vb6, by mark bittman

The latest "alternative cookbook" that I have checked out recently is VB6: Eat Vegan Before 6:00 to Lose Weight and Restore Your Health . . . for Good by Marl Bittman. Bittman is the well-known New York Times food writer, and author of the very popular How to Cook Everything series. Bittman has spent his life loving and eating food, so it must have come as a blow to him when his doctor suggested that he change his diet to a vegan one, if he wanted to avoid developing diabetes and heart disease:

"He’d laid out the depressing facts for me: “Your blood numbers have always been fine but now they’re not. You weigh 40 pounds more than you should. You’re complaining of sleep apnea. You’re talking about knee surgery, which is a direct result of your being overweight. Your cholesterol, which has always been normal up until now, isn’t. Same with your blood sugar; it’s moved into the danger zone.” 

A more conventional doc would’ve simply put me on a drug like Lipitor, and maybe a low-fat diet. But Lipitor, one of the statin drugs that lowers cholesterol, is a permanent drug: Once you start taking it, you don’t stop. I didn’t like the idea of that. Furthermore, its effectiveness in healthy people has never been established, and it’s also been implicated in memory loss and other cognitive complications; I didn’t like the idea of any of that, either. And at this point, low-fat and low-carbohydrate diets have essentially been discredited: They might help you lose weight, but they’re not effective for maintaining that loss in the long term, and they may even wreak havoc on your system. 

But becoming a vegan? A person who eats no animal products at all? Calling that a radical change to my lifestyle was more than a bit of an understatement. Yet it was clear that something had to be done. I asked Sid, “Is a compromise possible? Any other ideas?” 

“You’re a smart guy,” he said. “Figure something out.”

Bittman did just that. He developed a diet, or more correctly, a way of eating, that would benefit his long-term health but also allow him to continue to enjoy the foods he craved and loved. The basic idea of VB^6, or Vegan Before 6pm, is pretty straightforward. Eat fruits and vegetables in abundance all day and after 6pm you can eat whatever you like. Of course he advises one to indulge sparingly. One should start thinking of meat as a condiment, not a centerpiece of a meal.

There is also a lot of information - about how foods are absorbed and processed in our bodies, if one is interested in the science of food, too. And Bittman is always an engaging and interesting writer. But I have to admit, I want dot just cut to the chase and get some meal ideas. And he did not disappoint. Bittman includes diet and menu plans for different eating styles - the restaurant regular, home cook, grazer, etc. He also includes pantry-stocking ideas and lays out a broad eating plan:

Before 6 p.m.
Eat as many of these foods as one wanted - vegetables, fruit, condiments (spices)
Eat sparingly - beans, whole grains, calorie dense fruits and vegetables (avocado and coconut), nuts and seeds, oils, sweet condiments, nut milks

After 6 p.m.
Eat these "treats" (sparingly) - meat, dairy, fish, seafood, processed grains, white flour, alcohol, dessert, junk food

VB6 also includes many recipes, all with  nutritional information. A few seems like ones I would like to try: easiest vegetable soup (p.160), falafel and tahini (p.180), vegan "creamsicles" (he substitutes yogurt for silken tofu). There was only one recipe, his homemade cereal, that I felt strong enough about to go pick up a few missing ingredients

Homemade Cold Cereal (p.138) 

3.5 cups rolled oats,
.5 cup mixed chopped nuts and seeds
.5 cup raisins or other chopped dried fruit
.25 cup unsweeteneded grated coconut
.5 tsp cinnamon or cardamom to taste
pinch salt
4 cups soy or other nondairy milk

Combine dry ingredients and store in airtight container in fridge for up to 2 months. To serve, put about 1 cup of cereal in bowl with .5 cup of milk. If you have time, let bowl sit for 5-10 minutes to let oats absorb milk and soften.

There was one recipe that completely put me off. I have to draw the line at his "Eggplant un-Parmesan." What is the point of making a Parmesan without cheese? Just wait until after 6 p.m. to have some mozzarella and parmesan.

For the most part I think VB6 is a good guideline for eating healthfully. You may just lose a little weight while you're at it, too.

brava angelina

Angelina Jolie recently announced her decision to undergo a double mastectomy earlier this year as an anti-breast cancer preventive measure. After having lost her mother, Marcheline Bertrande, at age 56, to ovarian cancer in 2007, Jolie discovered that she possessed a mutated gene, one of the early markers for breast and ovarian cancer, as she lays out in honest, engaging, and touching detail in her recent New York Times op ed piece, "My Medical Choice." Some may consider such a step radical, but Jolie is undeniably making a brave, and very personal choice about her health.

The initial screening for the mutated gene, depending on your insurance, can be costly, not to mention the subsequent, if opted for, surgeries. One of Jolie's intentions, besides living her life in a frank and open manner, is to try to advocate for making such tests more widely available and affordable. It makes dollars and sense. In the big picture such testing and even the surgeries would end up being cheaper than cancer treatment. Not to mention the easing of minds that could be achieved.

Angelina Jolie

Jolie with her mother, Marcheline Bertrand

Clan Jolie-Pitt

My own gynecologist, a breast cancer survivor, is a strong advocate for such measures. When a slight shadow on one of my routine mammograms profiled me for six-month instead of yearly mammos, she suggested a new test, for genetic markers, to see if she could lower my probability profile. It cost far less than the $3000 mentioned in Jolie's op ed, which may be the "price" of the test, pre adjustments and insurance, etc. My doc was able to order it in such a way that made it very low cost to me. It wasn't a blood test, but a saliva swab. The doc says this is the future of medicine, checking genetic predictors and creating custom treatments. Bottom line, I didn't have a high probability marker genetically (whew), so will be able to go back to yearly or, as the protocols change, maybe even bi-yearly mammos in future. Again — long-term less testing, less spending. And less worry.

What many are focusing on with Jolie's revelation is her status as an international beauty and what the surgeries might mean for her career. But Jolie has been far much more than a sex symbol for many years now, with her charity work (Special Envoy and former Goodwill Ambassador for the UNHCR - United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), Academy Award-winning actress (Girl, Interrupted), and director (In the Land of Blood and Honey). But what comes across most clearly to me most about Jolie, always, is her devotion to her family. She would risk anything to be with them, and to not put them through what she went through, losing her mother to cancer. Brava, Angelina, for what must have been a very difficult decision, but for you and your family was the right one. And courage for any future health-related decisions you might choose or need to make. Good health to you and your family.

forget you

Article first published as Forget You on Blogcritics.

A recent article by New York Times music critic Jon Pareles, "From Cee Lo Green to Pink, Speaking the Unspeakable", had me shocked at how out of touch he must be. It was all about the F word and his apparent dismay at how prevalent it is in recent music. I know the Times insists in staying firmly entrenched in its mid-19th century stylistic roots by calling people "Mr." And "Ms." in its articles — most of the time — Cee Lo was addressed as "Mr. Green" in the article, but Pink was just "Pink." Hmmm. Anyway, the fact that in 2011 a music critic is put off by a bunch of hit songs with "fuck" in the title just tells me he needs to get out of his office and take a walk around the block. Not a walk on the wild side, Mr. Pareles, but just a stroll through the world we live in. I guarantee he would hear quite a few "fucks", a couple of "shits" and a few other choice words from George Carlin's top seven just on the way to the local deli.

Folks may lament how our spoken language has declined. I have been known to do so myself at times. I wasn't thrilled the other day when a couple of young dudes were cursing loudly in the vicinity of my kid. But she's heard the words before, even from me. (I was driving, the jerk cut me off.) I could try and blame my occasionally colorful speech to my dad, who used to curse when he got angry, or an ex-boyfriend, who taught me some colorful phrases, or my years living in metropolitan areas, where spicing up the speech can help a girl cope with fear and danger in a tough town. Obscenity-peppered speech could be a result of all of those things. Or it could just be another evolution of the English language, which never stops growing and changing.

"Fuck" is no longer the ultimate curse word. It has become a versatile noun, verb, and adverb. "Fuck" is no longer the "f-bomb," as Pareles quaintly refers to it. It's just a word. Pareles suggests that rap music and The Sopranos may have contributed to this social decline. He holds pop music up as the last bastion of musical lyrical propriety. I'm not so sure about that, and he even admits that musicians have been sneaking in curse words forever (Prince, The Who).

Cee Lo is not using "fuck" in the lyrics as a gimmick. Has Pareles even seen the video for the song? Cee Lo has a wicked sense of humor. People aren't downloading his song or turning it up on the radio because of that word. Maybe in spite of it. It's hardly the first time Cee Lo has used the word in one of his songs and it's naive of Pareles to suggest so. Cee Lo's "Fuck You" is so good that it is just as enjoyable in its radio "Forget You" version. Yes, the savvy listener has probably downloaded the original and is singing along with those lyrics. But maybe not. It's a fucking good song, whatever version, one of the best out there. Cee Lo is just singing in the vernacular.

Related articles

• 'You see what you get' with Cee Lo (cnn.com)
• Cee Lo Green's neon video for "Bright Lights, Bigger City" (salon.com)

for women's history month ...

Article first published as Marking Women's History Month: We Still Need Strength on Blogcritics.

March is National Women's History Month, with the theme for 2011, "Our History is Our Strength."It is good to remind people of the strength and achievements of women in history, but two stories circulating on the internet lately that have become inextricably linked in my mind also point out that we may have come a long way, baby, but we still have so far to go in how women are perceived and treated. Loretta Lynn's lyrics in her album and song "We've Come a Long Way, Baby" from 1978 may state, "Up to now I've been an object made for pleasin' you — Times have changed and I'm demanding satisfaction too," but it's clear that message hasn't been heard by all.

A viral email, supposedly written by a member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity at USC expounds the notion that women are still viewed primarily as objects — maybe even less, as isolated body parts. It's a frat boy handbook, a guide for guys who want to score with chicks. The anonymous (for the moment) author constructs a detailed manifesto, designed to be distributed to his fraternity brothers, with instructions to have sex and report back to him for a "gullet report." Women are not individuals or even human beings in his view, "Note: I will refer to females as 'targets.' They aren't actual people like us men. Consequently, giving them a certain name or distinction is pointless," but solely referred to as an orifice — in his vernacular — gullets and pies. "I want raw data on who fucks and who doesn't. In conclusion the gullet report will strengthen brotherhood and help pin-point sorostitiutes more inclined to put-out."

College is still the bastion where sexual experimentation and personal growth go hand in hand with course learning. Classic frat films like Animal House and Revenge of the Nerds humorously depict the desire of frat boys to successfully hook up with chicks. But those movies aren't mean-spirited or belittling. This email, for all of its "no feeling on earth can compare to a warm piece of pie" bullshit, is an extremely calculated demeaning of women. It goes so far beyond the centerfold/porn mentality — an image of a woman as an object to get off on — that it's almost hard to believe it's real. Almost. But I think it is very real.

This email is not just a cultural blip, a trifle. As noted by commenter TeacherDee on Jezebel, " ... "Do you have any idea how many of these guys become managers, directors, politicians, CEOs and on and on and on? ... These guys do not wait till they're at a party or whatever to objectify women, they are doing it all the time. ... Men like this, in leadership positions that cause them to consider women (maternity leave, reproductive rights, domestic violence etc), do not see women as equal human beings and do not make decisions that are good for women."

Equals?

Considering the atrocious actions of another fraternity of sorts recently in Texas, it's abundantly clear that for many young men today, women aren't real people, but objects.  A young girl, aged 11, was brutally raped by at least 18 boys and men in Cleveland, Texas this past November. As if that story isn't horrific enough on its own, there are some disturbing issues raised by how the crime has been reported in the New York Times. 

At the moment the girl involved in the incident is in foster care in a different town in a different school, as both the authorities and her family fear retribution from the community and families of her attackers. Retribution for a child, a sixth grader, and her family after she had been raped, multiple times, by boys and men, schoolmates and local adults. An attack like this is a stain on any community, but is hardly new. Rape has been used throughout history, women's history, for both sexual and political humiliation. Communities, both real and virtual, need to not rally around the attackers and excuse their behavior as pack mentality by highlighting such quotes as the Times did, "How could their young men have been drawn into such an act?" Oh, the poor young men, duped and lured.

Poynter.org called out the Times for its shoddy reporting and implied viewpoint, and the Times has since issued a pale admission that maybe it didn't get the story completely right the first time. But maybe Times reporter James C. McKinley Jr.'s "angle" goes to a deeper truth that no one wants to acknowledge. As  commenter Amy suggested, if the 11-year old had been a boy, both the Times and the community would have reacted and framed this story much differently. The Times hardly mentioned the victim or her attackers. Although some of the men were definitely adults, none were identified in even the vaguest way. The Houston Chronicle wrote a much more balanced and descriptive account, "So far, 17 suspects have been charged, ranging in age from a middle-schooler to a 27-year-old. Seven are high school students, including two members of Cleveland's state-ranked basketball team. Another is the 21-year-old son of a school board member." Why so coy, New York Times?

Horrible also is that so many people, the in-denial neighbors, friends and relatives of the Texas gang-bangers, and the USC students who are sharing the "gullet report" email or dismissing it as merely a prank, are somehow promoting and abetting this treatment of women by refusing to call it out for what it is — unacceptable, shameful, horrifying. Are they that de-sensitized to this way of thinking of women? In regards to the USC email, have young women trained themselves to look the other way from an undercurrent of misogyny in order to get their rocks off? There is nothing in the USC email to indicate that the author even comprehends in the slightest way that a woman might be out cruising for sex and treating him as an object. He is either stupid or only interested in a scenario where he is the one putting a notch on his bedpost. But he isn't satisfied to be on a personal sexual journey. He has to drag all his fraternity brothers into his philosophy, to his level, "My hope is that ALL of our brothers will follow this creed with pride and distinction"

So similar in attitude to the creeps in Texas who weren't satisfied with their initial humiliation of the 11-year-old they were sexually abusing, but during an "intermission" started calling all of their friends to join in. According to the Houston Chronicle, "Not long afterward, the group fled through a back window when they heard a relative of one of the teens arriving at the blue house. The 11-year-old left behind her bra and panties as the group moved to the nearby abandoned trailer, where the assaults continued. As the men had sex with the girl, others used their cell phones to take photographs and video, police said." Not only was the young girl repeatedly physically assaulted, but the abuse continued as the event was shared and re-shared. That sort of rape is beyond misogynistic. It's strangely guy-centered sex. It's not heterosexual or even homosexual. It's just fucked up beyond belief.

Women's History Month is usually celebrated by remembering the achievements of women. But maybe we should be using Women's History Month as a signal to remember that as far as women's rights may have come, our society still has a long, long, way to go. Blaming the victim still seems to be par for the course, as the Times, a newspaper that is supposed to be held up as one of the best in the nation, had nary a description of the girl or her family or even much information about the attackers, but included observations and quotes from Cleveland, TX residents like, “Where was her mother? What was her mother thinking?” McKinley Jr. went so far as to report, "Residents in the neighborhood ... said she dressed older than her age, wearing makeup and fashions more appropriate to a woman in her 20s. She would hang out with teenage boys at a playground." Why was that the focus, the highlight?

scrapping over scrapple

My friend Mario shared this link on facebook a while ago (and was re-sharing, so undoubtedly it is making the rounds), but I have been thinking about commenting, and facebook, and the "death" of print recently and wanted to re-re share, with a twist.

The short article recounts how in 1872, a hot letters-to-the-editor debate broke out in the pages of the New York Times over the delights (or horrors, depending on your position) of Scrapple. If you sign up for a free subscription you can read the referenced Times articles, but I also include the original letter from "Epicure" here:

I'm from New Jersey, but I'm not sure I have ever eaten Scrapple, and have probably confused it with head cheese, which seems equally disgusting, but eminently practical and old-world, in its desire to use just about every part of the animal for food, wasting nothing. Epicure not only extolled the economical aspects of making Scrapple, but its delicious taste.

After Epicure wrote his article, the pseudonymous responses flooded in, from readers Porcupine, Physician, and A Good Liver, to name a few. How different is this from blogs or facebook, where folks share an article, an idea, a song, a video and then their friends or audience weighs in, re-shares, flames, or endorses the original digital missive? Humans like to engage in debate, and verbal debates can range from the sublimely witty to the crass and ridiculous. A trend being discussed in blogs lately is whether to ditch the comments option altogether, with the blogger including an email address if a reader has something to say. This idea seems to be promoted by folks who still don't understand what social media or human interaction is about. If you take away the possibility of conversation, why are you bothering to blog at all?

A few years ago you might have heard the lament that email was killing good old-fashioned letter writing. Maybe temporarily, email reigned supreme. But the past few years it has become clear that email is functional and necessary as a tool at work, but for social communication email is a dinosaur, much like the yearly "letter" that people send around the holidays, updating their friends and family on all their exciting accomplishments throughout the year. Who is going to bother to read that? If you really wanted your friends and family to know what your life is like, you'd friend them on facebook or follow them on twitter or update your blog.

But back to the great Scrapple debate of 1872. The letters were written at a time when letter-writing was the primary mode of communication for public debate, apart from the neighborhood soapbox. The world is changing and newsprint is becoming a less-viable medium. But the debate is still raging, and always will. On the internet, on talk shows, through company websites. Everyone has an opinion, and modern-day Porcupines, Physicians, and Epicures can share and open and re-open the debate. Dive in everyone. And to take a twist on McLuhan, it doesn't matter which medium you choose to use. It's the message you want to share. But I'll pass on the Scrapple. Thanks.