El Milagro
love of my life
1 month ago on April 20, 2012 at 07:13pm
Posts tagged food.
I hate New England
Being somewhere that isn’t the Southside of Chicago means making tacos for dinner (with tortillas my mommy brought me from Chicago) but being reduced to using mole from a jar and not having anyone’s mom around to help me make it from scratch. Cause that jarred shit is inedible.
1 month ago on April 20, 2012 at 07:09pm
I wish I could show this to my parents especially.
Can we make this into fucking POSTERS?!?
I’m on spring break from work and in need of typography projects; I’ll try to make a poster of this.
(via adailyriot)
Ceramic tortilla press, work in progress. All I need to do now is fire it, I can’t wait!
PS, the second picture is flipped so you wouldn’t have to read backwards letters. ;)
It is not an exaggeration to say that this is what my wildest dreams are made of.
(via beautifulbrwn)
Okra, tomato & kidney bean stew, brown rice, and fried cornbread cakes. Made this while watching Bastards of the Party about the relationship between the LA Bloods & Crips, and the Black Power movement.
4 months ago on January 07, 2012 at 12:29am
THE “fact” that junk food is cheaper than real food has become a reflexive part of how we explain why so many Americans are overweight, particularly those with lower incomes. I frequently read confident statements like, “when a bag of chips is cheaper than a head of broccoli …” or “it’s more affordable to feed a family of four at McDonald’s than to cook a healthy meal for them at home.”
(via)
“Doctor,” you understand that pre-packaged foods such as potato chips and / or fast food restaurant meals are, by virtue of already being prepared, “cheaper,” yes? And that 99-cent menus at establishments such as Wendy’s and McDonald’s means that, realistically, no one is actually spending “$27.89” at McDonald’s on a regular basis, right? Since you’re assuming a family of four (ah, gotta love the idea that every family in America is a family of four!) and you’re also assuming that most families have the time and resources to prepare a meal of “pinto beans and rice” and that somehow in your America the price of milk is still in the vicinity of $1.49 for even a half-gallon.
Doc, how much time do you spend in lower-income neighborhoods? And do you realize that one in five children now lives below the federal poverty level? Which means their families aren’t well-off, either, and believe it or not, working a ten- to 12-hour workday five days a week and those 99-cent foodstuffs at the dozens if not hundreds of fast-food establishments littering your neighborhood — especially in larger cities such as New York, LA or Chicago — are suddenly, and sadly, an all-too-real option to preparing a meal of “chicken, salad and potatoes for four.” (Look at this study, for God’s sake, that has a five-fast-food-joint-to-one-supermarket ratio across the U.S.)
As I’ve said before, the methodology behind studies like this are flawed — especially when taking into account that it uses data that is more than 15 years old. (I’d find you a link to my original post stating this, but I’m getting hungry.)
I’m genuinely curious, as a medical professional and an MPH, whether you’re as fully informed as you think you are — or if you’re basing your presumptions on having only ever served one segment of the population. You know, the well-off kind that always seems to have the time and resources to buy ingredients for, then prepare, every single one of their very healthy meals.
Yeah, I was jut gonna say, who the hell pays $27 at McDonalds? Any time I go there I just get McDoubles, 99 cents a burger? Yep.
Anyone who actually uses this needs to seriously check their privilege. And to be more specific their privilege to have working appliances, their privilege to have time to cook on those working appliances, and their privilege live in an areas with markets that sell fresh produce. Also they need to take a look at how much those fresh products in the picture actually cost, because I can assure you it’s more than pictured.
Also, I know it’s been said before, but where are you gonna buy 75 cents worth of bread or 55 cents worth of oil? You can’t. You have to buy the whole loaf or the whole bottle of oil, so there’s always some overhead costs associated with cooking.
Our supermarket closed up and stayed closed for a full year until this past spring when another chain opened in that spot. For that year, people in my neighborhood had to take the bus to the suburbs to go to a supermarket, or get rides there (not everyone people around here has a car). There’s a lot of older people by my house; seeing 70 year olds pushing carts full of groceries down the street from the bus, when they were way too tired to do so, made me really sad. I don’t have a car so I couldn’t help them out either.
In the meantime, of the groceries pictured above, the things you could get at either of the corner stores right near here were:
- bacon
- salt & pepper
- green peppers occasionally, but usually half rotten
- onions occasionally, but also usually half rotten
- milk
- canned beans
- bread, usually not wheat
- rice, only white
So yes, the bottom meal you could make sometimes, depending on if peppers and onions are around, but rice & beans isn’t really a model of well-rounded nutrition, either. But the year we didn’t have a grocery store, I damn sure ate a LOT of rice & beans.
Conveniently, though, there is a McDonalds directly behind my house.
Another really important thing in this discussion is education. People don’t know how to cook a whole lot of healthy foods. One thing that’s fun for me doing Food Not Bombs is seeing people try new foods, and seeing how excited people can get about foods they don’t normally have a lot of access to. Like last week, we made butternut squash soup; I had no idea so many people hanging out on the Green were into butternut squash, but they were stoked. Today I got a donation of brussel sprouts; hopefully that is also exciting.
My partner grew up on a pretty basic, limited range of foods, so living with me he’s been trying all sorts of new foods and learning how to cook new things. But it’s not as simple as just telling someone they should eat healthier and assuming they know 1. what that means, 2. how to get that food, and 3. how to cook it.
I’ve been talking for a while about making a zine of recipes for each of the vegetables and herbs being grown in the community garden my brother is a part of. They’ve made education and sharing new foods part of that garden project, especially because many of the people in their area are immigrants from a lot of different places. That zine has always been on my backburner, sadly. (If anyone wants to help me put something like that together, let me know, or just give me a kick in the butt to get me started on it.)
Revolutionarily: Speaking of vegans…
I’ma go make me some french onion/taco dip and eat it with my ruffle chips… And later I’m making some vegan cheesy potato soup and fried buffalo tofu for my partner. Maybe we’ll get some stuff for strawberry vegan cake too. Mmm.
We’re going to watch Jurassic Park 3(haha so campy) and have a bunch…
you know what it is?
first, some people just hate anything thats not “the norm” so automatically they hear veg or vegan or whatever and theyre like “omg, something must be wrong with you, is that safe?” . oh brother. like they start undermining you as if it hurts them on the inside that you arent eating meat? they cant just fuck off and go about their lives, apparently.
then theres vegans and other folks like you who dont give a fuck what anybody else is doing.
and then theres vegans who evangelicize like christians do. they literally go around preaching and guilt-tripping and spamming dashboards with assorted “i am a better person than you because i dont eat meat and you do, you murderous hoe!”/”why cant the whole world just go vegan?” memes.
and then the above creates reactions from people like me who are like man, ima eat whatever i want, whatevers available to me, i dont care what you eat, leave my ass alone, you do you, we will all be happy LOL
and then people like you get mad, understandably so. haha
Just like all white folk, all vegans ain’t the same. I ain’t care what you eat, as long as you fuel up for the Revolution, sweetie… FEED YO SELF!!!!
Honestly the over the top, radicaler-than-thou shit I couldn’t get away from from many middle-class white vegans, refusing to understand how class, race, and culture played into people’s choices of food or lack thereof, all the worst PETA-type shit, is a good part of why I quit being vegan. I was tired of being associated with it. I felt like such an asshole every time I said I was vegan, it was something I felt strongly about and it was totally ruined for me.
And I was catching that kind of smugness in myself, too, like the way I would look at people who were eating meat around me, and then seeing that I was part of a movement that encouraged me to do that and feel that self-righteousness. It just made me feel like a jerk.
I quit being vegan in the end for mental health reasons but will probably go vegan again some day. But I’ve been thinking about the possibility of being vegan without calling myself vegan, like doing it secretly, just so I don’t have to be roped into veganism as a movement.
And yeah, like yall said, just like not all white people are the same, not all vegans are the same. But sometimes don’t you just get fed up and say, “Daaaaaaaaaaamn, white people!” (I do.) (Like once a week at least.) So I think it’s similar, sometimes I’m just like, “Daaamn, vegans, cut the racist shit if you expect me to join your club!” It’s hard to separate a movement from its individuals.
I have no hate for vegans who try to understand race and class and food being connected; I have plenty of hate for a veganism movement that refuses to do so and then turns around and evangelizes.
As a vegan I totally agree with above comment. I usually refer to myself as Veg now because I don’t consider myself a part of the full vegan movement. Just like I wrote a long review on this horrid vegan picture saying “help cross off another one” and had racism, sexism and homophobia all crossed off on the list(i think it was sexism but I know it was racism and homophobia). I am not at all going to pretend that speciesism is some last form of oppression to mark off the list. WHAT LIES WE’D BE SPREADING!!!
That being said, I couldn’t start eating meat just to prove a system of folly wrong. I’m not sure how much you stopped being vegan but i personally don’t put those things in my system because I feel sick when I do(oh I’ve tried in the past, it’s just my body saying no) and now that I’ve been vegan for a long time, I would definitely get sick if I ate those things and I don’t think it a good idea to try it especially while pregnant or at all. That’s just me though. I enjoy eating a plant based diet and it opened up my bad eating habits to more wider options(I have huge problems with textures and get stuck in eating ruts a LOT). BUT I DO NOT ENJOY SEEING IGNORANT SHIT BEING PUT OUT THERE AS IF ALL OF US WHO EAT A DIET BASED ON PLANTS ALONE ARE THE SAME(I’m not saying that above person who thought it was just her is who I’m speaking about, there are MANY out there who pass these ideas around, just like the opposite)!
I think all vegans have had their radical vegan moments but right now, my people are still in a world wide genocide!!! A FUCKING GENOCIDE!!! And it hasn’t stopped it’s just become more acceptable and beloved by all. I WILL FIGHT FOR THIS CAUSE AND I WILL FIGHT FOR IT EVEN IF IT MEANS I HAVE TO FIGHT AGAINST VEGANS AT TIMES AND THEIR RACIST AND CLASSIST AND ABLEIST SHIT! My vegan walk has changed over the years and I’m still proud of it. My partner is new at it and we have discussions over how we don’t agree with a lot of the vegan movement, ESPECIALLY PETA and it’s sexist and misogynist bullshit(no matter who wants to kiss their ass, it’s true).
But yeah, like I was saying, I wasn’t born vegan, I chose it and I also choose personally to not attack others for their non vegan choices and/or food so it does get bothersome for me when people love to put us all in one group. I FIGHT FOR THE RIGHTS OF MY PEOPLE DAILY! It’s just like the radical black people who want to exclude those of us who are not full black yet still fight for the cause, or I guess the difference between a full blown Christian and a Pagan… I mean, I live the same lifestyle in most ways as other vegans do because I don’t partake of animals or their products(to the extent that is possible for me to live by and raise my children) BUT I IN NO WAY AM A PREACHY VEGAN OR AN ASSHOLE TO NON VEGANS! And to see someone say some things right after I’ve mentioned some shit about my partner being vegan(a joke I made, rather) isn’t something I’m going to be quiet about. Some of us, just as white folk, don’t want to be associated with bullshit and hatred. And I believe it IS imperative to loudly separate ourselves from that if we don’t want to be seen as such. Just a simple fact. No harm done, no harm caused but now people see that not all of us are the same.
Word, I think we pretty much agree. I’ll probably be vegan again someday, and I’ll probably feel really good about what I eat and probably still feel really bad about veganism as a movement (hopefully it will have checked itself by then!). I’d love to see a movement of people of color-centered veganism and other food justice, that makes culture and class central parts of food justice work. I’ve liked a lot on the Vegans of Color blog and Sistah Vegan, and I have the Vegan Soul Kitchen cookbook (thanks Mom!), a vegan soul food cookbook. So, there is hope for sure. I just really didn’t have the energy to be a part of it while it got its race/class shit in order. That wasn’t the only reason I quit being vegan, and like I said I’m sure I’ll go back sometime.
9 months ago on September 03, 2011 at 08:37pm
Revolutionarily: Speaking of vegans…
I’ma go make me some french onion/taco dip and eat it with my ruffle chips… And later I’m making some vegan cheesy potato soup and fried buffalo tofu for my partner. Maybe we’ll get some stuff for strawberry vegan cake too. Mmm.
We’re going to watch Jurassic Park 3(haha so campy) and have a bunch…
you know what it is?
first, some people just hate anything thats not “the norm” so automatically they hear veg or vegan or whatever and theyre like “omg, something must be wrong with you, is that safe?” . oh brother. like they start undermining you as if it hurts them on the inside that you arent eating meat? they cant just fuck off and go about their lives, apparently.
then theres vegans and other folks like you who dont give a fuck what anybody else is doing.
and then theres vegans who evangelicize like christians do. they literally go around preaching and guilt-tripping and spamming dashboards with assorted “i am a better person than you because i dont eat meat and you do, you murderous hoe!”/”why cant the whole world just go vegan?” memes.
and then the above creates reactions from people like me who are like man, ima eat whatever i want, whatevers available to me, i dont care what you eat, leave my ass alone, you do you, we will all be happy LOL
and then people like you get mad, understandably so. haha
Just like all white folk, all vegans ain’t the same. I ain’t care what you eat, as long as you fuel up for the Revolution, sweetie… FEED YO SELF!!!!
Honestly the over the top, radicaler-than-thou shit I couldn’t get away from from many middle-class white vegans, refusing to understand how class, race, and culture played into people’s choices of food or lack thereof, all the worst PETA-type shit, is a good part of why I quit being vegan. I was tired of being associated with it. I felt like such an asshole every time I said I was vegan, it was something I felt strongly about and it was totally ruined for me.
And I was catching that kind of smugness in myself, too, like the way I would look at people who were eating meat around me, and then seeing that I was part of a movement that encouraged me to do that and feel that self-righteousness. It just made me feel like a jerk.
I quit being vegan in the end for mental health reasons but will probably go vegan again some day. But I’ve been thinking about the possibility of being vegan without calling myself vegan, like doing it secretly, just so I don’t have to be roped into veganism as a movement.
And yeah, like yall said, just like not all white people are the same, not all vegans are the same. But sometimes don’t you just get fed up and say, “Daaaaaaaaaaamn, white people!” (I do.) (Like once a week at least.) So I think it’s similar, sometimes I’m just like, “Daaamn, vegans, cut the racist shit if you expect me to join your club!” It’s hard to separate a movement from its individuals.
I have no hate for vegans who try to understand race and class and food being connected; I have plenty of hate for a veganism movement that refuses to do so and then turns around and evangelizes.
9 months ago on September 03, 2011 at 07:41pm
Workers carry sacks of Corn Soya Blend inside the World Food Program warehouse for distribution to refugees at Hagadera refugee camp in Dadaab near the Kenya-Somalia border, September 1, 2011.
Photo by Eduardo De Francisco / Reuters via MSNBC Photoblog
Getting grumpy: Corn and soy are monocultures that, being planted massive plantation-style, are destroying entire ecosystems around the world. Since non-GMO corn and soy are rarely produced in the US, this corn soya blend is probably GMO as well. India banned the importation of GMO corn soya blend, even as relief food, because it wasn’t intended for human consumption and may have health hazards long term. India has had a particularly tumultuous fight with GMO crops, as farmers have been protesting it on a large scale.
Colonialism forced colonies to grow foods that the colonizing country wanted and to grow foods that would be exported back to the colonizing country, rather than a variety of foods that would sustain the colony (such as the term “banana republic”; not just a place you get bad khakis!). Then when that isn’t sustainable, the former (or arguably ongoing) colonizing countries send food as relief that was made with those same unsustainable practices and are not healthy.
Clearly I’m reading Vandana Shiva right now, and then this popped up on my dashboard. Not saying not to send food aid, but definitely saying none of this is sustainable or a natural disaster.
To top it off, those bags of food shown are all stamped with the US flag and say “USAID”. Charming.
$900 of food
I can’t remember the context in which I saw this, it was before the hurricane and when I was at my parents’ house, but there was some news story about a big power outage, I guess in the suburbs of Chicago, and they interviewed two people. One of the people was saying how outraged she was that her power had been out, I’m pretty sure for no more than a morning & afternoon, and how all her food was spoiled and she had to throw it all out, and how mad she was because she had $900 worth of food in her fridge at least. And it was unfair that it all got wasted.
I have a habit where I give the TV the side-eye even though the TV can’t see me. But lady, you’re damn right it’s unfair that you had $900 worth of food at one time and are now talking about it on TV in Chicago, unless you got at least 13 kids and a couple of spouses. Was she overestimating to get people to feel extra bad for her?
What does $900 of food even look like? Maybe her kids eat … lobster pop tarts and truffle whatevers. (I have no idea what you do with a truffle.) Maybe the secret ingredient in her chicken nuggets is gold dust.
9 months ago on September 01, 2011 at 08:33pm
OCTOBER 14-16 BRONX, NY
The Black Farmers and Urban Gardeners Conference connects growers, eaters and organizations across the country to nurture the health and well being of Black America and the environment as a whole. Attendees explore issues of race, class, health and food through panel discussions, workshops, films and conversations. Resources are exchanged. Ideas are pollinated. Solutions are born. (source)
WHO WANTS TO GO W/ MEEEEEEEEE
Chelsea, I’ll pass this on at school and we can probably turn some of us out!
(via firesandwords)
USA becomes Food Stamp Nation but is it sustainable? ›
The WORST comments; I don’t know why I subject myself to things like that. The whole article is kinda, ehh. Yes, many people are on food stamps in the US, and the number has risen along with unemployment. Food stamps are nothing new, though. The only two families shown in photos are people of color; those are two of the three people quoted in the article, even though people of color are far from 2/3 of food stamps recipients. Standard.
“Food Stamp Nation” is a pretty misleading title to give the country, anyway—it implies a whole lot more unification than we’ve got going on. It implies that shortages of food and lack of nutritious food are problems that everyone is dealing with, which is false. Unemployment has been high in communities of color and rural communities; it’s a mainstream issue now that it’s creeping into the white middle class.
And, no, of course being dependent on the whims of a government in which you have very little say in order to feed your kids is not sustainable. No one thinks it is except the media-shits who fear monger about welfare queens. (I dare anyone who uses the phrases “welfare queen” or “anchor baby” seriously to make friends with a woman of color who isn’t cleaning up after them.)
There are only two categories of people I have ever heard talk so flippantly about food stamps and other people’s need to feed their family: republicans/right-wing/mainstream media, and white anarchists who didn’t grow up on food stamps. (Damn.) I can’t imagine that someone trying to feed a dependent on food stamps will say that it is sustainable on this kind of scale. According to the article, about 15% of people in the US are on food stamps—of course that isn’t sustainable! Hunger and unemployment are not sustainable! Can we talk about why so many people can’t get food, and can we talk about what options for food people do have? Can we talk about what areas have lots of people on food stamps but no fresh produce available? Can we get nutrition education programs going on in schools, and affordable groceries, and then talk about are we doing something sustainable yet?
9 months ago on August 22, 2011 at 11:54pm
Easy recipe for fancy polenta
Since I’ve been visiting my parents, I’ve been helping my mom make dinner (cause my dad doesn’t). She already had the grill lit up to make chicken, potatoes, and baked beans, so I made grilled polenta. This is a kinda recipe (I never measure ingredients so I don’t know how much I used of each thing):
Cook about 1/2 cup grits. Put in as much water as you would normally use for that amount, and then add about 1/4 cup milk. Chop up 8 or so broccoli florets really small and boil them in the grits. Add salt, a big pat of butter or margarine, crushed or super-minced garlic, a little chili powder, a lot of whatever dried herbs are handy (my mom had some Italian herb mix) or at least oregano and basil. Add a thinly sliced green onion. Let it cook for about 10 minutes until the broccoli is really tender (I forgot the broccoli at first so mine didn’t cook long enough). If it ever starts to get dry, add more milk.
Then, put about a dozen muffin tins in a baking pan or dish (just to hold them together), and scoop the grits into the tins, about 1/2inch to 3/4inch thick. Smooth so it’s nice and even on the top. Let it cool for at least 20 minutes; you need to be able to pull the tins away from the polenta and have it not stick much.
Once it’s cooled, either grill each piece for a few minutes on each side, or fry them in a hot skillet, til they’re golden brown on each side.
If you are super fancy, make a sauce (I didn’t). Mixing mayonnaise with lime juice and chipotle powder is the bomb on polenta.
9 months ago on August 09, 2011 at 11:58pm
U.S. makes it legal for aid groups to help Somalians
- before Aid groups couldn’t get food to starving people in al-Shabaab-controlled areas in Somalia. That’s because the U.S. has sanctions against the al-Qaeda affiliated group who is doing everything in their power to ensure aid doesn’t reach civilians — including diverting aid and killing aid workers.
- now The U.S. now says it won’t prosecute aid groups whose aid falls into the wrong hands — which is a good thing. It’ll make it at least a little easier to get aid to people in Somalia, but it’ll still be dangerous. 14 World Food Programme workers have been killed in the region since 2008 alone. source
One of the first things that radicalized me as a kid was seeing news footage about Somalia and civil war and famine, and getting my mom to explain why people were hungry if there were farms and grocery stores in the US and other places, why didn’t we just give food out since there was so much. In response, she taught me the words “redistribution” and “warlords.” Then when she was explaining how food only got passed on to sections of the military that the US liked, I was PISSED. And about 5 years old. But a pissed off 5 year old.
Monsanto-Resistant Weeds Take Root, Raising Food Prices ›
Monsanto’s Roundup was supposed to make it easy for farmers to get rid of weeds, but it’s working on fewer and fewer plants, including some monsters that can grow three inches a day and damage farm equipment.
From the article:
The herbicide, a relatively low-impact chemical since it biodegrades quickly, has ranked among the most popular for farmers since Monsanto introduced its genetically engineered Roundup Ready crops that are unaffected by the chemical, accounting for about 90 percent of the soybeans and 70 percent of the corn and cotton grown in the United States. Even more worrisome is the steep (and unabated) climb in the number of weeds resistant to multiple types of herbicides. Super-strains of plants like pigweed—which grows three inches a day and is tough enough to damage farm machinery—have emerged, which may dramatically reduce the options for farmers to control them.
…
Monsanto, which once allegedly led farmers to believe its Roundup Ready crops would not cause weed resistance, has since come around to evidence and is now talking about prevention by diversifying chemical applications and crop rotation.
But the strategy may not buy enough time to develop effective and affordable alternatives. Early attempts, such as DuPont’s newly approved herbicide Imprelis, are proving complicated, according to a recent article in the New York Times. Thought to be an environmentally friendly herbicide, it is now the leading suspect in the death of Norway spruces, eastern white pine, and other trees around the country.
But this is acceptable enough for Roundup to be considered low-impact?? I guess no one saw this coming, despite at the very least all the cartoons where each character keeps upgrading his weapons til they both destroy each other. Fuck Monsanto forever.
Also, where can I find some of this pigweed?
(via navigatethestream)
