Da hell?

I missed this one a couple weeks ago: The U.S. House of Representatives voted to repeal the Country of Origin Labeling act, which mandates that meat is labeled with information on where the meat is sourced.

It appears the Senate has yet to consider the bill on its floor.

It also looks as though I need more education on this topic. But if our clothes and other food items are labeled, why can’t meat be?

See Bill Maher’s riff on the issue.

(You might never know it, but Bill Maher is a PETA supporter.)

Food and depression

Some people reach for food when they’re sad, stressed, grieving or depressed.

I starve.

I suffer from depression. It’s totally under control and has been for a couple years now. But once in a great while it can still come creeping back, with or without a trigger.

When I was in the depths a few years ago, I lost between 20 and 30 pounds. One of my great loves – good, wholesome food – was rarely interesting to me. I had no motivation to cook. I was also poor at the time. Dinner would be tortilla chips or graham crackers. Anxiety drove me to throw up what little I could choke down.

Reading I missed earlier this month

UGHHHHHH

COOOOOOOL

YAAAAYYYY

Knowledge = power

Today’s reading:

Milk: still bad for you – or at least not good

Healthy diet :: healthy environment

Healthy diet :: healthy environment :: healthy sex

What I’ve been reading for the past, oh, month

In case you need more reasons to stop eating meat

WTF why the Field Roast hate, Canada?

’10 things I wish all Americans knew about the meat and dairy industries’

Is Thug Kitchen cultural appropriation? This writer says, ‘yes’

Moby with some great talking points on meat for the next time someone debates you

NY Times: Enforcing the legal rights of animals

The world’s first vegetarian city – is this the right approach?

’10 things that would fix the food system faster than GMO labeling’

Do herbies have to be perfect? (I’m so big on Lindsay Nixon’s positivity – it has made my herbie transition possible)

Awkward moments every vegetarian understands

For the next time someone asks you, ‘But where do you get your protein?’

Mark Bittman: Two rules for a good diet

This is gonna be a thing!

Profile of plant-based badass T. Colin Campbell

SEATTLEITES, THIS EXISTS

Veggie news to use

Vegetarians live longer and have a much smaller carbon footprint than omnivores

Yep, they do

Toronto: home of the veggie butcher shop (everything looks delicious)

Another vegan food truck coming to Seattle!

Eating in the land of plenty

What if eating well was the easy thing — and all this grease and corn syrup and salt were difficult? What if we really took the founders at their word and worked to build a nation where life and liberty were free in the fullest sense of the word, where health and sustenance were not considered luxuries, but were so common as to be unworthy of note? … Where not just farmers, but the people who worked for them, and the produce managers who chaperoned their goods, got the kind of appreciation they deserved for tending to what Barbara Kingsolver calls “the original human vocation”: food. And where, once and for all, we could get past this childish notion that only rich snobs care about their meals, and everyone else is content with box meals. …

We have a long way to go before truly good food becomes the American way of eating, but I think we can get there. And there is frankly no more-fitting way for us to eat in the land of plenty than well.

–Tracie McMillan, The American Way of Eating: Undercover at Walmart, Applebee’s, Farm Fields and the Dinner Table

Good book. Not vegan-centric, but focused on food politics and economics.

Never again

My office went generally apecrap for the U.S.-Belgium World Cup game last week, complete with tacky decorations, pizza (my boss ordered me a cheese-free salad, lovely woman she is) and a slew of sugary, artificially-colored store-bought desserts.

I feel less bad about this photo being crappy.

These concoctions never really appealed to me. So much sugar, not very tasty and I typically felt like crap after eating them. But in these situations, though I was reasonably good at resisting such fare, I would often spring for a cookie or cupcake, just because they’re there. I’m a journalist – eating free food is a biological imperative. It might be all you eat that day.

But now I look at this stuff and it’s such an easy decision to lay off. It’s not like I’m dieting – I don’t tell myself “you can’t” or salivate while feeling deprived. Rather, it’s an automatic decision. Instead of thinking, “I can’t” eat that stuff, I just know that I don’t.

It’s a little empowering. A great excuse to eat better. There’s no wrestling with my nutritional conscience. Conventional baked confections? Not my style.

Previously in office food battles

I pretty much read food articles during my lunch break

Recently in pertinent food news:

26 films every food activist must watch

Talking cows take on factory farms “Matrix” style

Norway’s military does meatless Mondays for the climate

Fruit juice vs. soda: Both beverages pack in sugar and health risk

James Cameron-backed school to terminate meat and dairy

Not vegan but Maya Angelou is a goddess and my heroine: Recalling Maya Angelou’s love of cooking

Another plug for the Seattle Cookie Counter

Is this a health tax? What say you? Tax proposal draws protest from Capitol Hill gyms, yoga studios

A meat giant gobbles up another meat giant

I LOVE FOOD AND MAPS

Barf

This dispatch from the California Dietetic Association conference may boil your blood.

Also: Cutting meat and dairy consumption in half could slash agricultural greenhouse gas emissions anywhere from 25 to 40 percent in Europe, a report says.

Mark Bittman: The battle against GMOs and the pro-organic crusade overshadow our simple need to forsake fake food for real food.