Confessions of a Mildly Detached Mother - Diapers, Dinner and Disgust

In this blog series, I examine the conventions of "attachment" parenting (which I wholeheartedly embraced before my child's birth), and detail how I have fallen short of those ideals. I don't mind being imperfect. If child rearing is a competition, I forfeit.

Cloth Diapers

I use cloth diapers because disposables are an ecological hazard and I can't stand synthetic materials touching my wee one's precious bum. Ha ha, just kidding! We use cloth because it's cheaper. Dan and I recently figured that we've been saving at least fifty bucks a month, which means more money we can spend on designer pork products. Woohoo! As long as the current diaper size fits, our savings will increase over time.

We're thrifty about diapering, but not stringently. We frequently supplement with disposables when it's easier (overnight, on vacation, when someone else is watching the baby, etc.). For me, cloth's major drawback is that it's inconvenient. While I don't relish all this labor intensive poop disposal, I don't find the task revolting. I feel for parents who do. I keep thinking about this Disgust Scale test I took a couple years ago. It lists several hypothetical gross out scenarios that you rate from "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree", such as:

"Even if I was hungry, I would not drink a bowl of my favorite soup if it had been stirred by a used but thoroughly washed flyswatter."
(My answer - strongly disagree. Borscht rules!)

Then there are hypotheticals that you rate on a scale from "not disgusting at all" to "extremely disgusting", like:

"Your friend's pet cat dies, and you have to pick up the dead body with your bare hands."
(Sorry, friend. I find your dead cat extremely disgusting.)

In the end, I learned that I'm not bothered by germs and dirt as much as I'm sickened by dead things and vermin. But the larger lesson was that disgust is a very personal reaction. As a new parent, I feel very fortunate to be relatively unfazed by feces. If I found poop as upsetting as cockroaches, I would definitely skip cloth diapers. In fact, I'd probably skip the baby altogether.

Solid Food

Like many attached parents, I was totally geared up for cooking, processing and storing my own baby food. I get off on that sort of highly involved kitchen project. That would be the fun part of introducing solid foods to my baby's diet. But I dreaded spoon feeding. Then I learned about Baby Led Weaning and realized I needn't bother with the project or the spoon.

Here's how it worked - I breastfed my daughter until she was six months old. At six months and one day, I started giving her chunks of solid food at mealtime (soft fruits, veggies, bread, cheese - it just had to be "gummable"). By that point, she was physically capable of putting the food in her mouth on her own. Chewing was another story. Some babies take days or weeks to figure it out. They may gag and spit out their food. But at that age their gag reflex is near the front of the mouth so there's little risk of choking. My kid learned to chew pretty quickly, establishing herself as a very curious and eager eater.

I'm glad it's working for her because I'm a huge fan of BLW for many selfish reasons -

No spoon-feeding I have no patience for it, especially those "here comes the choo choo train!" shenanigans. Dining is a cherished pastime. I don't want to manipulate her into enjoying it with me.

She eats the things we eat This is convenient. Also, I don't want to be in the habit of making a separate meal for her.

She eats a wide variety of foods Perhaps because she isn't being force fed (which is pretty annoying to all people who aren't between the ages of four and six months old*), she has a good time at the table and enjoys exploring many kinds of food. She'll probably become more finicky about colors and textures as she gets older. I figure if her scope will inevitably narrow, it's wise to start off with a wide breadth of options.  

It provides endless entertainment for grandparents My BLW book warns against staring at babies when they're eating, because it may make them self-conscious. This has never been an issue for my little ham. She loves putting on a show. Her Skype production rivals anything on your Netflix streaming queue. Dinner's broadcast is the best. 6:00 nightly.

We got to put off solid food diapers for an extra two months That's when it starts getting more hands-on and stinky. I miss those carefree days of just breast milk poo.

When my pediatrician, Dr. C, talked about introducing cereals at four months, I told him about my BLW plan. I detected a barely suppressed eye roll in his expression. Oh geez, I thought. He probably thinks this is hippie garbage. So when we returned for her six month checkup, I arrived armed with a long long list of foods she'd already tried.

"She's had cucumber, sweet potatoes, avocado, bananas, even a little broccoli."

Dr. C's eyes widened with surprise. "That's great!"

I felt my shoulders relax, but the desire to prove myself remained. "She's had some bread and cheese, but only a little. I know she isn't supposed to have too much sodium."

"The important thing is that she brings the food to her mouth on her own. You'll want to avoid nuts, seeds and saltwater fish in the first year. Otherwise, just make sure the food is finger soft. Oh, and she'll like broccoli better if it's been cooking with meat all day."

"But is it okay to season it like that? What about the sodium?" In hindsight, it seems my voice was so shrill.

He bore a squinty expression, followed by another suppressed eye roll. "Just season it how you would season it for yourself. Her pulmonary system is brand new. She'll be fine."

Duh. Of course she'll be fine, because she eats what I eat and I eat really, really well. I make it a priority. I save money on cloth diapering so I can spend more on fresh, often organic, unprocessed foods. I work at a health food store so I can get a discount on these things. Baby Led Weaning makes sense for us because we already love cooking for ourselves. I can see that it wouldn't be such an enjoyable undertaking in a less food-centric household.

It also wouldn't be much fun if you're repulsed by the constant mess. Again, I must consider my position on the Disgust Scale. Post-meal debris doesn't bother me. I do thorough cleanings at restaurants and other people's houses, but I care less at home. I'm often discovering crusty bits of my daughter's last meal stuck in the corners of her high chair just as I'm getting her ready for the next meal. Between cleaning her hands, face, table top and bibs, I get distracted. Many of her clothes are forever stained with peach nectar and tomato juices. I figure it's okay because she's a baby and her natural good looks tend to draw more attention. Heaven help her if she's destined to be a glamour queen because I am clearly an obstacle in that path. Oh, well. If in twenty years she's still willing to dine with me in public, we'll be alright.



*This is the main reason pediatricians recommend starting a baby on cereal at four months. It isn't because the child requires solid food at that age. It's because a four month old will tolerate spoon feeding, and cereal is the easiest thing for them to digest. In other words, it's for training purposes, not nutrition.

"I'm just a soul whose intentions are good"

I've lately learned something about myself. My biggest hangup is being misunderstood. I want to get over this gripe. I can't always control how I'm perceived by others, especially in a world where face-to-face and even voice-to-voice interactions are being superseded by electronic communication; without facial expression or vocal inflection, dialog is potentially rife with misinterpretation. I'm learning to work around this obstacle, but I also just need to accept it.

Still, I'm stubborn and I like writing, so I've decided to address what I consider to be some common misconceptions about moi. It's a fun exercise, and I may as well put it on the blog as no other venue is better suited to this sort of self-indulgence. I turn 34 tomorrow, so this is my birthday gift to me - one last chance to explain myself before I surrender to the power of an occasional yet inevitable false impression.

Vegetarian? No, but I love vegetables and fruit. All told, I prefer these to meat. If, for some reason, I had to choose between a diet that included lots of avocados but no pork or lots of pork and no avocados, I would definitely go with my guac-making friend. I adore sausage, but I love avocados even more. Fortunately, I don't have to make these dumb decisions so I get to eat what I want. Also, I enjoy meat substitutes like tofu and black bean burgers, but I am apt to cook the former with lard and order the latter with bacon when I go out to eat. Speaking of which, I tend to order vegetarian menu items when I eat out, unless the restaurant makes a point of telling me how groovy/sustainable/safe their meat sources are (though I often make exceptions for bacon, because I am weak). I have been on an almost entirely vegetarian diet during my first trimester but now that I'm in the second, I find meat more appealing. I even enjoyed beef the other day... until I had to go to the bathroom. Yeah, I tend to avoid beef for that very reason.

Democrat? Nah. I sometimes vote for Democrats because Republicans do have a way of taking a terrible situation and making it way worse, but truly these two parties are not so different. So I often throw a bone to the Green Party or the Socialist candidate in my vain attempt to foster the emergence of a viable third party. I certainly don't see myself ever campaigning for a Democrat, or any political candidate for that matter. All who seek office are to be distrusted.

But as that great cynic H.L. Mencken noted in his essay, The Politician, "After damning politicians up hill and down dale for many years, as rogues and vagabonds, frauds and scoundrels, I sometimes suspect that, like everyone else, I often expect too much of them." I made this mistake with Obama. I was genuinely excited to vote for the first black president and I still recall that moment with my ballot quite fondly. I didn't expect much from him, but I took his promise to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility at face value. I now realize that was naive. In fact, he signed an executive order last month that reestablishes the indefinite detention of Gitmo prisoners, many of whom are being held without charges. This check against my unreasonable expectation is a valuable lesson. If I vote for him again, it will only be from fear of a worse Republican beating him. I no longer harbor any foolish "hope for change".

Certainly, I hold many values that are associated with Democrats. I think taxes are generally good and that rich people and corporations ought to pay more of them. I believe in government assisting poor people, kids and the elderly. I'm probably more disgusted by our foreign policy than your average Democrat but I don't worry so much about gun control. I think I should be allowed to get an abortion at any point during a pregnancy, for any reason. And if I ever find myself being forced to watch a sonogram when I want to terminate, I will bring popcorn and 3D glasses.

Mystic? I don't believe in god. If you know me even a little that should be no surprise. But theism isn't the only sort of mysticism out there. Though I've shed most of my Catholic inclinations, I find it's harder to rid myself of other superstitions. Mainly I'm talking about astrology. I learned a great deal about this when I was in my late teens. As far as western astrology goes*, I know the order of the signs, the start and end dates of each one, the associated element, and what each one signifies. I know a bit about eastern astrology, too. This belief in planetary alignment affecting personality doesn't jibe with my sense of reason, yet I fall back on it all the time. When I hear of a new couple getting together, one of my immediate thoughts is, "When are their birthdays?"

Honestly, astrology is a lot of fun, but it's also dangerous because it leads one to recognize patterns that aren't real, like "I always have problems with Pisces men." So when you find out that some dude you work with is a Pisces, that inevitably colors the way you see that person and how you interact with them, which is limiting. Any mystic belief system that cripples your sense of agency is worth questioning, and probably worth abandoning.

I'm facing a significant challenge to my latent astrological superstitions. My baby's due date is the same day as an ex-friend's birthday. This former friend had a toxic personality. I haven't seen her in fourteen years. I hope she's changed, though I doubt it. But that doesn't matter. The point is that I associate that date with her nutty behavior from a long time ago, and that just doesn't make any sense. So coincidence has provided me an excellent opportunity to get over this silly correlation once and for all, and I think that's good for me.

I admit, I still like tarot cards. I don't see it as a tool for prognostication. Rather, I think that symbols are a fun and useful way to tell stories about our lives, so we can make sense of ourselves; that's what dreams are, right? I don't do readings for other people (someone asked me to do one recently and it just felt useless), but I sometimes do readings for myself. It can be a good way to kickstart some healthy reflection.

Gleek? I admit that Glee is mostly a pretty bad show, though I still consider myself a fan. Salon's Matt Zoller Seitz wrote an interesting article that included this Yes!-worthy subheading - "The hit show's second season has been a chaotic, illogical, embarrassing mess. It's time for an intervention."

Yet while Zoller Seitz and I have a similar proportion of disdain and praise for Glee, our feelings about the specifics are quite different. Like many critics, he lauded the Grilled Cheesus episode ("an earnest, Afterschool Special-style contemplation of faith that improbably turned out to be one of the series' boldest, silliest, maybe finest hours"), which I absolutely hated - props for making Kurt an atheist, but it was downright infuriating that he had to learn a lesson about open-mindedness after being justifiably incensed at the sight of his pals holding a surprise prayer vigil beside his comatose father's bed. Needless to say, the story was emotionally overwrought. I don't mind Glee getting occasionally deep (Kurt coming out to his father was one of my favorite Season 1 moments), but I don't like when the drama is manufactured only for the sake of tackling a Serious Issue (unlike Kurt's outing, which was consistent with his character's development).

On the other hand, Zoller Seitz resents Season 2's removal of Kurt to the all-male Dalton Academy (a.k.a. Gay Hogwarts - I don't need to read Harry Potter to know that fan nickname is hilarious), saying that this "has been an unnecessary and mostly unenlightening detour." Wha-what? Gay Hogwarts' Warblers have provided some of this season's best performances, including "Silly Love Songs" and a version of "Teenage Dream" that is arguably the best of the series (not to mention that it got me to like Katy Perry).

My point isn't to nitpick a critic's appraisal of Glee. Rather, I think this disagreement highlights Glee's greatest flaw - its willful inconsistency. The show tries to be all things to all fans and in doing so, it succeeds about 10% of the time for everyone. But that 10% is golden! I simply can't resist a show about the redemptive power of performing arts. And truly, every episode has at least one joke that makes me laugh out loud. I wish that the musical numbers were as reliable as the humor, but when they score as they did with "Teenage Dream" I find myself immersed in repeat Youtube viewings. That's why I keep watching.


* I'm talking about the original twelve signs, not this facacta thirteen sign system that's got everyone freaking out

The "F" Word

I'm not sure exactly when the enjoyment of food became a competitive sport, but I'm way past wanting to be a contender. Working at Foodie Deluxe in Ann Arbor was oddly reminiscent of my 1998 trip to Ireland - just as that humbling experience taught me that I'm not really Irish (I'm American), this more recent experience taught me that I cannot call myself a "foodie" (I'm just a person who likes eating - there are literally billions of us). Of course, I also refrain from describing myself with the "f" word because it's terrible and I don't like the flavor of my own vomit. But even if I were to choose a slightly less obnoxious word like "connoisseur", I would still feel like a fraud because I know too many people who have far more sophisticated knowledge, taste and skill when it comes to making and eating food.

Nevertheless, I do love cooking and feasting. When I left my job in Ann Arbor and moved to Chattanooga, I was looking forward to embracing my new kitchen (with its restaurant-style stainless steel counters) in a more modest and less food-obsessed town. I've been having fun, especially now that I have some cool new toys, like my crock pot and immersion blender. But I didn't anticipate that my relationship with food would be so different from what it was when I lived and worked in Michigan.

The biggest food-related change came with my new fitness regimen. Now that I workout more than I ever have in my life (I actually run miles!.. without stopping!.. of my own volition!), I worry less about restricting this or that type of food. The only dietary advice that my trainer T gave me was this - get three servings of fruit and three servings of vegetables every day. This albeit simple rule is actually the goddamned revolution. For one thing, it's brilliant to give food advice in the form of a "do" instead of a "don't" - "don't" just isn't that motivating in the long term. I follow this "do" slavishly and I inevitably eat more healthfully. The only way I can make the 3/3 diet work is by snacking on bananas and raw carrots, which means I'm not often snacking on potato chips and cheesy things. I definitely have more energy, I'm less reliant on caffeine and I don't crave greasy food as much.

That being said, I have learned that my addiction to dairy fat cannot be denied. If I go a couple days without cheese or sour cream or half and half in my coffee, I get really crabby and start wondering why this miserable world has to be populated with so many IDIOTIC JERKS. I'm not my best self without lactose.

This new food routine is fine, but figuring out how to get three fruits, three vegetables and a little dairy fat in my body every day takes a lot of concentration. That means I have less energy for planning elaborate entrees or trying new recipes, which brings me to the second biggest change in my relationship with food. I'm no longer as interested in cooking. This is why I love my crock pot. With minimal prep, I make a big ass heap of food that I can turn into several meals. Overnight grits become breakfast, then grits casserole, then grits muffins, etc. It isn't a very sexy approach to culinary arts, but it is efficient.

I think the other major difference in the way I approach food concerns my favorite pastime, going out to eat. Chattanooga is not prime for this activity, though not for lack of fancy restaurants. This town has plenty of places where you can buy an expensive steak, but there isn't much variety when you examine the spectrum of choices. I couldn't have anticipated how much I would miss metro Detroit's sundry culinary options (a reflection of its mixed population), including Mexican, Middle Eastern, Greek, Indian, Polish, Chinese, Thai; I'm confident that you can find excellent versions of each one of these cuisines in the D. Chattanooga, unsurprisingly, is more culturally homogeneous. I thought this town would boast some great barbecue, but I've had trouble finding places that really smoke the hell out of some meat. I haven't yet found that "native" cuisine that's special to this place, and I'm beginning to wonder if it exists. I keep going to the same few dependable restaurants but longing for more adventure.

Yet, within footsteps of my home, I can purchase fresh-roasted coffee, handmade sausage and artisan bread. This winter, Dan and I purchased an 18-week lettuce CSA and now we get to eat fresh greens every day. These small local farms and businesses are where you find the best flavors in Chattanooga. I'm glad that so many of these vendors are represented in our city's restaurants, but for the sake of thrift and control, I prefer to eliminate the middle man and just deal with these businesses directly. Living here, I just don't have as much motivation to go out to eat.

Despite my waning interest in living a food-focused life, it turns out that I'm really good at selling the stuff. My only goal at work is to get people to put whatever item I'm pushing in their basket and I'm a little shocked at how often they do. We aim for a 400% increase in sales of that item. Two weeks ago, I was demoing an obscure salami that I was sure no one would buy; we saw a 1500% lift in its sales. I'd call it a fluke, but my coworkers are always shocked when I run out of whatever I'm sampling. I must admit that I find this success very satisfying. I'm excited about this new facet in my ever-changing relationship with food. Food and I may not be best friends anymore, but we make great business partners.

A Non-Prescriptive Kitchen Philosophy

I enjoy being thrifty almost as much as I love eating*, so I spend a great deal of time planning and cooking meals at home. I know my lifestyle wouldn't work for everyone - it's a big time investment - but it's how I like to roll. I figure most people are sick of hearing how they could eat better; I certainly don't wish to contribute to that noise. But in honor of Thanksgiving, I thought I would document a bit of my ongoing internal dialog regarding food, for whatever it's worth to you. It's a fun exercise, and I'm curious to hear some of your ideas, too.

The following are a list of rules to myself regarding kitchen and diet management ~

Don't throw away any edible food Plan to use all the food you buy. If something is about to expire, eat it. Freeze leftovers that you are sick of eating (especially soup). Freeze vegetable scraps and use for stock. Save bacon fat and use for fun.

Eating more is no cure for eating poorly Following half a pizza with a salad does not make you healthier.

Never buy prepackaged spices Go to the hippie grocery store and buy it bulk. You don't need to be spending four bucks on a glass jar.

Seek creative uses for canned tuna Two servings of lean meat for under $1.50 is an unbeatable deal. Take advantage of it.

Cook large quantities of stock and bean regularly Canned stock and beans are cheap, but home-cooked stock and beans are even cheaper and usually taste better. Make a bunch at once, portion into small containers and freeze. Do it on a day when you're sticking around the house anyway. The entire project may take several hours, but not that much attention.

Save all disposable plastic containers This includes baggies, old sour cream tubs, and any Ziploc containers that your friends happen to leave at your house. Horde that shit. You can never have enough and you shouldn't have to pay extra for it.

Don't assume that leafy vegetable greens are garbage This recipe for radish greens soup, for example, is fantastic.

Experiment with producing homemade versions of foods that you usually buy processed This includes items like crackers, refried beans, mayonnaise, vinaigrette and ginger ale. Making it yourself may not always be your first choice, but it's enormously satisfying (especially if you make it taste better than the processed version).

Find recipes that fit your pantry (not the other way around) If a recipe requires more than two ingredients that you rarely use, then simplify, substitute or move on. Don't make special trips to the grocery store. Good flavor needn't require obscure ingredients.

Eating out is the funnest use of disposable income, but you will be disappointed if you could have made a better tasting version of that dish at home And that's why you quit The Fleetwood Diner long before you quit Ann Arbor.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

* In fact, pretty much all of these ideas come from Mark Bittman's "How to Cook Everything" and Amy Dacyczyn's "Tightwad Gazette".

Cheese, a Good Pain, and the Horizon

Saturday was a dark day. After spending too many hours on Facebook, I saw that my friend M had linked to this New York Times article entitled "While Warning About Fat, U.S. Pushes Cheese Sales". I don't know why I clicked it, as I suspected it would say terrible things about my good friend cheese; maybe it was because I had already sucked that day's entertainment value out of Facebook (which, more and more, felt like a substitute for the friends I haven't made in Chattanooga).

Anyway, I found the first several paragraphs quite alarming ~

Domino’s Pizza was hurting early last year. Domestic sales had fallen, and a survey of big pizza chain customers left the company tied for the worst tasting pies.

Then help arrived from an organization called Dairy Management. It teamed up with Domino’s to develop a new line of pizzas with 40 percent more cheese, and proceeded to devise and pay for a $12 million marketing campaign.

Consumers devoured the cheesier pizza, and sales soared by double digits... But as healthy as this pizza has been for Domino’s, one slice contains as much as two-thirds of a day’s maximum recommended amount of saturated fat, which has been linked to heart disease and is high in calories.

And Dairy Management, which has made cheese its cause, is not a private business consultant. It is a marketing creation of the United States Department of Agriculture — the same agency at the center of a federal anti-obesity drive that discourages over-consumption of some of the very foods Dairy Management is vigorously promoting.

Urged on by government warnings about saturated fat, Americans have been moving toward low-fat milk for decades, leaving a surplus of whole milk and milk fat. Yet the government, through Dairy Management, is engaged in an effort to find ways to get dairy back into Americans’ diets, primarily through cheese.

Americans now eat an average of 33 pounds of cheese a year, nearly triple the 1970 rate.

No one likes to think that they're a dupe for "the man" but I clearly am. I considered the last four cheese-laden meals I'd consumed, and why ~

Cheese pizza with crumbled sausage - Duh, it's pizza. I'm not eating pizza without cheese

Bagel with cream cheese and lox - Okay, maybe I would eat a buttered bagel, but there was lox. I'm not eating a bagel and lox without cream cheese

Turkey meatloaf with cheddar cheese, with a cheddar corn muffin on the side - I guess corn muffins and meat loaf don't have to have cheese, but cheese makes it so much better!

Welsh rarebit - It's cold outside

It happens that lately I've been extra concerned about my gut, especially when I catch the least flattering view of it in the mirror. I don't feel unattractive but my current shape isn't my ideal. I could blame it on so many things - my love of nearly all food (excluding only hot dogs and sugary junk foods in the style of Hostess or Little Debbie), a general decrease in physical activity since moving to Chattanooga, beer. I certainly knew that cheese accounted for some of my girth, but might my favorite of all foods make up the bulk of it?

I sighed at the thought of a new food rule. I'm not opposed to lifestyle changes. In the spring and early summer I worked out four hours a week and ate way less fried food, red meat and pork. The frustrating thing is that it doesn't make much difference in terms of my weight. Sure, I felt better when I lived that way, but I wasn't any smaller. The rewards just didn't match the work and sacrifice that went into that lifestyle, which makes laziness and indulgence more attractive options. Would I really subject myself to new cheese parameters? Could I really make it last beyond Thanksgiving?

In considering ways to limit my cheese consumption, I became dejected. At least I could be grateful that last Friday, I accidentally answered my phone and spoke to a trainer from my gym. Her name was C and she was calling about my freebie training session that I had yet to redeem. We decided to meet on Tuesday morning. The anticipation of this workout made me feel a little better on Monday afternoon, when my friend S and I ordered a bowl of cheese dip at the pub down the road.

When I got to the gym on Tuesday, I found C to be a very serious and very fit young woman with smart eyes and a razor sharp glance. She had me complete a form that asked questions about my weight, my desired weight, the parts of my body I wanted to work on, etc. Then she handed me a small electronic device that looked like something a Star Trek doctor would use.

"This is to check your body fat percentage. Have you used one of these before?"

"Um, not since elementary school and it was one of those creepy scissor-like thingies."

"Oh, with the pinchers?" She smiled, which seemed out of the ordinary, which made me proud. "Yeah, those were weird." She demonstrated how to use the device and handed it to me. "The bottom number is your BMI, but I'm not paying attention to that. We're just going to look at the top number. That's your body fat percentage."

It wasn't pretty. Turns out, I am over 1/3 fat.

We sat down and she looked at my form. She wrote down the percentage next to the columns where I had listed my current and desired weights, which she covered with her hand. "We're not going to look at those numbers. We're only going to look at this percentage. You really need to be here," she said as she scrawled "21% - 23%". I appreciated her discretion, but not as much as her honesty.

We talked a bit about the kind of workout I've been doing, which is almost all cardio. "That's the problem," she said as she drew a triangle. "Building muscle tissue has to be the foundation." She wrote that at the bottom of the triangle. "On top of that you have cardio activity. At the top of the pyramid, you have food and diet. But I'm not going to tell you how to eat."

"Yeeeeeesssss!" I said with a gleeful arm pump. Hello, cheese!

She smiled as if she really wanted to roll her eyes. "You know how you should be eating." Then she launched into the most articulate, informative explanation about why it's important to build muscle tissue and approach weight training holistically (as opposed to focusing on one region of the body), and how this can be done effectively. I'm not going to repeat everything she said, because I would probably say it all wrong, but let's just say that for the first time I got it. Sure, I've heard that it's important to build muscle if you're trying to lose weight, but I always found the message vague, and it got lost in the midst of those thousand-and-one other vague messages we hear every day about fitness and health. Most importantly, C focused on the lifelong benefits of muscular fitness (so you don't wear out your joints, so you can lift things when you're old, so you can increase your metabolism), which really got to the heart of my belly fears. As she said herself, it isn't about getting skinny - after all, muscle weighs more than fat. It's about health.

Then she had me work out. I began with five minutes of cardio - easy enough. Then came the regimen that has left me sore in places I've never felt before. It hurts to sneeze, and I know that comes from all that core-building stuff she had me do with a strange object that looks like this



I was honestly stunned by my capabilities. I didn't know I could use my gut, forearms and tippy toes to support the length of my body. I pushed myself in a way that I never have before and I didn't even care if I looked weird while I was doing it (even when I rolled over on my side doing that forearm thing). The sometimes painful exertion felt good.

She had me work out for a half hour. Then came the hard sell. "Have you ever considered a personal training program?"

In my winded state, I couldn't help being honest. "No."

A bitter smile. "And why not?"

Because that's something movie stars do was what I was thinking, but I said, "I guess I just never thought I could afford it."

She offered the customary sales pitch, broken down into my various options - I spend a little less per session if I sign up for more sessions per month, and I'll get a great deal if I sign up immediately. If I could afford it, I would have signed up for weekly sessions right then, but I knew I needed to think about it and look at my budget.

Perhaps misinterpreting my hesitation for a lack of interest, C said something that I would have chalked up to a down and dirty sales tactic if it weren't so obviously true. "You can't do this alone."

Doing it alone is always my first inclination, but then I remembered those weak solo attempts to improve my mental health before I got into therapy. Just as deep breathing is no replacement for a shrink, I doubt that even the most extensive internet research is a replacement for an educated physical trainer.

So, I'm gonna do it. Two sessions a month. I'm geeked. This seems like the perfect next step after many years of therapy (from which I finally "graduated" in July - hooray!!). I'm ready to make some dietary changes too but this decision feels like the revolution. I also find it exciting, because even though it really sucked to learn that I'm over 1/3 fat, I finally feel thrust into this new life in Chatttanooga. Something about the fall weather and the mild loneliness has made me incredibly nostalgic and I find myself too often on Facebook, or daydreaming about my December trip to Michigan. Now, me and my belly have a new thing, and it's focused on progress.

Conscientious Consumption: Shifting the Focus

I'm over nine months into my new year's vow to not purchase sweatshop-made apparel and I guess I'm doing a pretty good job. Other than a couple of regrettable Target trips in the spring, I've stuck to my goal. I attribute my success to minimal consumption and maintaining an old and increasingly threadbare wardrobe. Honestly, this doesn't represent much of a change from last year, but it feels different because I'm being cheap and lazy for a cause.

However, a recent bump in our household income, coupled with Dan's bulky once-a-month paychecks, has led me to another solution - online shopping!! I used to think, "Oh, I don't want to buy clothes online. I would hate to have it sent here just to discover that it doesn't fit. I would much rather try on clothes at a store." But it turns out that's just nonsense. I was so poor until a couple months ago that I never seemed to have enough money at one time to make online shopping doable (American-made clothing is more expensive - that's part of the challenge). Now that I'm not poor and I have access to lots of cash at the beginning of the month, I find I'm an enormous fan of e-commerce . As for that "I must try it on" business, I actually hate the physical act of shopping. I would rather wait an extra two weeks for a pair of pants that actually fit than spend two hours trying on pants at the mall.

But my favorite thing about online shopping is that I can find sweatshop-free, even union-made apparel, which I can never find at the mall. Recent purchases include a sports bra, a regular bra, a tank top, a black dress and a pair of sweatpants. I haven't received the sweats yet, but I've found my other purchases to be sturdy and attractive (well, the sports bra is probably more functionally than aesthetically pleasing, but I like it). All of this cost me about $150. I don't know how that sounds to you, but that's an astronomical amount of money for me to spend on clothing.

But then I consider the amount of money I spend on food - not just my fancy, yuppie groceries but also going out to eat. Without getting into the nitty gritty of my personal finances, let's just say that I can blow through $150 worth of food-related purchases pretty swiftly, not even including Dan's half. And once I buy that food, I consume it much faster than I wear out my clothing. In light of that, $150 for items that will last me months if not years... it really isn't so extravagant. So why does that dollar amount seem like such a big deal?

This notion has been on my mind for months, but I've been thinking about it more since I read this excellent blog post by a University of Michigan graduate student. In it, she talks about the supposed "virtues" of foodie fetishism, the sense of moral superiority that comes from buying local, organic and natural foods. She suggests that

eating “better” isn’t driven by evidence-based beliefs about what’s really healthier, more sustainable, more humane, or even better-tasting—which are often conflicting ideals anyhow. The main appeal of natural, organic, local, yadda yadda food is a deep, often inchoate, feeling that it’s superior, which precedes and trumps reason or any objective weighing of the evidence. I think what reinforces that feeling of superiority most is the experience of sacrifice, which channels good old-fashioned Protestant Work Ethic values like the satisfactions of hard work and delaying immediate gratification.

I have to admit that this describes me pretty well. I take some pride in the sacrifices I've made to eat "better" (spending more on locally grown and organic foods, cooking for myself instead of using processed foods, practically eliminating high fructose corn syrup from my diet, etc.), yet I don't know enough about agriculture or industrial processes to say for certain that my food choices are actually more sustainable or healthful. I've taken for granted that my thoroughly considered and pricey purchases are not only "better" but also "important" for me, for my community, for the rest of the world. Given that, I found this part of her essay truly dispiriting -

I first started thinking about this at a roundtable on “Food Politics, Sustainability and Citizenship” at the 2008 Annual Meeting of the American Studies Association. The panelists acknowledged that local, organic, and/or “natural” foods were not always objectively superior in the ways people want to think they are—they often require more energy to produce and transport even if they have a much shorter distance to travel, there’s no consensus on whether or not they’re healthier than the conventional, processed alternatives, and they are often labor-intensive and rely on child labor, unpaid interns, and the willingness of farmers to self-exploit. In short, they admitted that “bad” industrial food is often more sustainable, just as healthy, and possibly sometimes more ethical. But they all insisted that regardless of its real impact, what was more important was that consumers of local and organic foods were “trying.”

I admit to being completely naive of such arguments, a testament to how well I've been brainwashed. Thinking about this in the context of my new year's resolution reminds me of my favorite Gloria Steinham quote - "The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off." The notion that I may have been wasting too much time making conscientious decisions about food consumption isn't what's pissing me off. What really pisses me off is that I've spent so much time making decisions about one form of conscientious consumption at the expense of other obvious concerns, which leads me to this question: how can so many of my acquaintance care so deeply about where and how their food is grown yet have little or no concern regarding where and how their clothes or their cell phones or their kids' toys were made?

I know countless individuals who wouldn't be caught dead with a can of Spaghetti-o's in their hand, yet who are totally happy to boil their organic, gluten-free pasta in a pot that says "Made in China" on the bottom. I know because I've been one of those people for years. What are we thinking? How can we be so preoccupied with our culinary carbon footprint without considering the fact that most of our non-edible material goods are being shipped from the other side of the world. Michael Pollan and his ilk say that the cost of food has cheapened with the quality, that we should pay more to eat better because, after all, we used to pay more when dear old grandma was cooking dinner. But isn't the same thing true of all stuff? Why should this only matter when it comes to food?

I have a theory. I think that part of the appeal of the Food Revolution is the lure of "returning" to an agricultural utopia. I guess the idea of verdant trees and bountiful crops is a lot sexier than factories and industrial labor. I get that. But factories are what built my hometown, and I don't think urban farming is going to bring that town back to what it used to be.

I'm not trying to pit one cause against another. Nor am I ready to abandon certain food snob standards, like avoiding processed foods and h.f. corn syrup. I just think that those of us who care about sustainability regarding the things we put inside our bodies should also consider the ethics related to what we drape upon our bodies. Really, this rule should apply to everything, from notebooks to dog toys to ice cube bins (this is not a completely random sample - I have found "Made in the USA" versions of all these items). I know it isn't reasonable to expect everyone to buy everything sweatshop-free, but I'm pretty sure that a widespread effort at "trying" could lead to some positive changes both here in the US and abroad.

No Justice, No Piece of Pie

On the last Saturday in July, Dan and I attended Pie Lovers Unite at the Ladies' Literary Club in Ypsilanti. It was an affair as awkward as it was tasty.

The entry fee for the event was either $5 a head or 1 pie per family. Of course, we had to bring one of Dan's fabulous pies, with his one-of-a kind crack crust. Before Dan started making crust, I always thought that pie was pretty lame. But that's only because most crusts are disgusting. The common myth is that you must use shortening (a.k.a. the world's least enjoyable fat). The key to Dan's pie crust is butter, just a little lard, and coarse sea salt. Yum! A good crust may not be the best tasting part of a great pie, but it is always the most valuable player.

Slow Food Huron Valley sponsors Pie Lovers Unite. In keeping with their mission, they encouraged entrants to use only local ingredients. Even though you can't grow a lemon in Michigan, we decided to bring a lemon meringue pie. Screw it. What's a pie contest without lemon meringue?

And so we set out for the Ladies' Literary Club, citrus pie in tow. The Club was packed by the time we got there. The atmosphere was sort of like a church hall gathering crossed with a Jane Austen drawing room scene - lots of little old ladies, attractive young people and questionable manners. The front parlor was crowded with self-proclaimed pie lovers seated around a dozen small card tables. We wound up in the back dining room, which was really the best place to be. The judges sat at one end of the room, sampling bits of every pie, all of which were stacked high on a massive table in the center of the room. I was perfectly content to stand there, ogling the pies and sipping a cup of coffee (from the aptly named Mighty Good coffee company) as the more formal ceremony took place in the adjacent parlor.

It was a pretty weird program. The emcee, though mild-mannered and pleasant, seemed to enjoy the microphone more than it flattered her. She spoke of pie passion in a humdrum monotone. She tried to rile up the crowd with a battle cry, raising her voice just a smidgen to say

"Pie lovers"

to which three people responded, "Unite"

"Pie lovers"

"unite"

And that was that.

The next order of business was the pie-ku reading (yep, haikus about pie), followed by the pie walk. I'd heard of a cake walk before, but never really knew what it was. For the pie walk, participants gathering in a circle around the pie table and marching clockwise to some polka music. There were paper signs taped to the floor, each with the name of a local farm on it. When the music stopped, so did the participants. Then the emcee called out the name of one of those farms, and whoever happened to be standing on that farm's sign won a prize. I could totally get down with that.

But since there wasn't enough space for everyone to compete in a single pie walk, there were several. And then, the emcee came up with random and bizarre qualifiers, like "If you're wearing sandals, you get to be in this pie walk!" The most annoying qualifier was, "If you keep chickens in your backyard, you get to be in this pie walk!" I hate the way the slow food movement alienates working class people - renters can't partake in that pie walk!

If I ever host a pie walk, I'm going to come up with qualifiers that get you excited about the not-so-great details of your life like, "If you've ever had an abortion, you get to be in this pie walk!" That way, everyone has a chance to feel good about themselves.

Perhaps it's jokes like that that make me a pariah. I must have had the word "avoid" tattooed on my head that day, because I saw several co-workers at Pie Lovers Unite and only two of them spoke to me willingly (I tip my hat to HM and LG for being so kind). One woman averted her glance when I smiled and waved and another bolted when I said "Hello". I really try to not take this stuff personally, but it's getting to be a little tough.

My favorite awkward moment of the night happened when LG (who was one of the judges) gave me some very thoughtful feedback on the only lemon meringue pie in the competition. She swore that the whole panel was impressed with the "jiggle" of the meringue, and that the filling was considered well set. I gushed, "LG, I feel like I'm on Iron Chef!" And just as I was starting to feel at home at PLU, a thoroughly obnoxious woman approached us. She knew LG, but I knew her, too. I'll call her Bertha. Bertha volunteers at the theater where I used to work. She's a nightmare, one of those townies that you can never get rid of. Terrible manners, loud, crass, dumb.

In spite of all that, I tried smiling and waving at her, too. We're all pie lovers, right? She ignored me, until she was just about to walk away. Then she turned to me, stared down her bulbous nose and said, "Hey, you look familiar. Where do I know you from?" I connected the dots to the theater, and she replied, "Oh, I haven't seen you there in a long time." Then she turned on her heel and wobbled away.

Alas, Dan's entry did not win a prize, but we did get to eat a lot of pies - savory, sweet, some well crusted (though many were not). I got a pretty wicked sugar rush that night, right before I headed down to the karaoke pub. All in all, it was a pretty fab Ypsi night, despite all the social awkwardness and unfair pie walks.