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comments: trickbumper-submit@yahoo.com
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Tuesday, August 31, 2004
I wrote this on the bus 2nd Avenue bus as an exercise. I thought I would re-write it ten times in different ways. Dialogue, points of view, style changes, etc. But so far it hasn't been done.
Why Waste Food
There are many convincing reasons not to waste food, but the more I think about the “people are starving in China” indoctrinations that mothers tell to their skinny children, the less I am convinced that wasting food is a bad thing. Actually I’ll tell you why I think it is a good thing.
People are starving in Africa, in India, but not here. What I don’t eat here isn’t going to get to them. Sure I could save some money by not eating as expensively or buying as much and send that money to them. But I could do the same with my rent or clothing. The money I could send really hasn’t much to do with the food I use myself. Basic food for starving people is not that expensive.
Here there is an abundance of food; all varieties, high quality. And that is why we should waste it. Just think what would happen if there were a few bad crop years. A couple of blights of some kind that reduce farm production, kill off the cattle, etc. Seven good years and seven bad, as the bible once suggested. Well we could have a food shortage – we who have so much. Therefore I think it is better to use more than we need now, so that it will be easier to reduce in the future.
I might add that for a long time the US government was paying farmers not to farm and also buying grain and just storing it. I think they have stopped doing these things; perhaps we should all individually store some food.
Another reason that it is good to waste food is the weight problem. So many are over weight and even those who aren’t are trying not to become over weight. When you go to a restaurant, you are inevitably served a huge portion – more than you would ordinarily plan to eat. Since it is there in front of you, you start eating and before you know it, you are finishing the last morsel of that tasty dish. Well I find it helpful in the exercise of willpower and restraint to sit down with the intention of wasting food. At least plan to leave some leftovers.
Tuesday, August 31, 2004
Saturday, August 28, 2004
Several weeks ago to lose weight I decided not to eat. I thought about how every year I don’t eat or drink for the 24 hours of the Jewish new year. How much easier it would be just not to eat! So I stopped eating. My immediate motivation was that a girl I liked had told me how she’d lost interest in a guy after he gained weight; he was no longer sexy. And I myself have always had a major aversion to becoming fat. But it has a way of creeping up – last winter when my mother came to visit me in St. Barths, she told me she was very thin because she had had a flu for a month. During that month she had no appetite. As it turned out, she still didn’t – unless I was eating too. I ate to get her to eat and we both gained weight.
After I started fasting I thought about the man in London who had caged himself in a hanging platform for over a month with no food. And of the “hunger artist” from Franz Kafka I had read in college. I was curious: is it harmful to fast? And if not, for how long? I knew that experiments with mice showed that under-feeding them increases their life spans. I thought that my energy level would probably decline after a little while.
My current method of choice whenever I have a question is to search the web. There I learned about juice fasts – not eating but drinking juices – that are surprisingly in vogue. Some people fast for a week, others for a month. Some combine fasting with meditation. Some have been said to fast for 60 days. There was information about the physiology of fasting. The first few days use up amino acids; then your body switches to lipids.
As I fasted I found that on two or three occasions I had a real urge to go have a big breakfast. I told myself I could go do it, but when the morning came I resisted and waited until I no longer felt the urge. The first day or two I ate something – a banana I think. Each day I said to myself tomorrow will be the last day. And then tomorrow came and I thought why not go another day. I took long walks and found myself full of unexpected energy. I was reminded of the pet mice I had as a child that would scramble around with lots of activity when they were hungry. A biological reaction to help them find food I had thought. Eventually I fasted for four and a half days. I found it a tremendously liberating experience as I realized that I was not dependent on eating food every day or even every week.
I found that having some juice made the fasting much easier in terms of how well or not tired I felt. It seems that the brain is especially glucose dependent, so having a little each day makes the fasting process easier. Drinking juice or eating a banana didn’t bother me and made sense – a little food is more natural than none at all. And it shouldn’t hurt my ability to lose weight. Except for a couple of short times when I desired to eat, I was never hungry – even at the end of my fast. I estimate that after the four and a half days I lost about 2 pounds of pure fat. Fat goes a long way in storing energy. I had read a book by William Bebee about the Galapagos. He told how the giant tortoises would be captured for food by boats passing by. They would be kept in the ships’ holds for six months or more with no food – and unfortunately they tasted delicious when finally eaten. I realize now that people, especially overweight ones, also have a surprising ability to go without food.
I would have easily kept fasting longer. I stopped because I was going to an important meeting and thought I should be well fuelled. In retrospect I don’t think it made a difference: I would have been just as alert if I hadn’t eaten. But, oh how good that food tasted! Though I wasn’t hungry and didn’t scarf down the soul food I bought, everything tasted full of delicious nuanced flavor with bright tastes like it had when I was a child. The collard greens, the turkey, the banana bread pudding – each burst with its own flavors.
Saturday, August 28, 2004
Thursday, August 26, 2004
In May I went to Roscoe with my brother to try fly fishing. We were able to stay at a cottage connected to a beautiful small manor. We went to one of the stores there, met a guide, got fitted with waders and bought a fishing license. Then we drove to the stream.
I saw some amazing things on this fly fishing trip. And I learned a lot of surprising things about how some flying insects are born. For instance the troutlike to eat Mayflies that rest on the surface of the stream. But these Mayflies only are on the stream a short time. They are born underwater as some kind of aquatic bug. One day they start to turn into a flying insect and rise to the surface where they stay until their wings dry out and they fly away.
I saw an ugly bug that looked like a cross between a beetle and a tick crawling out of the water up our guide's boot. What do you think it was? A dragonfly nymph. It was trying to crawl onto land to turn into a dragonfly. And it had a lot of company. Looking carefully on the shore I could see (with a little pointing out) lots of these half inch brown bugs. And they would start to wiggle and squirm. Eventually they'd break a hole in their skin just around the neck and stick out a head with giant eyes. Then they'd stand with their front legs on top of the shell of their old selves as they tried to pull out their wings and long tails. The wings would be all rolled up and gradually unroll. After about a half hour, they'd fly away on cellephane-clear wings. I hadn't even known they ever lived under water or that they metamorphosed.
I could say a little about fly fishing, but I'll just mention that you have to watch your fly lure very closely to see if a fish is checking it out. That is not easy to do.
Thursday, August 26, 2004
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