Dumb Stupid Stupid Dumb

Recently I made the understatement of the year, that On Guerrilla Gardening was "somewhat interesting."

Don't listen to me! I have no idea what I'm talking about! Who's that crazy lady? Why she saying stupid things like that! She doesn't even know her right from her left! Did you see how her one eye is kind of lazy? You can't trust a person with a lazy eye!

This book is awesome. I am inspired. And I have already made plans to attack some areas in my neighborhood, renegade-style.



So don't listen to the me from then, listen to the me from now. And GET YOUR HANDS ON THIS BOOK! It'll shake up your way of looking at things.

Urban Gardening--WHAT WHAT!

I'm getting all hunkered down for gardening again this year. I've got a bunch of basil-seeds planted and propped up in my sunny windows. I've got some sunflower seedlings prepped (I'm going to plant them on either side of my entryway this year). I've got all my seeds bought--wildflowers, creepers, herbs, and peppers. I have plans to pick up tomato plants next month. And I'm going to start working on MacGuyvering my papasan frame into an herb garden, hopefully this weekend.

I'm nerded the fuck up about gardening this year!! So stay tuned for pictures once things start a-brewing!

I've also been reading a bunch about urban gardening and guerrilla gardening as of late.

So have a seat (ok yes, you're probably already sitting), and let's chat a little.

What is guerrilla gardening?

"Guerrilla gardening is political gardening, a form of direct action, primarily practiced by environmentalists. It is related to land rights, land reform, and permaculture. Activists take over ("squat") an abandoned piece of land which they do not own to grow crops or plants. Guerrilla gardeners believe in re-considering land ownership in order to reclaim land from perceived neglect or misuse and assign a new purpose to it."

These are the books I've gotten out from the library thus far (with many more to come), and I figured I'd share.

This one is my favorite guerrilla gardening book so far:



And this one is somewhat interesting too (though not as much as the other--it seems to be more historical) This one fucking rocks as well (perhaps even more, I've realized upon further perusal). The pic on page 68 of a 15,000 sq ft guerrilla garden actually made me tear up a bit. Definitely an awesome book:



My favorite tidbit thus far has been the idea of seed-bombs:

CHECK IT OUT!!

Love love love the idea.

If guerrilla gardening intrigues you, my city dweller friends, you can get more information on guerrilla gardening at Guerrilla Gardening.org!

I also found this book really useful as well (it's about urban gardening, not guerrilla gardening):



If you're a city dweller who's gardening from a small plot or on rooftops/balconies/fire escapes, this is a great starter book. They list out the best plants to grow under these conditions, including various tips on how to grow them and the best containers and all that. And they have general tips as well on how to grow out of containers, best soils, utilizing space, etc.

Good stuff.

Now get thee to some urban gardening and seed-bombing, loves!

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

So I'm reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and I've gotta say: It's fascinating so far. (Though I DO realize that I'm only about 100 pages in, and seeing as my friend P texted me a menacing "I'm interested in seeing what you think of it once you're all DONE with it," I'm guessing some animal-killing's gonna go down at some point.)

But right now, I'm just a-gog (I likes that word) over vegetables. The book is essentially about our disconnect with food and plants and where they come from (which is a disconnect that fuels factory-farming as well, as all of you are MORE than aware), and it's made me realize how little I really DO know about what vegetables look like when they're growing, or where they come from, or ANY of that stuff.

For example, she discusses asparagus in length in the first few chapters of the book. And asparagus has always been one of my favorite veggies. But I'd never really given thought to what it looks like while it's growing. And after reading her description of it, I was dying to google some pics of it.

And check this out. I mean, maybe I'm the only one who's in la-la land on what it looks like growing, but then again, I'm guessing not. And I don't know what the HELL I thought it looked like, but not this.




(Crazy-ass asparagus!)

And even more amusing--white asparagus:



I mean, could it be any more "Penis meets Tremors."

I'll spare you the penis pic, but hee Tremors:



Anyways, I'm really glad I accidentally timed the reading of this book with the planting of my rooftop garden, as it's been bringing me a lot of joy actually watching my vegetables pushing forth from the earth while reading a ton of fantastic, loving details about them.

Needless to say, you can expect the occasional post and/or picture about various vegetables as I stumble across them in the book and realize how ridiculously little I know about them.

So: STAY TUNED!

(Animal, Vegetable, Miracle website)

So the Follow-Up

I finished up Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food yesterday, and I've gotta admit: I liked it.

(You can read my thoughts on the first half HERE if you haven't already.)

The second half consists of some general guidelines of "how to eat" in such a way as to not fall prey to the consumerism/nutritionism/unhealthiness of the west. And they're simple but good guidelines, one of the more interesting and thought-provoking ones being: Don't buy products with more than five ingredients in them.

And granted, Pollan allows a space for meat consumption amongst his "guidelines for eating." But, he DOES mention that our views on meat consumption are deserving of more thought because of other concerns (environmental, ethical, etc.)--albeit, he DOES only mention these things in a footnote.

And although I clearly don't agree with him on the idea of meat having a legitimate place in the western diet (my contention being a strictly ethical/moral one), I will say this: within the confines of his argument, the ethical impacts of meat consumption aren't really relevant. His argument focuses on health, and how we perceive food regarding health. And ethics really isn't a part of this focus.

Do I agree that meat has a place in the western diet? No.

But although I thought his views on meat consumption perhaps didn't reach their logical conclusion in Omnivore's Dilemma, I will say that, given his thesis in In Defense of Food, this time he's at least not being inconsistent with himself in arguing that it does.

So yeah: regardless of your stance on veg*nism/meat-consumption, I really do think this is a good book, one that will challenge the way you look at food and offer you some (booo hissss pun really not intended but I can't think of a better phrasing) food for thought, omnivores and veg*ns alike.

So grab it if you see it, and prepare to be a little bit horrified.

Michael Pollan, You're FREAKING ME OUT!

So I'm currently reading Michael Pollan's new book In Defense of Food.



I read his last book, Omnivore's Dilemma when it came out, and although it was extremely interesting (especially the part about mushroom hunting), I find certain aspects of his writing style extremely annoying and self-indulgent (namely the flippancy with which he writes about meat-eating). I also think the conclusions he drew from his experiences in writing the book were wobbly ones, and they don't logically extend from much of what he saw and wrote (namely his attitude on meat-eating—are you picking up on the pattern here?). And much the same criticisms have been lodged against his new book from vegetarians who've read it. So when I saw it in the "New Books" section at the library and grabbed it on a whim, I wasn't expecting much. I almost didn't read it. But then one afternoon I was bored out of my mind and had just finished the book I'd been working on, so I thought I'd give it a chance.

And I must admit: I'm really finding it fascinating.

Now granted, I'm only halfway through, so for all I know, the last 100 pages could be an argument for converting our diets over to a meat-only meal-plan. Or a step by step guide on how to eviscerate small animals. But damn if the first half didn't blow me out of the water.

What I dig so much about it (and what really compels me towards certain books—the same thing happened when I first became vegetarian) is when a book makes me look at a subject in an entirely new light. And not only that, but when a book makes me realize that a subject that I'd always thought of as being philosophically neutral, like hamsters or my toenails, is actually PREGNANT with a variety of possible philosophical interpretations.

And what is blowing my mind right now is essentially this:

1. The idea that food is worthy of philosophical consideration. And that our VIEW of food is worthy of philosophical consideration.
   
   I mean, yes: as a veg*n, I'm obviously aware of the moral/ethical impacts of our meat-consumption. And I've read enough to realize that a simple food, like, say, coffee, is more than it appears to be—that the cup of coffee I guzzle down has humane impacts, environmental impacts, etc. But I've never really thought about how we view food before. And by that, I mean, what we perceive its purpose to be.
   
   I feel like I'm not being clear.
   
   In the west, we talk about what we should be eating to keep in good health. We talk about too much fat, too much cholesterol. We talk about trans-fatty acids. We talk about Vitamin C, Vitamin D. When we look at an avocado, we talk about it in terms of good fats and bad fats. We talk about how eggs are now being infused with extra vitamins to make them healthier. We look at the PARTS of the food and not the food as a whole. And we look at how these parts affect our health.
   
   AND I'VE NEVER REALLY THOUGHT ABOUT THE FACT THAT PERHAPS THERE'S OTHER WAYS TO BE LOOKING AT FOOD.
   
   Essentially, part of Pollan's argument is that we've reduced foods down to being nothing more than sums of their parts. We don't look at the avocado as a whole when thinking about it in terms of our health. We look at it as a vehicle for monounsaturated fatty acids. We look at it as a vehicle for potassium. We look at it as a vehicle for various anti-oxidants. Essentially, when we think about it in terms of health, we're not so much thinking about the avocado itself as we are thinking about its parts: the monounsaturated fatty acids, the potassium, the anti-oxidants. We talk about how THESE things are good for us, and how the avocado is good for us BECAUSE of these things.
   
   We don't look to the food as a whole.
   
   When we get overly reductive like this, when we start to talk about how monounsaturated fatty acids are good for us instead of how an avocado is good for us, we start to look at these nutrients/vitamins/etc. out of context and begin to move away from the foods themselves. And when we start to move these things out of context, we fail to look at their bigger picture: the monounsaturated fatty acids of the avocado are not the same as the monounsaturated fatty acids in say, nuts. Contextualized, the OTHER nutrients in an avocado may cause our body to process these monounsaturated fats differently than those in a nut. So two foods that have the same amount of monounsaturated fatty acids may not affect our bodies in the exact same way BECAUSE THEY'RE NOT THE EXACT SAME FOOD.
   
   Not only that, but when we start reducing things down to overly simplified tenets such as "Cholesterol is bad" or "Monounsaturated fatty acids are good," we fail to realize that these the "badness" or "goodness" of these things may vary from person to person, depending on the state of their bodies. For example (and this is a true example), I have high cholesterol. This is ridiculous because, well, I'm vegan, and every time they tell me I have high cholesterol and hand me the little pamphlet of foods to steer clear of, I DON'T EAT ANY OF THE FOODS ON THE LIST. And yet, some other meat-eating, egg-consuming, cheese-whore of a patient may have extremely low cholesterol, despite the fact that they consume all of the items on the No-No list. Our bodies treat what we eat differently depending on our bodies.
   
   Instead of contextualizing things in this way, we reduce things down to the statement "Cholesterol is bad" and we think that will save us. If we eat less cholesterol, if we eat low-fat foods, if we consume more antioxidants, we'll be a healthier person. And we've begun to take these oversimplifications to a whole new level, creating Frankensteined foods that aren't ACTUALLY foods at all but just various "good" nutrients (or "bad" nutrients, for that matter) half-assedly sewn together to create, say, Nutra-grain bars. Or popsicles. Or orange juice. Or oatmeal. (And note that I'm picking out supposedly "healthier" food-products.)
   
   There aren't ingredients on an avocado, because an avocado is just that.
   
   But when you start to look at HOW many ingredients are in the things we eat, and how they are "factory" produced "nutrients," it really does start to get scary and make you realize that really, we're not so much eating food any more as we are eating the parts of food duct-taped together.
   
   And I've never really thought about that. I mean, I HAVE. In a loose, kind of cloudy kind of way. But I've never really THOUGHT about it.
   
   And I've never really thought that the way that we look at foods for health is REALLY FUCKED UP. That we are so overly-reductive that we've stopped contextualizing them. That we don't think to ourselves "Maybe a banana is good for us BECAUSE A BANANA IS GOOD FOR US" and not "A banana is good for us because it is high in potassium."
   
   Do monkeys look at food this way? No.
   
   How many overweight, diabetic monkeys riddled with heart problems do you see roaming around in the wild?
   
   I mean, maybe that sounds silly, but the point is: Maybe the way we're looking at food has gone horribly horribly awry. Maybe we're pawns to the food industry and don't even realize it. Maybe we've been brainwashed into considering specially engineered "products" to be "foods" when really they aren't. Maybe we've been deluded into thinking the way to deal with an "unhealthy" food is just to artificially infuse it with the nutrients it's lacking INSTEAD OF JUST AVOIDING IT. I MEAN, GOOD GOD, THERE'S SOMETHING TO BE SAID FOR THE FACT THAT THESE FOODS HAVE EXISTED FOR HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS OF YEARS IN THEIR CURRENT FORM WITHOUT, SAY, ACCRUING MORE VITAMIN C.
   
   I MEAN, GOOD GOD, PEOPLE! READING THIS BOOK IS MAKING ME GO DOWN A ROAD WHERE I ACTUALLY WANT TO SHOUT AT YOU: "YOU KNOW WHAT? MAYBE NATURE KNOWS WHAT IT'S FUCKING DOING, SO MAYBE WE SHOULD JUST LEAVE IT THE HELL ALONE."
   
   *panting excitedly and hiccupping a few choked sobs*


And you know what, that's not even the only thing that's got me excited about the book. But I seriously just got so worked up that I can't right at this minute even remember what the other thing was that I wanted to ramble about. *Pausing to think*


2. Oh yes. Duh. The other point he makes that I find kind of interesting is this:
   
   We've oversimplified our view of foods so much that we tend to think of them mainly in terms of the fuel/health they physically provide our bodies with. But, as he pointed out, foods have many other functions for us. And one of them is just enjoyment. There's nothing wrong with enjoying a food. There's nothing wrong with eating a HUGE fucking piece of cake without neuroticizing the amount of calories you just consumed or how much fat you ate. And as a food-nerd and food-blogger, this pleases me. Because, yes, we eat because food tastes good. And that's not a bad thing.
   
   I had a lot more I wanted to say about this last point, but right now, I'm all rambled out.

So the long and short is this: Although Pollan is not an endorser of the veg-lifestyle, and although he can be somewhat annoying in his writing, this book is worth checking out. It really WILL offer you an entirely new way of looking at how you eat. And how you look at food.

Skinny Bitch

Today, in lieu of recipes, we talk. About Skinny Bitch. Because if I don't ramble on about it for at least a LITTLE bit, I may very well implode.



I read this book (and its follow-up, Skinny Bitch in the Kitch) just the other week, after seeing it mentioned several times in veg-related contexts. And I am so a-flutter with mixed feelings about it that I've been desperately trying to find someone else to discuss it with. So please: If you've read it, I'd love to hear some other people's thoughts on it.

Essentially, my problem with the book is this: The book is essentially a book that promotes veganism (by promoting a healthy diet). But it does so by trying to hook in female readers (and buyers) by focusing on the goal of getting us skinny. Not "healthy," but "skinny." Now, I know those of you who've read this book are saying, "But, yes: healthy as well." And you're right. Once you sink your teeth into the book, you can see it's clearly promoting a healthy lifestyle. But from the cover? From the press? From the blurb on the back? From the very first lines of the book: "Are you sick and tired of being fat? Good. If you can't take one more day of self-loathing, you're ready to get skinny"? From comments such as ""Yes, it is challenging to avoid these foods, but you will reap the karmic rewards of being vegan (like being skinny)"?

The focus is skinny. Not healthy. And I don't think that's the best of focuses.

And what pains me about skinniness being the focal point of this book IS THAT THERE'S A LOT OF GOOD STUFF IN THERE. And it's been MADE ACCESSIBLE to the general public. But it's made accessible to the general public with the motive being to promote skinniness, and I have a difficult time endorsing books that are latching on to an unhealthy and overly-simplified (and media-distorted) view of what women should be striving towards.

And yet, the other part of me keeps shouting, "You go, girls!" Because I'm sure this book has succeeded in making quite a few women think twice about what they jam into their bodies. In fact, I actually recommended the book the other day to a woman in one of my classes who was asking me questions about eating vegan and how to eat healthier--and the reason I recommended it to her is because it IS ridiculously accessible, and because of the voice of the book.

I mean, Peter Singer's The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter or John Robbins' Diet for a New America are infinitely better, more thorough, and more well-constructed books about why people should go veg. *BUT* then again, they're not the type of books that most people (and by "most people" I mean mostly "the general, meat-eating public") wants to sink their teeth into over a cup of coffee and a bagel. Most People don't actively seek out books about how the food they're shoving into their bodies is a filthy stinking mess of chemicals, hormones, germs, and dead flesh. In fact, they generally wanna steer clear of that type of reading. They'd rather go on living with the illusion that their food comes from Ronald McDonald's peaceful, harmonious farm, where animals romp around freely, enjoying sun and fresh air.

And that's why I found myself recommending Skinny Bitch instead of either of these other books. Because although the authors are ALSO telling us a whole bunch about how the food we're shoving into our bodies is a filthy stinking mess of chemicals, hormones, germs, and dead flesh, they're doing so under the guise of promoting skinniness. And because the book doesn't outwardly APPEAR to be about about veg*nism and the evils of meat, they're actually able to GET readers to actively sit down and read about all these things over a cup of coffee and a bagel. And that's pretty damn sneaky and cool.

The authors are basically brilliant magicians: They're distracting us over there on the left by shouting about skinniness while on the right, they're secretly pumping us full of anti-meat information, and then TA-DA, they pull that rabbit out of the hat, and we're all like, OOOOOH, and we didn't even notice all that other information they just managed to jam subconsciously into our craniums.

And it's the way the book has been promoted, and the VOICE of the book, that makes them able to distract people from the fact that they're basically telling them "GO VEGAN!"

Anyways: the voice of the book. That's what I want to discuss next. Mother of god if I didn't immediately find myself going "I sure as shit hope I don't sound like that when I yammer and cuss on my blog all the time." Because the voice of the book (the writing-style, it's "in your face" way of talking) got on my nerves almost IMMEDIATELY.

I mean, I like to call people "my bitches" all the time. But that's because you ARE my bitches. But do I like to be reading something that's all "hip" and confrontational AND ACTUALLY REFERS TO ME AS A "LAZY SHIT" AT POINTS? I don't think so. Because you know what: the writers don't know me. And even if I *AM* a lazy shit, I sure as hell don't want someone getting all up in my face about it. Plus, how is that a POSITIVE way to approach things? I mean, please: degrade me and make me feel even shittier and fatter and lazier, because THAT will make me feel LOTS better about myself and motivate me to get skinny.

I mean, understand the Ra-ra cheerleading-thing they've got going on--"You *WILL* get skinnier! You *WILL* get healthier! Be aggressive! B-E aggressive! B-E A-G-G-R-E-S-S-I-V-E!" And I get that they're trying to rally up the forces by calling us lazy shits and whatnot. But unless you want me to pin you the hell down and kick the shit out of you, I do NOT want you calling me a lazy shit. Because that is just so fricking negative.

And yet: I am glad in a lot of ways that this book is written with the obnoxious "voice" it has. AND THAT INFURIATES ME!

Why are you glad, you ask? Well, because it DOES give the material a much more casual accessibility. It DOES cheerlead us into wanting to listen to them and get healthy and skinny. And it DOES all this while sneaking in lots of informative tidbits about why you should steer the hell clear of meat and eggs and milk. And that's cool and subversive in a lot of ways.

I mean, when I recommended the book to that woman in my class, it was because my thought process went something like this: "Oh my GOD if I have to hear her squeak and screech one more time about something girlie, I may have to stab myself in the head. But, Lindy Loo, she's asking you about something that you should be gung-ho excited to talk about, so handle it carefully. And hey, wait. Given her personality, I bet she'd TOTALLY dig Skinny Bitch, AND it'll sneakily insinuate some of that anti-meat-eating information into her reading as well. So I'm gonna recommend it!"

Because, you see, that's what's kind of sneakily brilliant about this book. There are a lot of women who will LOVE the voice, in all its obnoxious casualness. There are a lot of women who like to be ra-ra-ra-ed into eating healthier. And if they're encouraged to read this book, they're going to get lots of information drilled into their brains about why you should eat vegan. And I'm all about that.

And it's not done in any sort of Peter-Singer-esque-type way (as brilliant as the man is). It's ridiculously accessible. It's geared towards a certain type of woman (the type that goes out and reads books about getting skinny). And it's written about in such a way that a) it doesn't seem like it's trying to force a veggie diet down your throat, and b) it seems absolutely casual in informing you of all the horrific stuff that goes into your daily diet of meat, cheese, and eggs.

And it's that casualness which I think will convince a lot of women to try eating differently. Because the book's not all cold facts and statistics. And it's not video footage of cows being tortured. (Both of which, unfortunately, can have a tendency to alienate people.) It's the voice of your sister/best friend/mom casually chatting with you about the craziness of meat over a cup of tea. And THAT I think is kind of brilliant.

Not to mention the fact that it has lots of awesome meal-plan ideas. It offers a list of (non-vegan) ingredients to steer clear from. And it promotes lots of veg resources. All good good stuff.

And yet, I'm still hung up on the fact that it doesn't seem to make the connections between the objectification of animals and the objectification of women. That the reason people eat meat without a second thought is that they turn animals into objects in their brains, not making the connection between what's on their plate and where it came from, and when they DO make the connection, blowing it off by treating animals like objects "because they were put on the earth for us to eat." And the reason women have to deal with such bullshit all the time (from abuse to eating disorders to a whole LIST of other garbage) stems from us being viewed as objects as well.

We are the nameless, personality-less body upon which the latest fashions are displayed.

We are the Thing which cooks dinner and takes care of the kids.

We are the hole for men to jam their dicks into.

You get the point.

And latching on to the whole "skinniness" goal is, again, reducing women down to their bodies. Granted, after all the ra-ra-ing and slamming of fat women and calling us lazy shits, the authors DO try to tell us "we're more than just a body." That we're valuable on the insides and all that.

Then again, the way they TELL us this still insinuates that our goal should still be to focus on the state of our bodies, because it is through our bodies that we will attain all other happiness:

"Now that you're a Skinny Bitch, don't turn into a skinny bitch. We conceived of the title, Skinny Bitch, to get attention and sell books. We just wanted to spread our message far and wide and though Skinny Bitch was a good way to do it. But we are not bitches, and we have no desire to promote bitchiness. There is nothing uglier than a pretty woman who's nasty. If you look great, you should feel good about yourself and be happy. Instead of fixating on the last five pounds you want to lose, celebrate the five you already lost. Progress, not perfection. Don't be insecure or competetive or feel threatened by women who are thinner or prettier than you. Be happy for them; it will make you look better. Smile a lot, give compliments out whenever you can, and be nice to everyone. You'll just keep getting prettier and prettier and skinnier and skinnier." (186)

What should we want? To be skinny and pretty!

And that's just a bunch o' crap.

And not exactly healthy to promote in a culture that already spends WAY too much time shoving that shit down our throats:



I'm not saying that that isn't PART of what women want. Even capable, intelligent, independent, in-your-face type women such as many of you and me, my dear readers. It's unavoidable. We want to be liked. And a lot of how we are liked depends on how we are seen. (Both women AND men.) So of course we want to feel pretty.

But again: should we be getting guilt-tripped into some skewed media-whorey image of what our bodies should look like? And be guilt-tripped BY OTHER WOMEN of all things--apparently SMART women who can write books and know a little bit about their veg-shit? Do I want to endorse a book that doesn't REJOICE in the wonderful and beautiful variety of shapes and sizes of women out there? I mean, does this sound RIGHT to you??

So yeah: that's the long and short of it all. This book discusses veganism and all the horrors surrounding meat in an easily-accessible and unconfrontational way. It offers up a lot of good information about veganism, from meal plans, to bad ingredients, to resources. And it's a quick read. And I'm all about that.

And yet, I still find myself wondering: At what cost?