whenever possible.

 

 

In case you can't read the blue sign in this photo it says

 

 EVERYTHING WITH A COLOURED LABEL

IS FROM A LOCAL GROWER WE KNOW AND TRUST.

 

I don't expect supermarkets to do this, they operate with such big volumes. These days woolies have maps with little green dots of growing regions, but you don't know WHERE exactly your particular cucumber came from in this wide land of ours.

 

 

My sister grabbing some grapes.

The corn in this photo was from Mona Park in Queensland, some 2215 km from Canberra. I don't think even Australians appreciate the true expanse of our country. It makes the argument for buying locally grown tricky. But shouldn't we be making an informed choice regardless?

Its a complicated problem, with no simple solution, but I know every carrot you buy at a farmers market is a win for local growers. Support them!

 

Buy local honey!

 

 

.... blue signs all round, would you care for some local cabbage?

 

www.chokubaijo.com.au

What exactly is a lifestyle drink?

The "lifestyle drink" section in one of the major supermarket chains has always bothered me. It makes me laugh every time I walk past it. Who came up with this? What does a sugary drink have to do with lifestyle? It's mostly iced teas and sports drinks with a few alcohol free wines and beers.

 

 

Speaking of sugary drinks, a couple of days ago, the Australia Governments National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) released their revised dietary guidelines (which happens every 10 years) and for the first time they recommended people "limit added sugar", especially in drinks. Placing it in the same category as added salt and alcohol. I thought it already was.

 

Their strongest evidence-based argument is that; when people indulge in a sugary drink they don't consider these calories as significant and are not likely to cut back on other foods. 

 

Like Oprah says, "don't drink your calories!"

 

The Australian Food and Grocery Council (AFGC) oppose this new recommendation on the premise that there isn't enough scientific evidence to support it. Dr Geoffrey Robinson, Deputy CEO of the AFGC states that "the jury should still be sitting on the fence on that one". He goes on to say that "there's been evidence even in the last couple of months indicating that sugar is no more than a carbohydrate" Seriously? How does this guy sleep at night? It's like the climate change argument. How much scientific evidence do you need? What about common sense?

 

Why don't we all just survive on processed cheese, white bread, sports drinks, fruit roll-ups and multi-vitamins? Sounds to me like good old Geoffery would approve.

 

These guidelines are based on thousands of peer reviewed papers. I'm so proud of the NHMRC for standing their ground on this one. I'm sure we don't appreciate how much pressure they would have been under going against the AFGC's own recommendations.

 

Which brings me back to the "lifestyle drinks" section in the supermarket. I fundamentally object to the categorisation of a sugary drink being related to lifestyle. It gives it a positive connotation e.g. if you drink Gatorade/Powerade, therefore you must be a hardcore sportsman; or drinking iced tea is good for you because it contains antioxidants.

For the record, I think sports drinks are a gimmick and the majority of people who drink them, don't need to. And the antioxidant properties of your iced tea are more than likely counterbalanced by the added sugar and artificial flavours it contains. If you want antioxidants, why don't you just have a cup of tea?

I admit I drink the occasional soft drink or iced tea. I'm not saying we should cut them out completely. What I am saying is that I don't understand how the average person thinks its okay to drink these things on a daily basis.

One third of men and just over half the women in Australia are over weight or obese. How did we get so lost? How sad that it's our governments responsibility to give us healthy eating guidelines in the first place? The rich knowledge of generations past has been lost and now we don't seem to know how to eat.

If only the NHMRC guidelines could be "eat food, not too much, mostly plants" - (Michael Pollan, In defense of Food). But people seem to have forgotten, what is "food". It certainly doesn't include "lifestyle drinks".

 

Sorry for my blog hiatus, I've moved interstate and well, life gets complicated sometimes. I have lots of food posts coming though, so please keep reading!

Is it time for gluten-free?

It’s pretty trendy to go gluten-free these days, the Paleolthic diet for example has an almost cult-like following these days. Personally I believe total elimination of any single food group is a tad extreme and should be avoided wherever possible; although if you’re a celiac you don’t have that luxury.

 

The key to a healthy diet is lots of fruits and vegetables, with everything else in moderation, but moderation is a tricky thing to quantify. A typical western diet can contain up to 3-4 serves of gluten based foods every day, not exactly what you would call moderation.

 

I’ve had IBS since I was a kid. A few years back I had all kinds of tests, only to be told, “hmmm there doesn’t seem to be anything seriously wrong with you. You have IBS”. Followed by some sketchy advice about how to manage it. All this really meant was that this particular medical professional didn’t have a clue what was wrong with me. I am not alone.

I know some people diagnosed with IBS have had success undergoing the long, tedious process of strict elimination diets -  no processed sugar, alcohol, caffeine, dairy and gluten. Where slowly you reintroduce one element and see how your stomach reacts. The only thing is food intolerance's have been shown to be cumulative, making the whole elimination diet path a drawn out, challenging process. Not to mention, who really wants to know they shouldn't eat donuts?

 

Over the years I have identified a few triggers, roasted red capsicum, roasted pumpkin, too many chickpea based dinners, red meat and high fat foods all cause me grief if I over indulge. As far as dairy is concerned, I only eat cheese and cream in small, infrequent amounts, whereas cows milk out. Interestingly a daily serve of natural yogurt seems to cause me no grief at all.

 

So why am I talking about this now? I have some reoccurring issues with my lower back and recently my osteopath suggested my digestive issues and lower back problems might be linked. I put up with my IBS because I can tolerate the side effects. However the lower back stuff is pretty shitty and if they are in fact linked, I'd even consider giving up alcohol if it would make it stop.

 

As a result, over the past month and a half I have been experimenting on myself. Ten days without any gluten based foods, then a few days with and I am sad to report I think there is a direct correlation between my stomach’s happiness and my consumption of gluten. This is one of the main reasons why I haven’t blogged.

 

So for now breakfast is a rolled oat, puffed rice, coconut, almond and apricot muesli, often prepared the night before with a spoon full of yogurt and 1/8th of a cup of water. Making it super creamy in the morning. Lunches are the hardest, I’ve been alternating potato, sweet potato and chickpeas with salad. Making eggplant dip or humus has also been a nice lunch time snack. I'm also partial to an apple, some cheese, sultanas and nuts. In an attempt to not impose my gluten free efforts on my boy I had bolognaise sauce with chickpeas the other day while he had pasta. I tell you it wasn’t half bad.

 

I see this as an intolerance issue, I’m not giving it up for good… because well I don’t want to. I’m also hoping in time, after it's had a break, my tummy will protest less when I indulge in the occasional piece of cake or toast.

Wholesome wholemeal toast



I was raised on wholemeal bread and as a child I always found it boring. On the rare occasion a loaf of white bread made it into our house, it was consumed within hours. It's no surprise I've been compensating ever since, often through my love of Italian breads and sourdoughs. I know wholemeal bread is "better" for you. I know some people even consider white flour as "poison". Considering I'm such a health nut you'd be right in questioning why I indulge my childish white bread desires at all. It's pretty simple, if you don't want to think too much about something, you generally don't.

 

This has all changed, thanks to reading Michael Pollans brilliant book, "In Defense of Food". Just one of the thousand thought provoking ideas contained within this book concerns the lack of health benefits in refined grains. The process of refining wheat,  making your brown flour white, removes the bran and the germ, taking fibre, protein, vitamins, minerals and goodness knows what else with it. So according to my "whole egg philosophy" eating white bread and white rice is equivalent to eating two minute noodles! As far as your high fibre or omega 3 enriched white breads are concerned, once again - how can you honestly think refining something, then adding back the handful of things nutritional science considers important (not to mention the 10 other things they add to it to keep it on the shelf longer and taste as much like white bread as possible, because that's what consumers want), will have the same health benefits as eating the unrefined wholemeal bread in the first place.

 

None of this is really breaking news. My big revelation in all this is that white flour is basically empty calories. I assess all foods based on whether or not I think the calories are worth consuming. For example, there are many high calorie foods I love and eat without guilt, like chocolate, cream, mayonnaise, cheese, chicken thighs etc. On the flip side I think hot chips are okay, but I don't get too excited about them,  so generally I only eat a couple (because I know they are pretty high in calories and I'd rather eat something else).

 

In a very long winded way I'm tryng to explain that the way I view white bread has shifted. I now consider it in the same category as a packet of two minute noodles or a lamington. I like lamingtons and two minute noodles, I eat them, but not every day.

 

To finish up, during winter I usually eat porridge for breakfast, occasionally switching to toast when I can't face the porridge, here are some recent wholemeal toast breakfasts I've had...

 

An egg with (real) butter and heinz baked beans, with a cup of ceylon
orange pekoe tea with soy milk.

 

honey and ricotta

 

Smoked salmon, ricotta, tomato, capers and spring onion

 

Tomato, cheddar cheese, olive oil salt & pepper