A little frivolity

Last month I went to my doctor for a checkup. So, I was overweight. Actually I was overweight on my previous overweight. If the truth be known, I was heavier than I have ever been.
You know how it is…the food is good around here, I have almost no ability to pass up a test tasting of a new recipe or an experimental meal and each time I promise myself that it will be just a taste, just a small test taste, not a whole meal. Yet, it didn't seem to me that I was eating more than my usual overeating diet.
I still "ride" my stationary bike and lift some weights to keep my arms and shoulders in shape. I don't walk as much as I did, however. But, still, it seemed to me that the scale must be wrong, or my shoes have gotten very heavy or my clothes have gained weight. I voted for the clothes. However, I was unable to establish any of these changes as the cause of my weight increase. I suppose it could be the food intake.
The real problem was not so much the weight gain. The real problem was that I felt good. I wake up early and while I no longer "bound" out of bed, I do get up, mostly full of energy. I look forward to the start of the day–sometimes the day doesn't really develop the way I had planned, though. When one feels so good, why would he wish to change anything that might help him reduce his weight? If you feel good, don't try to fix it is the old rule slightly mutilated?
Then the bug attacked. I got the "flu" or a summer "cold" or a Romanian "virus." (Two of my staff members had been to Europe on vacation and, in addition to Spain and Italy, they visited someone in Romania. One came back mildly ill. I think I caught the Romanian bug from her and its virulence grew and grew.) For two weeks, in addition to not being able to work with food or people, I suffered from hacking, sore throat, headache, dizziness, etc.
It went on and on, and, only recently, after three weeks, did it let up. I always am amazed that big, robust healthy humans can be conquered by a little bitsy bug or an unseen and not seeable virus. What does this do to our heavenly instructions to dominate the earth and all things in it? I suspect that the domination stuff is vastly overrated anyway.
So, my wife took advantage of me in this weakened state. She said that it would be a good idea to get started on a "sensible diet" that would make me feel better and help me lose some of those unwanted pounds. I did not feel like bounding out of bed in the morning and I began to notice my added weight. It was time to pay attention.
As my resistance to pressures was low because of the virus/bug, I did something that seemed foolish. I promised to faithfully follow eating instructions for two weeks, every day without violating the diet. She promised that her "diet" instructions would not really be a diet, as we all know that diets do not work in the long run, but would be a sensible "food plan."
Now, on the face of it, this is a very foolish promise.
It was foolish for her to think that I could or would keep it, and equally foolish of me to pretend that I planned to keep it–I was sure that, as usual in matters of food, I could out maneuver her not too far into the food plan schedule and be back with my great food in hardly any time at all.
My wife is a social worker, and in order to stay in the business, I think that social workers need deep understanding of human failings and boundless belief that humans are worthwhile creatures, in the face of eons of considerable seemingly contrary evidence.
So here I am, with a food plan—a little of which I will reveal to you—and a wife who has temporarily, at least, full control. I am not paranoid usually, but at times I think she might be trying to do me in–you know, get rid of me, knock me off in the name of health. That's how it's done sometimes, in movies and in books. I approached my doctor on this subject and he said something that sounded very much like, "Get a life!"
It's the breakfast part that is so different. When I get up from the table I am full. I mean full. The breakfast consists of this crazy cereal, a sliced half banana or peach or some such good fruit, some lactose-free milk. That's it. But let me tell you about the "cereal." Well, it is not really cereal I suspect, but cardboard cut into the shape of little Os and small hearts!
I would not lie to you. Why these shapes? The side panel on the box says "Why the Os and hearts? Well, the Os are a familiar favorite and the hearts represent the heart of the matter." Wow! Does this "Dry Creek Nutrition Company" need a new copy writer.
The stuff is expensive, too. Converted to pounds, current cost in local supermarkets is over $5 per pound for a cereal which does not soften when immersed in milk!
You wonder who figured out what to put into the cereal and how it developed. Most foods are quite simple, but this one, Kashi Heart to Heart, is more complicated than most of the stuff I have seen. Getting a man to the moon was less complicated than devising the ingredient list shown here: Whole oat flour, oat bran, evaporated cane juice, yellow corn meal, corn flour, Kashi seven whole grains and sesame flour (whole: oats, long grain brown rice, rye, hard red winter wheat, triticale, buckwheat, barley, sesame seeds), oat fiber, wheat germ, honey, salt, sodium bicarbonate, natural honey flavor, decaffeinated green tea extract, alpha tocopherol (natural Vitamin E) ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) ActiVin* grape seed extract, tomato extract, Pyidoxine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B6) Ferris fumarate, zinc oxide, turmeric for color, beta carotene (a source of Vitamin A), folic acid and Vitamin B12.
And then there is the vitamin and mineral content: Vitamin A, 25 percent; Vitamin C, 50 percent; Iron, 10 percent; Vitamin B6, 100 percent; Vitamin B12, 100 percent; Magnesium, 25 percent; Calcium, 0 percent; Vitamin E, 100 percent; folic acid, 100 percent; phosphorous, 10 percent; zinc, 10 percent.
It doesn't take much of this concoction to fill those "recommended daily needs."
Who determines the daily need for grape seed extract, or for ferris fumarate or for folic acid (frolic with folic)? Is sodium bicarbonate in the formula to help one belch after a bowl of this?
But I made the promise and I plan to keep it as long as I can stand this kind of food. The "food plan" for lunch and for supper is much more normal and will be easier to follow than the breakfast appears at first reading.
There will be later reports on this whole project.

Some good food store news

There is some very good news on the store front. The Marquette Organic Food Co-op has moved. Yes, it has left the inadequate, dreary dungeon it occupied for so many years.
I never could understand why a store with so much potential remained in such poor quarters. It kept its offerings so limited that one often wondered if there was any kind of interest among the "owners" to serve the larger community beyond the organic cult, though that is a growing movement.
The new store is managed by Bill Brazier, a young man with energy and ideas who helped lead the way out of the wilderness. The new quarters are in an elegant old sandstone building at 109 W. Baraga Ave., adjacent to the famed U.P. Children's Museum.
The interior is modern, clean and almost spare with a Scandinavian look to it. Food and other merchandise presentations are artistic. The vegetable and fruit displays are near the entrance and their color leads one into the store.
They carry, Bill notes, a full line of natural, gourmet and organic groceries, organic and specialty produce as well an organic and natural dairy section.
Bill is expanding his gourmet and specialty cheeses inventory. They now carry Parmesan from Italy and a fine, salty Italian pecorino.
They continue to carry a full range of bulk grains, rice, flour and cereal.
This is a beautiful store and worth your time to visit. Business has been very brisk since the move. It will take time to see if this group can develop a store of the quality and variety of the Keweenaw Co-op in Hancock.
The Keweenaw Co-op has proved that a specialty store doesn't have to be all things to all people but that it can be many things to all people. It takes thinking out of the organic box.
—Don Curto

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