[conspire] (non-Linux, but CABAL-relevant:) A word from our kitchen

[Rick Moen]

I wrote:

> We at CABAL also keep having this problem concerning, oddly enough,
> things to drink:  Randoms off the street seem to expect that I'll have
> fizzy soda cans with high fructose corn syrup for them.  My household
> doesn't have that stuff _ever_, let alone push it on guests. 

This has always been the case, but attendees last Saturday may have
noticed that we at 1105 Altschul have gone a step further.

We've become aware that the intrusion of highly processed (and
taxpayer-subsidised) corn products, soy products, and wheat products
into American foods -- including meats -- has run amok, and that the
only way to end the insanity, for the sake of our health and our dining
enjoyment, is to not play the game.  People who attended this Saturday's
CABAL got to have my fresh beef stew, which was based on grass-fed
longhorn beef that I bought that morning at the Palo Alto farmer's
market, and on organic vegetables that I either bought at that market or
grew myself in my own organic garden.  The fresh salad I served: same
story, farmer's market organics and garden organics.

The health problem is real, and acute, and indisputable, and not at all
funny.  All those friends of yours, or maybe you yourself, who have been 
suffering the current American epidemic of type-2 diabetes, or
circulatory disease, or (many) cancers:  There's a considerable chance
that the "Western diet" has been a very major causative factor.

We've dumped the household's supply of soy sauce[1] and many other
commercial sauces, dumped the soy flour, and are moving towards
predominantly whole grains, whole-grain flours, more vegetables and
fruits concerning which we have confidence that they're grown for real
food value rather than just quantity and shelf life at the expense of 
real food content.  We buy and use real, non-homogenised fresh milk,
real unprocessed fresh yogurts, range-raised chicken, and so on -- foods
bought locally from farmers whose practices we have confidence in, and
not just the same old industrialised food-like stuff from the middle
aisles of the supermarket, shipped from gods-know-where.  

We've also starting politely insisting that attendees take their
leftover food _with_ them when they leave, because -- no offence -- we're
pretty sure about what we choose to buy, but not about what you do.

Not a single one of us at 1105 Altschul has ever been any variety of
food faddist, but we're dead-serious that this is better food from every
perspective, much better for our health _and_ better tasting.

And we're still not going to have fizzy water crammed with high-fructose
corn syrup.  And, if you bring your own, you'll definitely need to take
your extras home with you.  Please.


In case any of you wants to read more:

o  All local farmers' markets:
   http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/farmers-markets.html

o  Essential reading, Michael Pollan's _In Defense of Food_ (note free PDF
   copy of chapter 1):  http://www.michaelpollan.com/indefense.php

o  Upcoming limited-release film, "Food, Inc.":
   http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/food_inc/

[1] We bought organic tamari to replace the dumped commercial soy sauce, 
which is quite hazardous to one's health:  Shoyu and tamari are fine in
moderate quantities, as are other _fermented_ soy products such as tofu,
tempeh, miso, and natto.  Soy lecithin is also more-or-less fine.
Cultures from which we picked up soy production -- China, Japan,
Indonesia -- all learned over hundreds of years that fermentation is
necessary to remove harmful components -- and that is precisely what is
_not_ done with the soy crammed into a large percentage of industrialised
food.  See: http://www.soyonlineservice.co.nz/  http://www.soyinfo.com/