Have you ever been to Kroger to get some fresh mint or some basil for a Caprese Salad, and spent the $4 to buy the big bunch of basil? Then, that basil lasts about a day in your fridge before it starts to wilt, and by the end of the second day you’ve thrown it out!
This has always been frustrating for me, because I love cooking with fresh herbs. Like many of you, though, I’ve never really had a place where I could grow them. Well, that’s finally changed! The other day I borrowed some pots from my mom, got some soil and seedlings at Home Depot, and planted a mini-garden.
Now I have mint, basil, and Swiss chard, mostly because that is all Home Depot had left this late in the season. My experience with actually growing plants is rather thin, but I figured, “Hey, how hard could it be to grow a few herbs?”
I read the packaging on each plant, which told me that they would like sun, water, and living in the ground. Nothing too complicated there. I put my plants in some soil, gave them a little water, and sat back to watch them grow. Thinking I would water my plants every other day to try and conserve some water, I arrived home the second day to find my Swiss Chard wilted. I had managed to kill a plant in near record time! Desperately, I poured a large bowl of water into the pot, hoping to save the mint and the basil from what I was now sure was certain doom. Much to my surprise, the next morning when I woke up the Swiss Chard had bounced back, and has now regained its old form. (I will be watering it every day now.)
Growing just a few things on your porch takes very little time, of which we, as med students, have very little to begin with. If it sounds intriguing, just buy a small pot, fill it with some dirt, and pop in a couple of seeds. You might be surprised what can happen when you just add a little water.
–Campbell Grant
People have all kinds of names for it, from “junk food” to “mystery meat,” each as unappetizing as the next. One of my favorite descriptions of such questionable digestibles is a term coined by the beloved Dr. Paul Farmer, whose tales of adventuresome eating are chronicled in his biography, Mountains Beyond Mountains. After hiking many miles through the Haitian wilderness to visit a sick patient, he was presented, as a token of appreciation (not just once but on many unfortunate occasions) with a lovingly prepared bowlful of completely unrecognizable slop, which would soon be known to readers as “the fifth food group.” However, as greasy and parasite-laden as those meals were, they had one redeeming quality: they were prepared by hand, as an expression of love and immense gratitude. Despite the high-def-worthy appearance of most of our modern foods, how many Hostess cupcakes can claim such honorable intentions?
This leads me to ask a question that, in generations past, would have been an obvious one…who makes my food, and what the heck do they make it from?! Of course, this line of questioning has recently become the spark for such movements as the locavores (only local foods, please!), the farmer’s market addicts and the raw food purists, among others. Don’t misunderstand me, these folks are wonderful. Enlightened. Even downright cultish in their dedication to responsible eating. My only beef with them, if you’ll pardon the bad food humor, is born out of pure distaste for rules. And these movements have them in spades…
“Only eat foods grown within one hundred miles of your house.”
“Don’t buy anything processed unless it has five ingredients or less.”
“You mustn’t cook anything over 140 degrees Fahrenheit, or you risk
breaking down the nutrients in your food.”
…but perhaps I like my nutrients a bit broken down from time to time, or maybe I really don’t prefer the bouquet of Kentucky wine, or even (gasp) I would like to purchase something with a dreaded sixth ingredient. It seems that all of these new-fangled rules have appeared to encourage a basic food sensibility that past generations had no need for, or perhaps with which they were innately equipped. So, I propose a new rule: eat food. That’s it! Now, there’s a caveat, and that caveat contains (if you will allow me) a definition. First, we must define “food,” which in the simplest terms is edible material that satisfies hunger and provides the body with nourishment. And thus, the caveat is: eat whatever you desire, so long as it fits the definition of food.
It seems too easy, right? But consider this. The biggest screw-ups in our diet-obsessed society have occurred when food scientists attempted to flout this law. Take trans fats, for instance. Some intrepid chemist declared, “Ah, let’s take the basic idea of fats, which is to be a good source of absorbable calories, and turn it on its head!” The result was a dangerous artificial compound that (shockingly) the body is not equipped to process and which may, ultimately, cause cancer. Yum. And yet again, in marches Splenda, the newest attempt to make food that really isn’t food. Have we learned nothing? When it comes to foods from the fifth food group, I’ll take slimy and homemade over “mechanically separated pork product” any day.
–SmilesinKY
Filed under: Thoughts
How did we get here? As a nation, we’re discovering the consequences of “convenience”. After decades of letting someone else craft our meals, obesity and related diseases are at all-time highs. What’s worse is that physicians aren’t necessarily role models for health behavior.
Medical students and residents tend to experience a decline in health (most notably including weight gain) as we move through programs that train us to take care of the human body. Unfortunately, knowledge doesn’t easily translate into a change of attitude and behavior.
The goal of chefMed is to bring home the principles of medical nutrition with an enjoyable curriculum of basic food preparation techniques, including shopping, gardening, food storage, and menu planning. In addition to this blog, we’ll have cooking classes, gardening workshops, a bi-monthly newsletter, recipe collection, and more! Let us know if you have an idea for this program or any other aspect of student wellness at the University of Kentucky.
It’s still summer, so cook yourself something nice tonight. Also, you might like to eat some fresh Kentucky fruit. I recommend the blackberries.
chefMed 