Not sure what to think of this. . .

A school in Chicago has banned homemade lunches.

I knew too many students in my high school who subsisted on soda and chips, but the school lunches there weren't much better. I was among the lucky tier who often got to eat healthful lunches lovingly made by a parent.

But I also recall once hitting another student with my lunch bag, and unexpectedly hurting him, because the bag contained a soda.

I guess it all depends on the quality of the school's food. . . not that I have ever encountered a decent public school lunch.

Excuses excuses. . .

I've dropped the ball with the cookbook these past couple of weeks. On top of the baby in my belly sucking the energy out of me, I got one of these lovely chest colds that just stays and stays. I'm sure that the temptation to read Wise Man's Fear (a novel I have eagerly awaited for the past year) has had nothing at all to do with my sudden streak of unproductiveness. . .

Thankfully I'm done with the book now, and the cold is on the decline. Last night I was motivated to make pizza from store-bought dough. While I don't think such a meal would be a good fit for the cookbook, the sauce I made for it might be worth tossing in. A can of tomato paste plus herbs and seasonings and a little water makes a much better pizza sauce than marinara sauce does, since it isn't as runny.

In two and a half weeks we'll be a family of four! And last week will be my final week at work. Assuming I don't spawn early, I'll have a few days with nothing better to do than cookbookery and nervous nesting.

I think I was too ambitious to expect to have the whole first draft written by my due date. But I suppose as soon as Steve's wiki is ready, I can start dumping recipes into it, regardless of where the book is at.

And dang, I have learned a ton researching this thing. I'm sure I have already posted this somewhere, but this website has been invaluable.

This article is little more than a condensed version of something in the Journal of HortScience, which I can't read without subscribing, but it summarizes nicely the various reasons why produce is less nutritious than it was 50 years ago. This further convinces me that obesity is tied to lack of nutrition in food.

Some Reading

"Only 26 percent of the nation’s adults eat vegetables three or more times a day, [the Center for Disease Control and Prevention] concluded. (And no, that does not include French fries.) These results fell far short of health objectives set by the federal government a decade ago. . . only 23 percent of [American] meals include a vegetable. . ." From this article. Says one person interviewed: "'I’m not afraid of zucchinis, but I just don’t know how to cook them.'” "Women, as well as people who are older and more educated and have higher incomes, tend to eat more vegetables." ". . .students who gardened ate one and half servings more of fruits and vegetables a day than those who [didn't]."

"All of this raises the possibility that those cafeteria ladies, with their hairnets and their soup ladles, may be doing more to change the way America eats than all the independent documentaries and Michael Pollan books and Whole Foods markets combined. It’s an astonishing fact considering they operate on a food budget of $1 per meal." I'm glad to hear that some schools are getting lunch right. But wow, that's a small amount of money to work with.

"Diet and exercise do matter, they now know, but these environmental influences alone do not determine an individual’s weight. . ." " "Struggling against the brain’s innate calorie counters, even strong-willed dieters make up for calories lost on one day with a few extra bites on the next. And they never realize it. “The system operates with 99.6 percent precision,” Dr. Friedman said." From this article. I haven't read enough to support this, but my theory is that the body has two goals: given that the body has a target number of calories, it likely also has target nutrition levels. If a body is consistently getting fewer nutrients than it needs, perhaps that is what causes it to consistently demand more calories. And on top of this, I doubt a body can emit the proper urgings to eat genuinely nutritious foods, such as kale, if it never gets a first taste of it to begin with.

What Exactly Is the Pantry Cookbook?

Check out the new digs! Things over in the garden blog were getting too cluttered up with recipes and rough drafts, so I have opened up shop here. This blog is not meant to be anything final or fully organized or complete or pretty. It's just a staging area, so that I can get feedback on what I am doing, and so that the folks at Franklin's Food Pantry can keep an eye on things.

So what is the Pantry Cookbook? In case someone new wanders in here, let me explain. There are people who need the services of food banks who do not know how to cook. If you get all of your meals from fast food and heat-and-serve prepackaged foodstuffs, that's a surefire way to A. not get enough nutrition, and B. become obese, since the cheapest of premade calories are refined carbohydrates - empty calories.

Most frequently it is families with children and the elderly who need the services of food banks. But it can also be college students, or adults who have found themselves in between jobs.

This book is primarily going to be a collection of recipes that follow these guidelines:

1. The ingredients are all "whole foods", meaning as unprocessed as possible, with the exception of such things as bread and cheese.

2. The ingredients are as cheap and readily available as possible.

3. The recipes are as simple as possible.

4. The recipes are designed not just to help someone cook that single dish, but to teach them the fundamentals of how to cook. Thus the cookbook includes instructions for making things as simple as fried eggs or sauteed greens.

5. The recipes are divided into quick recipes, longer-cooking recipes that can be made in advance, and recipe components that can be made in advance.

6. The recipes require only the most basic of kitchen equipment. No electric gadgets, with perhaps one or two exceptions.

Friends and kind strangers have generously made contributions to this collection - thanks! Please do continue to pass along recipes that you would like to share! I can't promise that they will make it into the cookbook, or that they will remain unchanged if they do, but even the ones I have to discard inspire me.

Would you like to test recipes for me? I do need feedback particularly from people who aren't already good in the kitchen. I want to know if my recipes are easy to follow, and if they result in a tasty outcome.

The cookbook currently has about 60 recipes, and needs at least another 40 to be fully rounded. The book will also contain a list of the whole foods that the recipes are based on, including nutrition and basic storage and processing information. It will also contain a section of other information, such as general food and kitchen safety, and examples of how to plan a week's worth of meals.

Thanks to some terrific feedback from friends about how people use their cookbooks, I think I have an index scheme that will help to guide new cooks through all of this. It will go something like this:

Part 1: instructions on how and why to use the book, table of contents.

Part 2: an organized list of common, inexpensive whole foods, including nutrition, basic cooking, handling, and/or use instructions. Each food item will be followed by a list of the recipes it appears in, with page numbers.

Part 3: recipes, divided up into entrees, side dishes, desserts, etc.

Part 4: miscellaneous information on food safety, basic kitchen equipment, planning for a week's worth of meals, etc.

Part 5: index.

My first goal is to get all of this written and compiled into a format that can be shared online as a document, and cheaply printed. Printed copies can be made available to food bank users, and also used as a fundraising tool.

Franklin Food Pantry Steve Sherlock also envisions this becoming the start of a wiki, complete with glorious hyperlinks!

My basic goal is to get this up and running for the Franklin Food Pantry, but I dearly hope it will be good enough that other food banks and nutrition programs will want to use it.

As If I Needed Another Reason. . .

Gag! I just stumbled across another reason to go ahead with this Food Pantry project. Many prepackaged foodstuffs that claim to contain blueberries actually don't.

"A lot of products that imply they're made with blueberries contain no blueberries at all. And many that do contain a tiny amount of blueberries cut their recipes with artificial blueberry ingredients to make it look like their products contain more blueberries than they really do."

"Kellogg's Frosted Mini Wheats also come in a Blueberry Muffin variety, with fresh blueberries prominently featured on the front of the package. But inside, there are no actual blueberries to be found. Instead, you get "blueberry flavored crunchlets" -- yes, crunchlets -- made from sugars, soybean oil, red #40 and blue #2."

Other deceptive products mentioned in the article include Kellogg's Blueberry Pop Tarts, Total Blueberry Pomegranate Cereal, and Betty Crocker's Fiber One Blueberry Muffin Mix.

This post is being filed under "Pestilence and Plague".