Gloom, Doom, Diets and Food Security

So....it's been a dreary winter. I moved back east all pumped for snow and frosty mornings, and got...gray. And ice. And one blown forecast after another. Friends, this winter BLEW. And those of you in places that got five times more snow than you wanted, I know you weren't happy either. Meanwhile, Seattle seems to have had the most gloriously sunny winter in the history of time, which the Facebook has informed me of on a daily basis. Do we miss it? Yes. Yes, we do. 

The gloom has led to me wanting nothing but mounds of pasta - but EPH began a dietary change in January that, frankly, has saved me from myself. He has been doing the Whole30 program, and since we eat dinner together that means I have been doing Whole30 dinners, at least in January and March (he cycled off in February, and we were to Europe - so that worked out well for everyone). 

I'm not going to use this space to go pro or con on any diet, much less one that is basically a more extreme version of paleo - which inspires MANY opinions from people one way or another. I will say that in a season when I tend to consume cheesy noodles and chocolate at alarming rates, I was prevented from doing so, and am healthier for it. There are things I definitely do not agree with in this program, though, so am not shilling for it here - but it's been good to be forced into eating mainly whole foods. 

The restrictions of the diet have meant our dinners have been simple - meats or fishes, and vegetables. No sauces whatsoever, so simple searing, steaming, etc, using only seasonings. The rules are also pretty firm about the proteins coming from clean sources. This has meant, in essence, that we have been sticking with organic/free range meats/fishes (the latter wild-caught), and organic produce as well. It has meant that our grocery bill has gone up, and that there is limited - if any - "convenience" food in the menu - although it also means we barely eat out as following this system in a restaurant is basically "a side of steamed vegetables, please, hold the butter sauce." 

I've talked here before about the issue of hunger in low-income communities, but experiments like this really just drive home the point that eating truly clean and healthy foods - and it has been proven that the sourcing of the protein does translate into how healthy it is, in measurable ways like cholesterol and GI effects - is incredibly expensive, often prohibitively so. Yes, there are tradeoffs in every dietary choice - and there are ways to eat healthy on low budgets if you are creative and have access to options - but access is such a huge and under-addressed part of the conversation. We are lucky that we have a terrific grocery store, and that I have a car to drive to it. If my options were corner stores whose produce section is one stray banana, and long bus rides on which food may spoil, the simple goal of eating whole foods, unprocessed, within a reasonable nutrition standard while on a limited budget would be like having a goal of sprouting wings...maybe even more laughable. As we do this Whole30, I have friends who, as a Lenten exercise and fundraiser, are living on a SNAP budget for the month. Needless to say, these two average meals are so far at odds it's hard to believe we're in the same culture, globally speaking. 

This has to stop, y'all. We cannot continue to let this country be a place where people who can't afford or access decent food then end up with health conditions requiring care and/or medications that they also cannot afford or access thanks to subsisting on a terrible diet, which is all that is realistically available. If you've read this far, thanks. I don't have action items for you. I have - and always will - encourage supporting your local food banks, informing yourselves on these issues (I would hope you wouldn't be willing to just take my word for it), and generally remembering that we are only as strong as our weakest neighbor, to tweak the quote. 

Okay, soapbox vacated. Real posts coming again soon. 

On 8-legged neighbors: a digression

The Pacific northwest is a pretty spidery place. We don't really have a mosquito problem, or a lot of other "buggy" issues that seem to plague the rest of the country (at least here in the city, anyway), so we're lucky there. But we have got SPIDERS. Lots of 'em. Which I guess probably is related. But I digress. Around this time every year, these spiders are suddenly ginormous. Like, ridiculous big momma spiders. Prior to living out here, I had a firm conviction that the biggest spiders could be found in Harrisburg - my office was on the 10th floor, and even up there they'd have these whoppers (on the outside of the windows, thankfully). There were urban myths that these spiders were some sort of mutant, a descendant of the spider victims of the Three Mile Island disaster, as TMI isn't that far from Harrisburg. Whether this was true, I don't know, but my first season in Portland trumped all those spiders. I've mostly gotten used to it now, but every so often we have these whoppers a little too close for comfort. This morning, I went out to water my plants (we've had something like .02 inches of rain over the past 53 days or so), and stopped dead in the doorway - the spiders, the big hosses, are here - and they're setting up shop in my bamboo, which a) needs watering and b) is awfully close to my door. This is bad on so many levels. One of them is hanging out on a web that spans both, so it's just chilling in midair and you can't see the web if you don't look carefully. CREEPY. 

This one is currently MIA - the web is still there, though. This was yesterday, from the other side of the plant. [UPDATE: it's back - it wasn't there when I was out watering, but has since returned.] It's worth noting that these are not your little bamboo branch - they're a good 6' high with a decently wide span. Hard to dodge and very thirsty. 

I consider myself pretty comfortable with the outdoors and the life therein...but spiders, man...I saw Arachnophobia at an inappropriately young and impressionable age, and I think I'm still scarred.