From 8-10 April, I had the great pleasure and privilege to attend the 6th annual Queer People of Color Conference at UC Riverside. It ended up an excellent refresher on how best for me (a white gay man) to be an ally to people of color, especially the lesbian, bisexual, gay, transgender, intersex, etc.-identified QPOC community.
This weekend was a break from my usual dietary habits. Though I would have liked to prepare my own food for the 3-day event, there simply wasn't time for that. So, I resorted to eating what the others in my group were eating. What did this entail, exactly? What does it reveal about the food system, nutritionally speaking? I'll elaborate below.
Here's a run-down:
Here's a run-down:
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friday
dinner: pinto beans, Mexican style; huevos rancheros (two eggs (yolks runny), cheese, and tomato sauce);
3-4 corn tortillas, 1 of which was fried in industrial seed oil. This restaurant cooks everything in industrial seed oil
saturday
continental breakfast: 4-5 sausages; 1 waffle and roughly 2 oz. of maple syrup; 2 eggs; some orange juice
lunch: 1 whole wheat ham sandwich (lettuce, tomato, and ham -- no cheese), 2 highly-processed cookies.*
*Normally I wouldn't have eaten the cookies, but this time I lost all self-control and went AWOL. It was partly out of sullenness from not getting to eat quality food. Poor high-maintenance foodie me!
snack: another sandwich, turkey this time.
dinner: 3 entire burgers from Fatburger -- two turkey, one chicken/egg, including 2 whole wheat buns and one white bread bun; lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise on each! (I was famished)
sunday
continental breakfast: same as yesterday; add one donut
lunch: 2 slices of pizza, with some mushrooms. There was more white bread than topping.
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This weekend was a considerable break from my regular dietary regime, and man, I felt it. By this morning I was somewhat underslept, not to mention reeling from the gluten-grain / "vegetable" oil extravaganza. I was mildly ill with a head cold, but it's come way down in just several hours of eating better, taking sunlight, and enough water.
My experience shows that when we eat out, we often don't have a choice as to what kind of fat the cooks use to prepare our food. Sometimes restaurants have wholesome, time-tested fats like butter and olive oil, but most of the time, soybean and other harmful seed oils dominate. Restaurants brandish these oils as "cholesterol free," but in fact, these seed oils oxidize cholesterol in our bodies, leading to a host of problems: premature aging, atherosclerosis, and inflammatory diseases like cancer (1, 2, and more primary sources here: 3).
It's the goal of this blog, and a growing cadre of paleo/primal/real food activists blogging across the web, to dispel the morbid myth that so-called "vegetable" oils (remember, they're seed-based) are healthful. Check out some of the leading voices in the field of science- and tradition-based health & nutrition at right. And do stay tuned for more on this subject.
My experience shows that when we eat out, we often don't have a choice as to what kind of fat the cooks use to prepare our food. Sometimes restaurants have wholesome, time-tested fats like butter and olive oil, but most of the time, soybean and other harmful seed oils dominate. Restaurants brandish these oils as "cholesterol free," but in fact, these seed oils oxidize cholesterol in our bodies, leading to a host of problems: premature aging, atherosclerosis, and inflammatory diseases like cancer (1, 2, and more primary sources here: 3).
It's the goal of this blog, and a growing cadre of paleo/primal/real food activists blogging across the web, to dispel the morbid myth that so-called "vegetable" oils (remember, they're seed-based) are healthful. Check out some of the leading voices in the field of science- and tradition-based health & nutrition at right. And do stay tuned for more on this subject.
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| Harry LOVES processed food! |
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