Chemicals vs animals

BuzzFeed posted a video on the site entitled Disturbing Facts About What You're Drinking.
I encourage you to watch it, and let me know what you think.

I saw this video, and it neither surprised me, nor disgusted me.  Clearly, it was designed to gross out everyone who saw it, and that simple fact made me think about the priorities that we hold in our food choices.  (In fact, I took an entire class on food values this last summer with Ellen Messer, one of the best professors I've had.)

It occurred to me that I don't have a problem with using animal products in foods in place of chemicals that will do the same job.  I would rather have little bugs crushed into my red flavored beverages than a chemical mixture that would never occur in nature.  Dried fish bladder doesn't super bother me either... Obviously, fecal matter in the tubes of fountain soda machines is gross...so I'm not going to agree that everything in the video is ok, but it's interesting how we are supposed to be disgusted by some things that are more "natural" than the commonly used alternatives.

What do you guys think?  Would you rather inject chemicals or animals?  How does the size or type of the animal change your thoughts?

-Bethy

Epic Diamond Road Trip - Day 2 Part 3: A Very Polish Dinner in Montreal

J and I went back to our hotel room after the basilica, changed, and redeemed our complimentary drink coupons (another perk of J being a baller!) in the hotel bar - I got red wine (how refined!  I know, I know, and uncharacteristic...don't worry, I made it up by ordering lots of beers later...) and we set out into Old City Montreal for dinner.

Gorgeous sky.  Don't worry, I wasn't standing in the middle
of the street with oncoming cars, it just looks like it.

We passed a Canadian First Nations store while we were winding down the very European-esque streets, and I had to take a picture.  The similarities between this art and Native Alaskan art were many (for obvious reasons) and it made me miss Alaska in a pretty extreme way.  The shop was closed, but I spent a good long time looking in the window.

We ended up at a Polish restaurant called Stash Cafe (um, could this get any better?!?) that was the right price for the right amount of class - after all, I WAS wearing a pretty dress, and I didn't want to be overdressed for the occasion.

I saw this dress, and had to have it.
Target clearance, you are so good to me sometimes...

 The menu in both French and English...although I like to think that I would have been able to explain to J what everything was just fine even if it hadn't been in English at all.

Fun placemats

James got the kielbasa dinner, which looked fabulous (and honestly, if I had seen it before ordering, might have swayed me...J let me taste a little bit of everything on his plate and it was FANTASTIC!)

I, of course, looked at the menu and got immediately overwhelmed by all of my choices - remember, this trip was in August - it had been since Easter that I had eaten any Polish food, and everything on the menu was making my mouth water.  As usual, when I get overwhelmed, I opt for the first thing that I see, and the thing that I know that I'll enjoy.  I went for the bigos, which is hunter's stew.  Basically, it's one of those "everything but the kitchen sink" meals - SO GOOD.  

The best bigos that I've ever had in my life I had when I went to Poland with my mother when I was 17.  We stayed with hosts through the Servas program all over the country for two weeks.  One of the families that we stayed with made bigos for lunch one day, and I could not believe how amazing it was.  I was still a quite picky 17 year old eater, and here I was, hungrily noshing on a stew made with God-knows-what by people who had no idea what my taste preferences were and didn't care.  The first bite was purely polite - the second (and every bite after) was because my mouth was in heaven.

This bigos was quite good.  Not quite as good as the first bowl of bigos ever, but damn good.

It doesn't look like much, but WHOO BOY!!

J got one beer, I got one beer, we each had half of each

The restaurant had a piano player who
played for most of our meal.  Super classy.

Street art

This scene just reminded me of traipsing around Europe in my late teens

We then proceeded to head off to a bar for a drink, and then another bar for another drink, and then another bar for another drink....

Delicious food, great company, amazing city.


-Bethy

Interesting HuffPo article

I thought this was interesting - the New Year's Resolutions we wish for Big Food.

It's a quick read, and definitely worth it to look at what some of the biggest problems with our food system are.

New Year's Resolutions for Big Food

-Bethy

Epic Diamond Road Trip - Day 2 Part 2: An Afternoon in Montreal

 This post begins where the last dropped off - right before we left the country.  This is mostly pictures, with just a few spurts of exposition here and there...

Getting ready to leave the country

Everyone else wants to leave America too!

aaaaaand here we go into non-English land

lots of corn grown right across the border

The wonders of technology... I was charging my
additional camera battery while James was driving

The scenes were extremely pastoral

The road signs were all in French, but understandable
enough to my 10th grade French skills...mostly

The weather was overcast, actually not too bad for driving.  We ended up having great weather for most of the trip, and it was nice to have a day without sun beating down on us.  The first glimpse of Montreal was drizzly and foggy...and completely gorgeous.

More French

Chinatown gate

From the top of Mont Royal, a huge hill overlooking the city that is a massive park

From Mont Royal, we saw the 1976 Olympic Stadium - for the first time.  I'll post more details about it later with the close-up pics.  Pretty sweet architecture though.

The 1976 Summer Olympic Stadium from the top of Mont Royal

J and the raccoon sign...hilarious

We stopped so I could go to the bathroom.
I took about 2 steps out of the car, slipped, and bit it in the mud.  Excellent.

Cooler sammie.  Delish.

...and chips.  Because road trip.  America.

J and the city in black and white

They had a piano out on the plaza for anyone to play

The cross on top of Mont Royal

City under construction

This is a wonderful picture of Canada vs America right here

Across the street from our hotel

James and I stayed in the Holiday Inn Select Centre Ville (which is a fancy (i.e. French) way of saying Center City).  It was located at the edge of Chinatown, right across the street from the convention center, and just a block or two from the basilica.  James got an upgraded room that had not one, but TWO bathrooms in it.  (TWO?!?!  Say WHAT?!?!  What does anyone staying in one bedroom with one bed need two bathrooms for?  Anyway...I didn't hate it.)  So there's a massive bathroom, a living room area, and two bathrooms.  Baller.

Bathroom number 1 - normal for a hotel

Bathroom number 2 - possibly larger than my entire Boston apartment

Then we headed out to visit the basilica - it was just a few blocks from the hotel.  Incredible.

Notre-Dame Basilica

I know it's been a long time, but I'll try to keep getting these posts up soon...

The night out in Montreal and our delicious Polish dinner next!!

-Bethy

That lengthy hiatus from blogging brought to you by...

...quite a few things, in fact.  (And honestly, I'm still about a week away from being able to spend some serious time working on posts...)

As soon as I can catch my breath, expect some posts about all the food related things that have been happening in my life, including:
*End of the semester/final projects
*My new job in a swanky office building downtown
*Making sauerkraut with one of the big ballers in the Boston fermentation world
*Brewing and then bottling beer in my kitchen
*At least 3 or 4 recipes and pictures from my Polish Christmas dinner.


Until then, eat well,

Bethy

This is a Public Service Announcement

I'm in my bedroom in Boston right now listening to NPR reporters talk about a salmonella outbreak that's happening in chicken coming out of California.  Some CDC employees are being brought out of furlough so they can work on this.  This is scary.

Obviously, being aware about what you are eating and where it came from is something I encourage people to do all the time, everyday.  I am literally getting a masters degree in this.  People need to be more aware about what they put into their bodies.  But I know that not everyone cares, or have the resources to do this all the time.  I'd be lying if I said that I did it all the time.  I eat more breakfasts at Dunkies than I would like to admit.

But the government is shut down right now.  Food inspections aren't being done because staff are being furloughed.  Food inspections.  INSPECTIONS ON THE FOOD THAT IS IN THIS COUNTRY.

If you trusted the government with ensuring that the food you eat is good.  And by "good" here, I don't mean tasty - I mean safe to eat.  If you trusted the government with this before (and if you did, please, let's talk about that, I've got some information that you should know) be assured - these inspections aren't happening with the frequency that they were.

So please friends, now, more than ever -

*Buy foods that you know the source of.  (I'm not talking about the grocery store here - I'm talking about country of origin)
*Make sure you are cooking foods appropriately and thoroughly.  (Sure - rare meat is some people's idea of a good time.  But I wouldn't go there if I didn't know the farm that the meat came from.)
*This is the best time to explore local food systems.
*Make sure that you are checking for food recalls/investigations that are happening.  
*Educate yourself. The information is out there.


Stay safe friends, I don't want anyone getting sick from tainted chicken...



-Bethy

Epic Diamond Road Trip - Day 2, Part 1: Burlington, VT

J and I woke up from our car camping (in the most literal way) and hit the road early.  Before we left the rest stop, I snapped a few pictures - one educational, one environmental.  Both worthy of a look.

I learned about the beginnings of the interstate system in 11th grade -
one of those kind of random, pretty useless things that Ms. Konrad taught me
that has stuck through the years...

"We've got plans for your bottles and cans."
If every recycle bin rhymed at people,
maybe we would all recycle more...

We were just a 15 or so minute drive from Burlington.  I was SO excited to show James this city in Vermont that I had been to for the first time in June, and absolutely fell in love with.  Once again, it did not disappoint.  We just went through the city, got some breakfast, and kept on going.  That beautiful country to the north was calling...

Down the hill into downtown Burlington

I'm pretty sure you couldn't get a more beautiful blend of colors...gorgeous.

Have coffee, have flowers for my amazing friends Erin and Chris, have everything I need...

For my morning caffeine fix, James and I stopped at Uncommon Grounds, a coffee shop located downtown on Church St.  They source their baked goods locally, and the place smells delicious.  When I was in Burlington in June, I spent a few hours in there studying.  Heaven.

For food, I had a bagel from the Market Basket in Concord, and we stopped in City Market, Burlington's local co-op for cream cheese.  City Market has these fantastic little signs in bright neon telling you if the product is local or organic, or both.  Honestly, it's refreshing.  As most people who are interested in food do, I look at price vs. values claims when trying to decide what to buy.  I enthusiastically picked up some local cream cheese without any hesitation or desire to eat the Philadelphia cream cheese that was $.20 cheaper.

Breakfast - coffee, bagel, cream cheese.

Caffeine goodness.

Sallying forth to 89!

Part of the awesomeness of the car we rented was
the radio that told us what song was playing. 

It was the first real pop of fall colors.  Just that tiny bit.

Seriously, if you've never been to Vermont, it pretty much all looks like this.  Too pretty.

Getting gas in gallons one last time before we had to start buying it in liters

Next post - Montreal!

-Bethy