Adventures of a New Vegetarian, Episode 3: Crouching Veggies, Hidden Chicken

So, like I said in the last episode, I not only discovered that Stouffer's cheesy potatoes had bacon, but the only chunky potato soup I could find without bacon had chicken in it. As if this wasn't enough, I got excited when I found seasoned black beans in an easy cook pouch (by Old El Paso, I think). Then I read the ingredients, and guess what I found? Chicken. Seriously, people...why would you need to put chicken in everything? Aren't there enough spices in the world without using chicken?

Oh well, as soon as we have our own kitchen, I'm learning to cook, and then I can make vegetarian versions of whatever I want...

Mountaintop Apocalypse: Coal Mining and the Destruction of Rural America

I wrote this a while back, and it somehow got saved as a draft instead of posting. So here it is...

I finally got to watch the Focus Earth episode about mountaintop coal mining this morning. That was a quick way to run my blood pressure up. The West Viginia mountains are home to the richest vein of coal in the country, and coal companies are blasting the hell out of the area to get to it. The issue has recently come to the forefront because of famous activists such as Darryl Hannah, but people in the WV hills have been dealing with it for years.

According to the coal companies, they're doing the people of WV and the nation a favor by supplying the fossil fuel, and in some ways, they're almost right. Extremely rural areas of the South are notoriously underdeveloped, and coal mines do provide jobs for some. However, even if they are providing some form of employment, is it worth the consequences? Areas near the mines are covered in coal dust, which causes chronic health problems for the residents. Toxic sludge pollutes the water and land. Not to mention what it's doing to that stretch of the Appalachians. Then you have the problem of what the coal is being mined for...Coal-powered power plants spew tons of pollutants into our air everyday, but instead of weaning the industry from coal, more coal-powered plants are being built all the time. And it isn't just the immediate areas around the plants that are suffering. Polluted air travels well away from the area causing acid rain, which destroys forests, lakes, wildlife, you name it.

So what's the solution? Companies claim that if mining stopped tomorrow, the towns would lose half their population because people would leave for work. I can't argue with that; as I said, the rural South has little development to speak of. Build solar cell factories there, recycling plants, green businesses...you'd give the people sustainable green jobs and eliminate the problems of coal mining--health and otherwise.

Trust me on this: destroy the rural areas of this country, and the rest will follow.

Adventures of a New Vegetarian, Episode 2: I Can Has Chick'n Fingers?

I went to Publix this morning to pick up a few things and found a fabulous. First, Green Giant has these individual trays of broccoli and cheese, corn, and something else, which are perfect for us since we can't cook like we'd like to. I'd rather not use the plastic even though we recycle, but to have veggies when we want, I'll try to cut plastic somewhere else. Anyway, I decided to try Morningstar Farms vegetarian Chick'n Fingers. Pretty awesome! They actually tasted almost exactly like cheap frozen chicken fingers. Admittedly, given the choice, most people would choose organic chicken breast tenders over cheapo chicken fingers, but you eat whatcha got. If you are going to be vegetarian and like chicken, these are perfect. Sadly, I realized that Stouffer's cheddar potato bake, which I love, has bacon in it. It's weird. I've eaten it a hundred times and never paid any attention to the fact that there was bacon...

One last annoyance from our grocery adventures...everyone who knows me knows I love potatoes, and I seek out anything made with them. I especially love potato soup. Unfortunately, most canned potato soups tend to have bacon in them. (Apparently bacon is my new nemesis.). When I saw the Campbell's Select Harvest potato soup without bacon, I was happy...until I checked the ingredients. Chicken! Anna said it was probably chicken broth, but why in blue hell would you put chicken in potato soup? Seriously...

Stay tuned for more Adventures of a New Vegetarian...same veggie time, same veggie station...

Christian Psychotics, Episode 2: Extending Their Sentences

If you follow me at all, you know that I am studying Quiverfull and that general brand of nutcase. In the course of gathering resources, I got myself on the email list for Vision Forum, a group formed by one of the most-high weirdos himself, Doug Phillips. Today, I received an email promoting a new branch of their homeschool products: CollegePlus! (The exclamation point is theirs.) as a low-cost option for further education in the homeschool community. On the surface, this may be a good thing. One testimonial claimed to have received her bachelor's before the age of 18 and paid only a total of $6000 for it. I'm here to tell you that that is a STEAL! $6000 wouldn't pay for a semester for me here--no joke. Thank you Goddess for student loans! Anyway, as I manuevered around the information on the site, it dawned on me what the creeping discomfort I was feeling was coming from...

One of the major reasons that Quiverfull families homeschool is to remove secular influence from their kids' lives as much as possible and keep them in the home as long as possible (generally until they get married)--especially the girls. Very rarely do you see anything in Quiverfull literature promoting college education for their girls, or even their boys for that matter. The Duggars actually talked about this briefly on an episode. Jim Bob and the girls said that they wanted to be midwives (for which there is apparently a Christian school) or missionaries. Neither of which requires a secular college education. Even among the Duggar boys there wasn't really one who wanted to do anything involving college. Now, I'm not saying that every single person should go to college. There are a lot of people who don't want to and have perfectly wonderful jobs. That is not the issue.

Quiverfull girls are sheltered beyond anything I have ever seen. They are considered not just a daughter but their father's daughter until the day they get married and then they become not just a wife but their husband's wife. Then, usually as quickly as possible, they become not just a mother, but their children's mother. Homeschooling is the norm, and most don't appear to go to any university--religious or otherwise. By giving these parents a college homeschool option, they may be allowing the girls to have a further education, but what sort of education? Most of the homeschool curriculums are character-based, rather than actual subjects, though those do get taught incidentally. I haven't gotten all the info yet, but the college courses seem to be similar--an escape from the "secular immorality" of regular college. So, even though they appear to be getting the higher education many believe is necessary, I am not sure it is what one would call comprehensive. And what exactly are they going to do with it? Unless they break away from their family's beliefs, which many do not, they will have a BA from CollegePlus!, but it amounts to an "MRS degree".

More on this when I get the special info packet...

Making the Less-Convenient Choice

I just skimmed an article at the Huffington Post about the rising cost of obesity-related health care. The article itself, what I read of it, wasn't that bad, but I'm pissed. In all of these articles and news reports castigating overweight people, no one ever talks about two issues that are very much behind the problem: poverty and the culture of convenience we have here in the U.S. I've blogged a ton about poverty, but this whole convenience thing has been bothering me a lot lately.
Fast food and junk food are a huge part of people's diets here in the U.S. I should know; they've always been a part of mine. While much of the reason is it just tastes good, the bigger part is that it's easy. It's a hell of a lot easier to go through a drive-thru or pop a pizza in the microwave than to actually cook something healthy. Again, I should know. It actually takes thought to go to the store and choose organic, vegetarian, and otherwise healthy food. And most people here don't do that.

If it was made easier and more affordable to eat healthy, people would be healhier. Yes, exercise is important. Hell, we'd rather watch the biggest loser or dance your ass off than actually do the stuff they're doing on the shows. However, you can exercise all day, but if what you're eating is unhealthy, you're gonna be unhealthy.

(By the way, a fabulous side effect of eating organic and/or vegetarian and vegan is that you reduce your carbon footprint like crazy...)

What people need to start doing is making the harder choices. If you have the money, eat organic. Buy the organic free range chicken and cook your own chicken nuggets. Or even better, if you can, go vegetarian. The problem for the people who can afford it is learning to do what might be less convenient, but for a lot of people, it's making it affordable and available. I couldn't have gone organic in Thomasville, except for whatever veggies I got from my father-in-law, even if I'd had the money. Make vegetarian and organic as accessible as mcdonald's to the general population, you save health in the U.S. and the planet in the process...

A little scattered, but I'm just sayin...