Mindful Eats

How to alleviate misery

  Dan France's heifers roam freely instead of in a confined animal feeding operation

The smallest good deed is better than the grandest intention. ~Barbara Walters 

What is the price of misery? We live in a consumerist society where we buy stuff all the time. How much more would you pay to buy something that was made without causing any harm to a person, an animal, or the environment? Or maybe the flip question is more relevant since we all know what it takes to make things the right way - in a high-quality fashion without screwing someone in terms of salary, treating animals inhumanely, or the environment unsustainably. How much harm are you willing to inflict to be able to buy something for less?

We all know that blood diamonds are bad. But they can be sooo sparkly, and they are cheaper than buying conflict-free diamonds. Is the shine worth human misery?

What about iPhones? The rare earths that go into the phone come from unregulated Chinese companies, and poor farm families have their lives ruined from the mining. Without the suffering of those communities, iPhone prices would be astronomical. Is it a worthy tradeoff? What if you promise to use your iPhone for years instead of upgrading in two?

This thinking extends to the stuff we buy every day - food. Americans have become used to buying cheap food produced by wide-scale, industrial farming. If we stopped to think about it, we would want clean, high quality, nutritious food. It would be produced in a way that didn't build-up chemicals in our soil and water to harm the environment, didn't create unhealthy and doped up animals for food, and didn't cause cancer and other diseases in the people that work with crops and pesticides/herbicides or force people to work for less than a living wage. Industrial farming has become so prevalent that Americans pay less for their bad-karma food than any other country. As a percent of income, Americans spent 5.7% on food in 2006. Europeans, who have low tolerance for low-quality food, spent between 10.4% and 14.7%.

Let's spend mindfully against misery and change the world. Vote with your wallet for quality and doing things the right way. There's a New Year's resolution for those that are still looking.

What to do - Support Good

1. Research the things you buy. Why are there different price levels? How is it produced? 
2. Identify your values and the things you want to support. If you can't think of anything, try buying the misery-free version. Don't buy things that don't hurt people, animals or the environment, and support a positive lifestyle instead.
3. Buy the best quality you can. Get the most nutritional bang for your food dollar, and spend money on things that last. It's a waste of time and money when you have to replace items. Do you really want to spend your life shopping? 

Want to learn more?

• How much different countries spend on food in 2006 (USDA)
• What is industrial food/farming (Mindful Eats)
• Cornucopia Institute, consumer watchdog for organics (Mindful Eats)
• You are worth high quality food (Mindful Eats)
• Mindful Flowers (Mindful Eats)

 

What I ate: poached nyegg, macadamia nuts, pear, hot and sour soup, white rice, sauteed fish, tofu, squash, pan fried vegetables and noodles, 4 peanuts, blue cheese crackers, dried squid, brown rice, tofu, mushrooms, sauteed fish, 42 oz. water

Exercise: Ran 4 miles 

 

Inspiration for New Year Resolutions

Sahara, Tunisia

One of the most courageous things you can do is identify yourself, know who you are, what you believe in, and where you want to go. ~Sheila Murray Bethel

New Year's is a time for excitement, new beginnings, and new resolutions. Who doesn't love that? Fortunately, if you are a sucker for the symbolism of turning over a new leaf (like I am), then there are a few other times during the year to make promises and celebrate - there's the Lunar New Year, your birthday, the beginning of the school year... but let's focus on the one we have in front of us. The magic of resolutions is powerfully alluring, but sometimes it's hard to get them done by 1/1. I grant myself (and all of you) a few extra weeks to actually finalize them. It takes a lot of thought to come up with doable, tangible resolutions that can better your life, so why rush it? I dislike top 10 lists, but to aid our resolution making, I thought we should list some of my favorite moments from last year. (Lists are ok if they are your own). Though we can't recreate them again, they might provide insight into what we want more of in the upcoming year. So, in no particular order, mine are:

• Getting absorbed in research on ancient Rome and Palmyra
• Seeing Chris Botti at the Blue Note - new band, new venue
• Visiting the Penn Museum in Philadelphia with an outstandingly kind tour guide (an Islamic History professor)
• Riding Smarty Jones to work down West Side Highway
• Thanksgiving and Christmas with family and old family friends
• Beach weekend of sailing and silliness - a little frightening and a lot of awesome
• Birthday parties my friends had for me
• Sleeping outside in the Sahara
• Traveling with a friend on one of her first international trips
• Interviewing Dean and Dan for MindfulEats, then joining nyfoods - making a great product with great people with great passion
• Weekends with my cousin
• Taking Afghani entrepreneur Khalid on a tour to visit the nyfoods farm families
• Traveling through a storm to meet the founder of an organic burger restaurant and finding someone that shared the same vision and mission for clean food
• Watching four brave people stand up to do the right thing, even in the midst of threatening circumstances
• Creating fresh tracks with a friend while running West Side Highway during the December snowstorm
• Making new food friends - you know who you are
• Having an unexpectedly funny and sweet New Year's Eve with friends and family

Wow! I didn't think I'd be able to come up with 10 moments, but there are even more to add to this list. Putting it together made me realize (just right now) that 2010 wasn't as blah as I'd thought it was. And it also made me realize that my favorite moments revolved around people, learning new things, experiences and passions. For me, they had nothing to do with material things (well, except for my bike, which I love because it lets me go biking) or checking my wired communications. And oddly enough, some of these favorite moments (in hindsight) also came out of some pretty uncomfortable moments. My list and realizations will be entirely different from yours, but they provide some inspiration for new resolutions. Please post in the comments or e-mail me your fave moments and realizations. We want to know!

What to do - make New Year's Resolutions

1. Make a list of your favorite moments from the past year. It's fun!
2. Identify the common threads in your favorite moments and work them into your resolutions.
3. Read this post on goal setting and New Year's Resolutions.
4. Post in the comments or e-mail me your fave moments, realizations and resolutions. Thanks!

What I ate: 2 lattes, 1 hardboiled nyegg, whole wheat spaghetti + ground flaxseeds + tomato/basil sauce, macadamia nuts, potato chips, 1 grapefruit, 1 kiwi, udon + red chard + egg + tofu + enoki mushrooms, 1 hot chocolate, 40 oz. water

Exercise: ran 6 miles, ashtanga yoga