School Lunch Nostalgia

Ann Cooper's Dream School Lunch: Grilled beef salad with tatsoi, brown rice and tofu salad, bok choy stir-fry, pear and 1 percent milk via TED blog.

Mmm, I miss those subsidized government lunches we ate in public school for $1. Things that I remember the most: cheeseburgers in those microwaveable foil pouches, beefaroni, overcooked green beans, French Bread pizza, chicken nuggets, tater tots, and the best part: chocolate milk!

School lunch in Korea:

Green Halloween

Every year, it kills me to see the amount of packaging wasted on single-serving bags of candy passed out on Halloween. Tiny bars of chocolate, each wrapped in their own plastic covering, sold in a huge bag of 50, are cute - and safe, for practical, hygienic reasons - although the amount of wrapping used seems wasteful. Several ideas for a more conscious breed of candy-giving:

Give out things that come packaged in recyclable cardboard or paper rather than plastic. Whoppers (in the cardboard box), raisins, paper-wrapped candies and gums are a great start.

Avoid high-fructose corn syrup and other artificial products. Organic lollipops, natural licorice, fruit leather and fruit snacks are an alternative to heavily sweetened pseudo-foods.

Go for foil-wrapped chocolates that are low on wrapping. Earth chocolates are pretty cool.

Non-food items I used to get when I was a kid included pennies/spare change, small toys such as whistles and puzzles, and stickers. If you own your own business, this is a great opportunity for free, wide-ranging advertising: print your own candy wrappers and distribute.

Don't forget, candy wrappers can be recycled as craft material. Save bright plastic wrappers for art projects, such as this woven bracelet.

Acai, "Purple Gold."

After much exhortation from my mother, I was finally convinced to take a trip to Costco to buy some cactus juice. (It's good for you!) I couldn't find what she was telling me about, so I bought Acai berry juice instead (~$9.50 for two one-liter bottles).

I drank a small glass of it with my dinner. It was bittersweet and had a thick, viscous consistency, almost like a syrup - not like any of that watered-down Apple Dandy stuff that kids drink today. I was pretty buzzed for awhile, and I'm wired on it now! I don't know how I'm going to fall asleep; it's almost 10pm and I feel pretty energetic. I should've had it early in the morning as recommended, as a replacement for coffee/tea.

This stuff is great and claims to have the equivalent of 110 servings of fruit in terms of antioxidant power in one serving. I don't know if it would be great for losing weight, though. In terms of taste, the bottle I got had blueberry juice mixed in, so I couldn't tell what the pure juice tasted like. It might be pretty bad....

It's pretty amazing that the acai berry has gone mainstream, a lowly, once-unknown fruit from the Amazon now blown to stardom by Oprah and spam generators. This once-humble fruit is now available to the general public, Walmart shoppers! According to this NYT article, 53 new acai-containing food products were introduced in the US in 2008, up from 4 in 2004, with over $106 million in sales in 2008.

Fried Eggplant Sandwich

Sorry for the lack of content. Eat this in the meantime.

EDIT: One of the neat features of Blogger is that it saves old drafts that you never published and allows you to retroactively publish them. I just went and published a few of those half-thoughts from earlier this year.

The Illusion of Food

This is the title of a painting that my mind has not yet created, born of a quote of my brother's. It might also be the title of a diet book that no one has written yet (so is Eat Neolithic).

The illusion:


The reality, which is lost behind smoke and mirrors and the flashing neon lights of consumerism:


Happy Thanksgiving, and I hope everyone eats Neolithic on our day of gratitude.

Cross-section of a hot dog

From the latest NYMagazine article on organic hot dogs.