FOOD GUILT

I started to get hungry at about 5pm and couldn't decide what to eat because my fridge is starting to get a bit empty and I didn't want to spend a couple of hours figuring out what to make, prepping, cooking and then cleaning up.  So I went over to the mall thinking I would get something there.  I wandered around trying to figure out what to eat and started thinking about WHAT NOT TO EAT.  I live in an area that has an over abundant amount of Sushi and Korean and other Asian type of restaurants.  I started thinking about Sushi.  I love Sushi Pizza and love raw Tuna and Salmon but I started thinking about a couple of things.

1.  Tuna isn't a sustainable fish.
2.  Lots of fish has mercury in it and also sometimes a risk if eaten raw.

Even though I was craving a Sushi Pizza and some tuna tartare I decided to skip that because I need to limit that to eating it less often.

Then I went down the street to get something and passed The Burger's Priest and thought a burger might be good for dinner.  But then I had a couple of issues with that.

1.  I just saw on the news another case of Mad Cow Disease and thought that there is always a risk of eating meat that clears the system but shouldn't.
2.  Eating red meat is bad for the environment because it takes so much resources to process beef.
3.  Eating red meat adds risk for heart disease.
4.  Eating charred red meat can also be toxic as some people have said in the past.
5.  Eating a burger has fat, and is placed in a white bread processed bun and topped with high salt and high sugar laden condiments.

Skip that idea.

Then I thought about getting Chinese Food.  Had a look at the food in the food court and changed my mind because:

1.  Most of the things that looked good were breaded and deep fried.
2.  Chinese food sometimes contains MSG.
3.  Chinese food is high in sodium because of the Soya sauce and other sauces used sometimes.
4.  A lot of the food didn't look very fresh and was mostly high fat meats and bland or sauced up vegetables.

Skip that..

Then I thought about having Greek Food,  probably the best of the bunch but I wasn't in the mood for that and in thinking about it there are still a couple of issues but not as bad as some of the other things.

1.  Pita bread is made with processed white flour and doesn't have much nutrition.
2.  Feta cheese is high in sodium and can be high in fat but luckily not loaded on to salads too much.
3.  The salad they use is typically just iceberg lettuce so there aren't a whole lot of nutrients there.

Skipped that because I just wasn't feeling it.

So after an hour of wandering around and trying to figure out what to eat I was not at the point of "I need to eat something now" stage.  So I gave up on the What is the best thing to eat hunt and broke down and just got the typical:

FAST, EASY and CHEAP dinner.   but Oh did I ever have a lot of guilt eating it, but at the same time it tasted so good.

What did I eat?

 

Yup I gave in and at a Pepperoni Pizza from Pizza Pizza.   The only saving grace on my food guilt was that I at least did it as a charitable act.  This week if you order a medium pepperoni pizza from 

Pizza Pizza they donate money to charity.

I never get Pepperoni Pizza's and would probably have gotten more veggies and skipped the pepperoni but after eating it I can see why so many people order Pepperoni Pizza's.   Because they taste GOOD.

I still have food guilt because the pizza had white crust, more processed bad white stuff, and then there's the mozzarella cheese,  let's add some more fat to the pizza and then there is the Pepperoni.. the worst offender of the lot with most likely some sort of beef and most likely nitrates and who knows what else in it.   The only semi healthy thing on this pizza was the tomato sauce but if it came from a can then there is always the BPA in the can and whatever else they used in the processing of it.

FOOD GUILT..   It's really bad but I can see why so many people give up on their diets or are challenged when they try and become Vegans.

I love Food,  I love a variety of Food, and I love Food that is sometimes bad for me.   

Sometimes it's just a lot harder to find fresh, organic, local, healthy, unprocessed, un junked food when you are hungry.   So if you are like me,  you just crumble and give in to your screaming stomach and eat what it wants instead of what you brain knows you really should be eating.

Maybe there should be a Food Confessional where people could go to confess their Food Sins.   Oh Yeah.. that's what this Blog is for.     

Feel free to confess your Food Sins here in the comments section.

There is always tomorrow to do better.

Earth Day Soup

Vegetable Soup

It's hard not to waste food when you try to buy Organic Foods and cook for One so I decided to make a soup today in honour of Earth Day. I had greens and other vegetables that were on the verge of starting to go bad and I am getting tired of throwing out food that has gone bad so I decided to make a huge pot of soup to preserve the vegetables that I had on hand and divert them from going into the garbage instead.

  

My Earth Day Soup Contains:

Red Cabbage
Red Onions
Garlic
Celery
Potatoes
Collard Greens
Baby Spinach
Swiss Chard
Fresh Thyme
Bay leaves
Salt
Pepper
Saffron threads
Chili flakes
tomato paste
Red pepper and a splash of red wine vinegar



 This is what I had in my fridge that I thought would go together well and make a tasty soup. I had broccoli but decided to skip that. But you can use whatever you have on hand that you like. I am not going to bother to list quantities because the purpose of this soup is to use what you have so that you don't waste food. We throw away half of the food we buy each year. You know when your mother used to say "there are people starving in Africa", well unfortunately that's true. Because of global warming and the declining economy and the abuse of the farming lands on the planet we will all have to think about food security one day. For me it's a matter of economics and concious. I can't afford to throw away food and I feel bad throwing away food when I know that there are people that can't afford to eat healthy meals. Make some Earth Day Soup and pass it around if you can.

 Freeze it, share it, Eat it...but don't waste it.

Food packaging waste

For the documentary I am working on EcoLosers we visited a Waste Management Site in Halton. While I wasn't really shocked at the amount of garbage in the landfill, I actually thought it would be more but they seem to have a great system of diverting a lot of the trash out of the landfill. But one of the things that occurred to me was the amount of waste produced for food packaging. We saw a lot of Tim Horton's cups and after asking a question to our guide John I realized that some of the so called improvements to some fast food places weren't actually better for other things. The example being that Swiss Chalet now produces a container that separates the food into individual little sections in a huge plastic container and then the knife and fork are wrapped up in little plastic bags, extra things like desserts are packed in plastic or styrofoam containers and then the whole thing is put in a plastic bag. None of these things are recyclable. Swiss Chalet used to put their dinners in a foil container with a foil and paper lid. The foil containers are recyclable. Your food may be all nice and perfect when you get it home but the package will live on forever in a pile somewhere on earth. Some companies have attempted to use less packaging or packaging that is easier to recycle but there are still a lot out there that need improvement. The other food waste comes in just buying food from the grocery store, even if you are just buying fruits and vegetables there are the plastic containers berries come in that aren't recyclable, the rubber band that is on the asparagus, the wire ties, the plastic bags you have to put your bulk items or bundle of fruits and vegetables in. You now have the option of bringing your own grocery bags but if you forget like I do many times or can't be bothered then add the plastic bag that you have to pay 5 cents for that will be around longer than you will. What we realized from our site visit is that no matter how hard you try to be as green as possible there are still too many things in our convenience filled industrial world that will make it impossible to have zero waste. But we need to have some creative people find some new creative solutions. All the garbage that has been produced in the past that isn't biodegradable will be around forever and we can't change that, but we need to find solutions to new products and packaging so that we can reduce the amount of stuff we have to truck to these landfill sites, therefore reducing the amount of garbage we dump on our planet. This is a call to all the smart people out there that can come up with creative solutions that will work to solve these issues. I don't think the answer will be having everyone become their own farmers but maybe cities need to be built with zoning of a certain amount of community gardens or maybe certain packaging products need to be banned, or maybe packaging designers need to design packages that biodegrade 100%, or maybe we all need to get educated a lot more to figure out how to avoid producing the kind of garbage we can't get rid of. I don't have the answer but I have some ideas, but I know there are people out there who can make a difference. If it's you then you have to do your best to try and solve this problem. Nobody wants to see kids with nowhere to play because there are no green spaces left because they have all become landfill. Think it can't happen?.. Remember the garbage strike a couple of years ago when they put the garbage in a hockey rink and park? It can happen so let's all do our part to make a difference.