Food for thought...

Food. We need it. We want it. We consume it. But, do we really know what's up with our food system in America? This semester we have talked indirectly about our food consumption. We watched Food Inc., talked some about what is being grown in American and recently heard a lot about food recalls. With all this food talk, it got me thinking. You see, paying close attention to food is a life-or-death situation for me. Not just in I need the nourishment like everyone else but because I have food allergies.  

No more wheat!

For a quick reference:


1. I have celiacs. To be brief my body does not digest gluten properly. Check out more information here. 
2. I have anaphylactic reactions to wheat, buckwheat and large amounts of peanuts.
3. My body develops unpleasant skin rashes to watermelon, shellfish, navy beans, lima beans and large amount of latex containing fruits. 
4. The fun part of all of this is that my body cannot handle medical steroids which are used to control and treat these reactions. As a result, I get a special medical cocktail that is ridiculously harmful to my body but life saving. 

On any given day I carry between 2-4 epi-pens and 4 different
medications in case of an allergic reaction. 

I carry around a lot of my own food, epi-pens and am suppose to wear a medical ID bracelet. All of this happened within the last three years. Coming to college I not only experienced the normal change of going to college but also experienced a huge lifestyle change. 

Not only is our environment affected by our food choices, but so is our body. While still a theory, many scientist believe the increase in food allergies is a result of GMO foods and corn being in virtually every product. In fact, food allergies have risen 20% in the past 10 years! That is a HUGE increase. 

The food allergy dilemma is not all bad though. You see, when diagnosed with any type of food allergies or celiacs, many find it easier, safer and cheaper to go back to an all natural diet. So what are some changes one can make to their diet? 

1. Learn to read produce labels! (see picture at left)

2. Shop only the perimeter of a store. The stuff in the middle is prepackaged, filled with chemicals and excess packaging. 

3. Grow your own food. It is fun, inexpensive and helps the environment. Plus the added benefit of personal satisfaction of growing your own food. 

4. Become informed and be an advocate for friends with celiacs, gluten intolerance or food allergies. In the beginning many feel shy about their condition and try to downplay it. This is not only harmful to their body, but misleading to the public. As they learn to cope with it, learn to be an advocate. Don't down play it. 

The Land of Bigger and Better...

I spent a week in the state where everything is bigger and better (aka Texas) with my sister and her boyfriend. While they are nursing students by day they turn into food critics by night. If nursing school were to go south (which lets pray it doesn't- graduation is only a few short weeks away!) they would qualify to be some kick-butt food critics (their words, turned PG). 

Friday night we ventured out on to the town, in search of a dinner I could eat. With my nice assortment of food allergies and intolerances, dining out is quite a feat and in some cases has proved to be impossible. Armed with a phone, a gluten-free restaurant app and a GPS we finally located a restaurant. Finally! 

Dinner that night was at Ruggle's Green, Houston's first certified Green Restaurants. Dinner was nothing short of amazing. Food options were more then a bowl of lettuce. Food was organic. I had a wide range of choices from pizza to pasta to sandwiches. Everything was prepared fresh, food was piping hot and most of the food was locally sourced. Sugar was minimally used and most sweeteners came from organic honey or organic sugar cane. The soda had no chemicals, condiments were made on site. The list goes on and on, but that is not the point of this blog post! (Except, if you are in Houston anytime soon- give them a try!) 

While the food was a delightful part of the experience and eating organic, locally sourced food nourished my body, their green philosophy was even more exciting. Formed in 2008, Ruggles Green is a four-star certified green restaurant. So what makes them green? According to the Dine Green regulations, an establishment must create programs in Energy, Water, Waste, Disposables, Chemical & Pollution reduction, Sustainable Furnishing and Building Materials. In all, conservation methods must be employed in every step of a restaurant: from building it to running it. 


So what does Ruggle's Green do? Well they: 
1. Don't use any styrofoam 
2. Covert fry oil into biofuel
3. Utilize all recycling programs
4. Purchase and sell organic and mostly locally sourced food
5. Get employees in on the conservation: from organic uniforms to giving them 'green' living classes
...And the list goes on! 

Seeing how much they go out of the way to conserve, it made me curious as to how much traditional restaurants waste. It's appalling. Some of the most shocking include:
1. Americans alone waste between 50 to 90 million pounds of food each year!
2. Restaurants in the United States are the LARGEST consumer of electricity. 


3. The prepared food industry makes up 10% of our economy- they dictate what we eat, what we breathe, how we do things, etc. 

And this is only the start! So before you dine out, consider how your purchase will hurt or support the environment. Your every move makes an impact! 

A drop, a pond or an ocean?

Warning, this is brutal honesty.

As we began this semester, I was dreading colloquium: really, all out dreading it. On the first day of class, as we wrote down our views on our environmental philosophy, I was grimacing at the amount of weeks we had to spend together to get this required class out of the way. My original thoughts, as taken from the notecard on our first August meeting. 
"My environmental philosophy is that our planet is a mess and we are doing the bare minimum, if that, to help it survive." 
One could say my view on life, at that point, was a little off. I had not even been back in the States for a week, culture shock was hitting hard and class was the last place I wanted to be. (Really, honest to goodness it was the first time in my life where I did not desire a formal education.) 

As the weeks past, assignments came and went, field trips happened and readings finished my outlook on this class (and life) became lighter. No longer was a raging mad, ticked off at our first world country and finding every outlet to let the world know. 

This past weekend as I was driving back to Fort Myers after attending the celebration of life for my late step-grandfather of two years. As usual for when I am alone it was a lot of thinking and singing along. The drive across the state is not a hard one, and a certain times of the year it's breath taking. This weekend was one of those moments. There are these yellow flowers that pop up and cover fields. It's a sea of yellow for as far as the eye can see. 

As I saw the picture (left) and heard this song, I could not help but think back to colloquium. You see, along the way when I saw only one flower it was pretty but gone in a flash. When I saw two, it was beautiful but once again gone in a second. But when the sea appeared and the population was as far as they eye could see, the drive was magically and the scene lingered in my head even after I had passed the last yellow sea. 

When we work one or two for something good, it's cool. A change may take place. People see it, smile and move on. But when you work in a sea of people, you last longer, make a bigger impact and cause that 'scene' to linger in ones mind a bit longer. My environmental philosophy has changed.
"Our plant may be a mess, but as the ponds of environmental activist join to form a sea the impact they make on changing the planet will no longer be a dream, but a reality." 

Even though we are not finished with the course I have (for the most part) come to enjoy colloquium. The ideas it presents, the challenges it gives and the change it inspires.