Kitchen Pimpin’ Obesity

The Lonestar State has the highest percentage of overweight adult males at 75.5%, only second to Alabama’s 75.9%. There are plenty of attempts to educate the population on how to eat — nutritional charts and dietary recommendations, for instance — but these are not solutions. The majority of us know that we need to consume more vegetables, but we are less compliant to do so because we don’t enjoy being told what to eat (maybe more so what NOT to eat). Our diet is really a personal relationship with food. We need personalized methods to improve our individual ways of eating. Instead of a massive health campaign telling people to eat healthier and exercise more, a more impacting solution would be to create a healthier environment that empowers people to learn and care for themselves. In other words: get cookin’. In particular, get young males like myself into kitchens to cook for our family and friends.
I got the idea from Coolio’s recent (and amazing) cookbook, Cookin’ with Coolio: 5 Star Meals at a 1 Star Price. The former multi-platinum rapper grew up poor with little knowledge about food, stating that he had the skill of making something out of nothing. He learned how to cook, probably something unique amongst the male youth of his childhood community. What is cool about Cookin’ with Coolio, is that it empowers young men to build confidence, take control of their health, and potentially prevent obesity by learning how to successfully cook real food at home on a tight budget. By presenting his personal story as a living example, Coolio shares his recipes and cooking techniques so that people in lower-income situations can utilize their resources to become successful “Kitchen Pimps”. Taken at face value, this cookbook might seem like a comical sales gimmick, but Cookin’ with Coolio is a masterpiece for public health and could benefit thousands suffering from malnutrition and obesity.

Click the photo to check out his cooking show!

How does Kitchen Pimpin’ prevent obesity?
Cookin’ with Coolio helped me realize that home cooking is more than a luxury; it is an approach to solving the obesity epidemic. There are many people that are too reliant on fake industrial foods, and “[Coolio] want[s] people to know that just because you’re poor, you don’t have to eat fast food every day.” Eating healthy food is more complicated when you are in a difficult economic situation. Some people insist that we need to eat only vegetables grown locally and spend a lot more for our food. Coolio argues that is not necessary for most: “Whole Foods and Gelson’s have a lot of great stuff, but [normal grocery stores] have everything you need to make haute cuisine at home.” Kitchen Pimpin’ and learning the art of “The Ghetto Gourmet” brings awareness to the more realistic problem and solution in our national obesity epidemic that people need to learn more about food and how to cook at home. Instead of focusing all of our attention on paying more for ethical foods (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing), we should educate the population about food and create the environments and resources needed to get people cooking.

Waste Not Want Not: Lessons from My Grandparents

 A typical Mexican Jewish meal with my family

This Thanksgiving I reflected on the hundreds of times I have gathered around my grandparents’ dining room table.  I thought of the all the meals we had prepared and eaten together, the homework assignments tackled, and the hot cups of coffee enjoyed while sharing stories of the past.  Their early experiences with food have shaped the way I view food and waste, and the lessons they gave me as a child are still the most valuable I have ever received.

My grandfather was born to an upper-middle class Jewish family in New York City a few years before the stock market crash of 1929. When he was still a toddler his father died unexpectedly, and his mother was left to care for four children. The stress, compounded by the failing economy, was too much for her and she descended into madness. My grandfather and his siblings were left to fend for themselves. He would tell stories of growing up on the streets of Brooklyn, but mostly he spoke about being hungry. These childhood experiences with hunger would shape him. He was an excellent cook, spoke of his favorite foods with religious zeal, would eat crumbs off the table, and became very upset if food was thrown away. He was also the most thorough chewer I have ever met. He chewed everything at least forty times (including Jell-o!), believing it was both good for digestion and that it made the eating experience more enjoyable. He died last year at the age of 85 and I am sure his appreciation for good food was responsible for his longevity.

My grandmother was born to poor farmers in Northern Mexico. Their knowledge of the land combined with thriftiness meant she never experienced hunger. She taught me how to cook and the only time she scolded me was when I wasted food. “You cook like you’ve never been hungry,” she would say if I cut too much off the end of a chili or tomato. One time I cleaned a knife that still had some chopped onion on it and she said, “Chefs waste so much food…better to be a cook.” Her inability to say anything directly has always frustrated and fascinated me, but the message was clear: Food is sacred and cooking is an act of love.

Eating Pizza in Brazil

My first Food Studies paper has been published in the 2010-2011 issue of Portal, the yearly academic publication from the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies. It is a simple account of my recent study abroad experience in Brazil. It is so interesting how eating pizza with my host family made me aware of so many social issues in their society and lives. This, is how I study food.

Eating Pizza in Brazil: poverty and other social issues

The entire world eats Pizza, or something that resembles it, such as seafood pizza in Japan or the pizza with fruit Brazilians eat here in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais. At LLI- LAS, my concentration is officially Portuguese, but my true focus lies in food studies. Normally, a student like myself, who is interested in learning about pizza, would probably focus on the food itself: the toppings, the sauces, or the crust. However, in my studies, I learn about larger social issues through my personal experiences and interest in food. I am currently studying abroad in Brazil and have had the honor of living with an amazing host family of four: father, mother, and two sons, ages 22 and 16. The other night on the way home from an event, we decided to get a pizza for dinner. I did not realize how different the whole process was going to be from the “American” way of getting a pizza. The experience revealed many social and economic issues related to poverty. The following story about eating pizza with my new Brazilian family reveals a deeper social context, beyond gastronomy, in the way pizza is obtained, received, and consumed. Enjoy.

La Mordida

“La Mordida” is a cultural reality that has existed in Mexico since at least the revolution of 1910. Literally, it means “the bite”, but in actuality it is just a euphemism for extortion. It is a payment to get someone to look the other way.

Growing up on the border of El Paso, Texas and Cuidad Juarez, Chihuahua with a foot in each culture, I took this sort of everyday corruption with a grain of salt. It was so common that it seemed no more immoral than jaywalking. It was looked at as a sort of tax to the official who everyone knew was not making a living wage.

It was not until I grew older that I realized that it was much more than paying off a cop to make your ticket go away, it permeates every aspect of society.

Since President Calderon declared a “War on Drugs” in 2006, Mexico and especially its border regions has seen an exorbitant increase in violence. The numbers are astonishing, and the official body count is around 40,000, but I would not be surprised if the number was substantially higher.  The stakes have been raised which means looking away has become much more lucrative, and not looking away carries higher consequences.

source: http://www.westernesa.com

Mexico, though still considered to be a developing country, is by all accounts wealthy so it is puzzling to me that they do not pay the people hired to look after the well-being of its citizens a living wage.

In Cuidad Juarez, which is now considered one of the most dangerous cities in the world, the impunity of the drug cartels and desperation of its people have reached levels unseen before. I have heard personal accounts of hungry police officers breaking into homes and stealing food from innocent families.

In some regions of Mexico la mordida has transformed from euphemism to reality.

Often the situation seems hopeless, but as neighbors to this troubled region we can not support the suffering of innocent men, women and children. There has to be a way to save Mexico. The drug business is too lucrative, and other jobs are scarce and poorly paid. I personally believe that some sort of agricultural reform has to be a part of the national rhetoric, and that through this people can reconnect to their roots, restore their health, and live with dignity. Obviously this is not a panacea, but it is a sprout.

Food and Life in Brazil

This year I had the pleasure to live in three different States in Brazil, starting in the lovely Northeastern State of Bahia, then working my way down to the traditional Minas Gerais, and finally finished my adventure abroad in the famous Rio de Janeiro. I lived with three different family with three very different financial situations and life styles. I enjoyed seeing their different foodways and there were a couple of important things that I would like to share about food and life that I learned with them. Language and Money.

Language and Food

Studying Portuguese, or what I like to call Brazilian, certain words caught my attention and made me think about my host families food situation. Especially with my family in Belo Horizonte when they would constantly talk about foods that would enche (fill yourself up). Like when our host father would always say, “Põe mais arroz meu filho.” (Put more rice on your plate my son). Then I got a lesson in Brazilian indirect communication when I once mentioned that I “like” vegetables… to him that meant I “would like” to eat more vegetables. Next thing you know my father brought home the harvest from the Sacolão (literally meaning “the big sack” it is a veg and fruit shop). It was good though since they start incorporating veg in their diet as well.

Then, there was my host mother who always warned her filhos (kids) about different food myths such as we couldn’t eat mamão (papaya) with milk, no hot cake since it would give us a stomach ache, and she did not like when we would take a bath after eating dinner. My host brother helped me understand the history of those common myths, explaining that most were invented during Portuguese colonization of Brazil. The slave owners used these myths to try to control and prevent slaves from enjoying or partaking of certain foods.

Without Money, No Food for You

From simple beans and rice to a full Churrasco buffet, I was fed a lot of food living with my different Brazilian families this year. I got a reality check about the costs of eating and feeding a family as well. Without money, you can not eat. Without enough money, you can’t eat well. Ex. my host father uses almost all of his money to feed his family since he is the only source of income. Watching him I learned many of his techniques to preserve and extend the life of foodstuffs. He didn’t let anything go to waste; he would beat air in eggs to use less, save and plant seeds, divide up all the food up equally, cut up single tomato and call it salad, and on and on. He would some how bring home food from work that he was able to get for free, including a Cesta Básica. But the best lesson that I learned was with luxury items such as small portions of chocolate, cheese, or meat. It doesn’t matter how much that he would bring home, an his economically poor family will eat it all mindlessly quick. So I bought a kilo of sliced ham and was surprising upset initially that it disappeared in the same rate as when my host father brings home 200 grams. Sometimes people forget to conserve and respect that things that are “free”. I wasn’t mad though because I remember what my host mother stated once, that people should be able to eat freely until they are satisfied because it is horrible to deny someone food. When your life consists of eating basic foods everyday, food different from the norm will always be desired and consumed.

As a university undergrad, I know that we have complex economical relationships with food during college but I challenge other students to think deeply about their relation with food. And how about your language about food and eating? Some times just changing words, can changes lives. What are couple important things that you learned about food this year?

A Mesa de Bom Comer

I am not a nutrition major, but I am a foodist. A student studying the importance of food beyond our physical dependancy. In the last few years in college, I learned that food is the quintessential example of achieving a happier, healthier life.

In my host family’s home in Belo Horizonte, I noticed several foodways that I wanted to change, but I had to stop and think why do I wanted change these foodways. Demanding change without reason will prevent you from being able to educate and kill the motivation of others. I wanted to leave a picture with my host family that summarized some of the food rules that we tried to implement over my four months time living with them. I wanted to make something similar to the new MyPlate icon, but something more personalized just for them. So I thought, heck with the plate! I want a MESA, a Mesa de Bom Comer (a Table of Good Eats).

Basic Food Rules anyone can apply without studying nutritional sciences:

My Garden, Our Garden

My Garden, Our Garden: my first vegetable garden with my host family in Brazil

I decided to try my hand at growing a vegetable garden. The project was initially for myself, to learn and connect more with my food studies. Yet, I quickly realized that there is a lot more to gardening than just biology and manual labor. Every time I stepped foot into my garden, tons of metaphors came to mind. The most important was learning that nature is life. We have to treat it like a relationship and not an obstacle. It needs to be loved, fed, and wanted or it will die. If it dies, we will die. Maybe not instantly but we will decay eventually from inside out.

In my food studies, I always hear this statistic that only 4% of the population of the United States grows all of the country’s food. I assume that there are not many Americans who want to do the physical labor or devote the time required to grow real food, nor understand the complexed science and biological relationships between nature and food. But, I feel that we have to challenge ourselves to learn about food. Just like any field of study that we might get into, we must learn the basics, the history, the traditional ways and thoughts to achieve something different, great, and truly innovative. I always remember the example that Rocket Scientist, Wernher von Braun; it is said that he didn’t like mathematics and physics but his fascinations with space travel inspired him to study the subjects he needed to achieve his dream. So I thought, if I want to bring food sovereignty to the world, then I need to understand what is food. Hence the garden.

My Food Pantry

In my last post, I wrote about the Cesta Básica (CB), a basic package of foods that my host family and I eat everyday. Another month has passed and we received our CB, this time there was no toothpaste but some coffee.  When opening up the CB and putting the items away, I thought about about my mom, my biological mother that is, coming home from the grocery store and together my family would “upload” the car full of plastic bags. Here in Belo Horizonte, they just passed a law banning plastic bags and my the way we store food is very different.

Basically, there are three places where we store food in my Brazilian home–well, three visible places that is, because my family is know for hiding food as well, comer na graveta (eating in the draw)–in Kitchen Jars, the Refrigerator, and my host Dad’s Closest.

Kitchen Jars 

Keeping basic ingredients in kitchen jars seems like something from my grandmother’s era. I grew up in the plastic world of pre-packaged processed foods, zip lock bags, and Tupperware (notice how the last two are brand names). Yet, here in Brazil it common to have a collection of 6 to 10 kitchen jars containing the basic foods they eat. My home has 5 Potes Mantimentos (Grocery Pots), listed from largest to smallest respectively:

1. Arroz (Rice)
2. Açúcar (Sugar)
3. Farinha (Cassava meal)
4. Fubá (Corn meal)
5. Café (Coffee)

   In the past, a lot of people used a 6th container for Feijão (beans) but now most people just cook batches from the 1kilo bags.

Looking at kichen jar’s size, number, material used in their construction, what ingredients stored inside can say a lot about Brazilian society.

What kitchen jars are common in the States? In your home? A cookie jar?

Refrigerator

The frige is the second most popular place to store food in my home. One day I opened up our Geladera and saw the following:

1. A pot with milk that was old and spoiled when my family bought it. They refused to throw it away, because it could be used for something. After about a month, I pitched it. For some reason I felt kinda bad not knowing how to utilize it.
2. Half a head of cabbage, one of the few vegetables that my family Mineira eat.
3. A leftover dinner plate that my mom didn’t finish eating (spaghetti and beans).
4. A plate of chicken bones (don’t know what we did with this).
5. A plate of frozen fat. I think that it was pork fat.
6. Bowl of Chuchu that I chopped up.
7. A pitcher of juice that I made from the orange tree in the front lawn.
8. Plastic container of Tempeiro (a mixture of salt, garlic, parsley, and green onion) that my family uses universally to season everything. My mom also makes Tempeiro to sell, but it rarely gets sold because she is not physically capable (obesity) to walk around and sell it. Even though she pays my brother to sell it for her, he doesn’t do it because there is little profit and with the few hours he gets away from college and work, he would rather do other things like sleep.

My refrigerator here is so different from my mother’s (full of condiments) or grandmother’s (full of food that goes bad) in the States. Even though this refrigerator looks poor and empty, I think there are many positive things that we can learn from it.

What is your refrigerator like? How do you use it to store food?

Papa’s Closet

The most socially complexed of all the areas that we store food in my home is my host father’s closet. In addition to the tons of random stuff that he saves in there, there is a metal self that acts as our food pantry. Unlike many pantries in the States, our pantry does not hold a variety of goods that we like to have on hand to eat, instead most of our food is surplus from the Cesta Básica. When something runs out in the kitchen jars, we are allowed to go in a take a replacement. At first, I did not understand why they didn’t keep the food pantry in the kitchen, but over time I learned their eating ways and realized the more food out, the more they will consume and are likely to waste.

Initially, I was surprised to see that my host father never locks his closet, considering that he tries to control food consumption and utilizes every little bit possible. There is a lot more to the social politics of his closet but that investigation will require much more timing living with my host family.

Some might read this blog post feeling sad for my family for lacking an American style pantry, yet I have come to learn what is more sad is our foodways in the States. With our abundance, we don’t respect food and spend most of our time complaining about it. I argue that really, we are the poor and dumb.

Cesta Básica

In Brazil, the government considers food a social right and requires as part of their minimum wage law. One attempt to combat hunger in the country is the Cesta Básica. It is a package of basic necessities, almost entirely food, to hopefully sustain a family of 4 for a month. This is just one of the country’s initiatives to feed the population.

What national food security programs are commonly known in the States: Food Stamps.. WIC?

My attraction to the Cesta Básica started while living the last few months with two Brazilian host families. One I will classify as poor and the other as rich. With my rich family, my 1st pai (father) would buy and give his house maid a Cesta Básica once a month to help support her. Now, living with my poor family, my 2nd pai receives a Cesta Básica monthly from his work to survive.

The other day my 2nd pai let me open up our Cestá to see what we got to eat this month.

The Other Little Things

As I mentioned in my last post, the little things were powerful enough to change my life. But of course, there are other little things that I have experienced abroad that I wouldn’t like to live with forever. Some are comical, but many are sad truths about the world and food. Experiencing these other little things motivated me to question and think how I can change the world.